Changing Accountants or Bookkeepers...
It’s boring, right? Why bother?
It’s only numbers.
As with anything these days, there are hoops that need to be jumped through before we even get to the “only numbers” bit!
Let’s deal with those bits first… What should you expect after we agree to work together?
- Of course, you need to know what you are buying and how much it costs.
- We call this the letter of engagement. It will detail things like what services you should expect from us and how much it will cost. As with anything else, this may not be exhaustive because you may want additional services along the way, but it will detail the terms and conditions and crucially our Service Level Agreement.
- Legislation insists that we do the Anti Money Laundering and Identification Process.
- I know this can be frustrating, particularly because we are obliged to repeat the process every couple of years, even with clients we have known for 10 years! In fairness, the process is designed to protect everyone in the financial system.
- You’re now well into the onboarding process, and a fully-fledged client!
- We set up your accounting package. We favour Xero, but happily work with many others such as Sage, QuickBooks, etc.
- At the same time, we will write to your previous Accountant/Bookkeeper with what is called a Professional Courtesy/Clearance Letter. This letter is to advise your previous advisor that you have moved that service to us and allows them to pass over all the previous and required information and passwords.
- We will then be able to deal with all the various registrations, be that HMRC, PAYE, VAT, Companies House etc.. (Depending on the service, not all will apply).
So now we are set up and ready to go to work!
Hopefully we are all clear on what you expect from us and in turn what we expect from you, so now it’s a matter of working together to help deliver success for you and your business…
But is it just numbers? Simply put, no, it’s not!
The difference is that we can look at those numbers and interpret them with you, so that they mean something, tell you a story of where you have been, where you have got to, and where it is likely you can go. All you have to do, is want us to help.
The other advantage is that unlike many of our contemporaries, we offer a number of complimentary services such as commercial business advice, restructuring, insurance, employee benefits, and social media marketing, to name a few!
So yes it’s numbers, but only numbers? No – here, it’s much more.