How did you pick your accountant

Carb

I thought I'd ask this question here as a lot of you seem to have you own business or started one recently. I'm currently giving some consideration to starting my own practice and I was wondering how you went about picking an accountant ie. was it from advertisements/recommendations/family connections. Any insight into this would be much appreciated. I guess recommendations are the most likely and therefore acquiring your first clients would be the most difficult.

On a slightly different issue, I seen a contributor here mention that their accountant is wishing to move towards retirement but is having difficulty doing so due to the commitments to his clients. Is this something anyone else has come across. I'd be very interested in opportunities like this if they exist especially if it give a chance to get to deal with a client base whilst working with the current accountant.

Locamon

Recommendation is key I feel and if you are not taking people with you -off the street business I imagine would be tough. When I was looking for an accountant I wanted someone who would work well with my kind of business as I talked to a couple of people and they, hard to believe, didn't have a clue about my areas of concern and gave me some very poor advice.

2qk4u

Mine was recommended to me and im still using him 10 years later.. Ask around before you choose.

Mr Clonfadda

Got a letter in with a follow up call. I had a terrible experience with my first accountant. Went for cup of coffee with him to have a chat and have been with him for nearly seven years. What sold him to me is he came out of industry to run the practice so had a lot of experience which was beneficial to me

Carb

Thanks for the replies folks. I'm not really surprised by the answers. I guess I'll start looking for a few nixers, and hopefully with time, recommendations will come. I worked for four years in practice, then in industry for three, followed by two in financial services, where I am at the moment. I've become disillusioned by the nine to five routine and the constant politics in pursuit of promotion and a better income. I'd like to get more control over my hours and income, and guess this really only comes by been self employed.

TheAppo

Can You give me any sources to some database of accountants for small companies? (Something with recommendation ) or You maybe have Your own recommendation

EKRIUQ

My bank manager recommended my accountant to me.

TheAppo

And how does this 'cooperation' is going? Are they helpful or it was 'pre-payed information'?

Sonnenblumen

Carb wrote: »

I thought I'd ask this question here as a lot of you seem to have you own business or started one recently. I'm currently giving some consideration to starting my own practice and I was wondering how you went about picking an accountant ie. was it from advertisements/recommendations/family connections. Any insight into this would be much appreciated. I guess recommendations are the most likely and therefore acquiring your first clients would be the most difficult.

On a slightly different issue, I seen a contributor here mention that their accountant is wishing to move towards retirement but is having difficulty doing so due to the commitments to his clients. Is this something anyone else has come across. I'd be very interested in opportunities like this if they exist especially if it give a chance to get to deal with a client base whilst working with the current accountant.

Main criteria:

Recommendation
Service Provision ie Bookeeping, Payroll and Audit.
Knowledge of Business Environment/Track Record with experience
Tech Savvy - good use of IT to get things done efficiently
Personality/Access
Good Broad experience of tax matters and investment opportunities

Good Karma

My first accountant was on recommendation by a friend who had a business. He was a disaster - oh everything was above board all right, but so much so i was writing cheques to revenue every other day. He went and found every bit of legislaton he could to make me pay more!

I think he use to make it his mission in life to try and find new and exciting ways in which to pay revenue.

I got another recommendation from a different friend, moved and couldn't be happier, I actually look forward to seeing him, infact I always clear my schedule when i'm going to see him. I don't write half as many cheques but i'm still all legal!

byrne0f56789

Find out if the accountant has similar companies as clients. This is important. If they have a number of software companies as clients and you are a software company they will probably be a good match.