A couple of my Mastermind members have had a torrid couple of months due entirely to their accountant. They missed filing dates, have incurred fines from HMRC and had their cash flow disrupted all because their VAT Returns had been incorrectly completed (by the accountant!) for the last eighteen months.
Their tales of woe triggered a broad conversation of similar misfortunes from business owners and it brought home the very clear message that:
- Not all accountants are created equal
…and…
- The expectations that the majority of entrepreneurs seem to have from their accountants are, frankly, way, way too low.
It reminds me of a trip I took to India fifteen years ago. As you know, I like my old cars and, it was absolutely, fascinating driving into the centre of Delhi and seeing all of the old Morris Minors on the road. They were the most popular and frequently seen car by miles.
I got into conversation with some of the locals and they were all raving fans of the Morris Minor. They thought it was the best car in the world. And once upon a time, they were right. When it was launched at the 1948 Motor Show it was a car that took the world by storm and, to this day, it remains one of the biggest selling British cars of all time. But even back in 1995, that was all a long time ago.
The only reason that my Indian friends had such a high regard for this classic car was because there were no modern motorcars in Delhi at that time. They had nothing else to compare it with – and that’s the most fitting analogy when it comes to accountants for so many business owners.
We’re so used to such poor, out of date, pedestrian service that we just don’t realise what else is available.
Well, my job this month is to alert you to the fact that many members of the Entrepreneurs Circle do indeed have a rubbish accountant – and you might well be one of them. So what should you/could you expect from a good, modern day accountant?
It turns out my Mastermind Group had the answer to this as well – two or three of the guys around the table were appalled that the only services their colleagues were expecting from their accountant were the basics of keeping them legal, filing things on time and telling them what had happened in their business, six or twelve months ago.
The good accountants, the ones who add real value to your business will be much more helpful to you than that – no matter how big or small your enterprise is right now.
There are only two accountants that I know well enough and trust to be able to unequivocally recommend them to our members. They are Tayabali Tomlin, led by Mastermind member Aynsley Damery, based in Cheltenham and, Rickaby & Co, led by Liz and Chris Baranov and Shaun Brownsmith, who are based in Berkhamsted.
Both of these accountants not only say that they are all about business growth but they deliver on it too. Both provide a kind of pseudo FD service, designed to help business owners gain access to the types of expertise and knowledge that a Finance Director would bring. This can be invaluable, especially when you’re growing quickly.
As many of you will know, my own Finance Director, Helen Sharkey is herself a qualified accountant and I promise you, once you get on a high growth track, you absolutely do need someone with the right knowledge and experience – someone who will proactively help you to steer the business forward.
It’s what Helen does for me and it’s what Tayabali Tomlin and Rickaby & Co do for so many of their clients.
These guys will run proper planning sessions with you and help you to carry out a thorough analysis of where you are now, where the opportunities are for growth and, what needs to happen in your business to get there.
They are real experts at helping you understand what your business is capable of and what it will take to get there. It’s way beyond getting the year end Returns in on time and it’s such a shame that so many businesses are missing out.
A good accountant has access to both finance and capital investment and that they can help their clients access this, whether it’s debts, equity or whatever else is most appropriate to your needs.
Whatever the situation is in your business, they will have encountered it before and, in that regard, your accountant ought to be a sounding board for any major business decision that you make – before you make it.
If you won’t or can’t pick up the phone and talk with your accountant about a big thing that you’re thinking of doing, then what that tells you is you need to get a new accountant.
I promise you, a common characteristic of all super-successful entrepreneurs and business owners is that they’ve got the right accountancy support behind them and, there’s absolutely no reason why you and your business should suffer with mediocre support.
As Aynsley Damery put it when I asked him, “We see ourselves as a profit centre for our clients – not a cost.
Our fees should effectively be free to the business owner because they’re either paid for from sales growth or profit improvement that wouldn’t have happened if we weren’t involved or from proactive tax savings that he/she would have missed out on”.
One final indicator as to whether you’ve got a good accountant or not is whether they accept “just anybody”: Really good accountants only work with clients for whom they can add significant value and, if your accountant takes just anybody off the street, that may be an indicator that their service isn’t as discerning as you deserve.
At the end of the day, this article is about you and the support you’re accessing for your business. It doesn’t matter to me who your accountant is or what they do for you, but it will impact your wealth (and quality of sleep!)
In that regard, I’m not saying that everyone should go and talk to Tayabali Tomlin or Rickaby & Co (although that will undoubtedly be the right course of action for many), but you should question the support you’re getting and, if you find it wanting, fix it.
