I am an accountant/tax agent having worked in public practice for a few years and wanting to go out on my own for various reasons, least of all to be able to service smaller clients better than most firms seem to be doing. One area that I would like to target is investors, especially property investors as there are many more opportunities for property investors to influence their investment and the tax impacts on their investment. What I am asking is;
What do you want from your accountant? What do you expect?
any contributions are appreciated.
Hi Trajik,
A great question – for me the following (in no particular order)
1. My aco<edited>ant is a property investor too. If he/she looks after his/her interests it means I’ll get some of that too.
2. An accountant who has an intimate knowledge of tax as it applies to me – in this case as an investor.
3. Someone who will coontinue to serve me and not ‘flick’ me onto one of the office ‘lackies’
4. Someone who is proactive and will say you cannot claim this now or here or……..but if you were to do this, this and this then the item becomes claimable.
5. Someone who has a good knowledge of trust and company issues as they apply to investors.
6. Someone who responds to simple enquiries without the need to bill for every minute taken – service first. Obviously if the matter is more complex it is reasonable to expect an invoice of some description.
7. At the end of the day I want to know that my accountant knows – and I am prepared to pay for good service.Cheers
Derek
[email protected]
http://www.mononpoly.tic.com.au
0409 882 958
Skype – derekjones2113Ooops – it looks like I had a typo in the first line and the auto editor kicked in.[bigeyes]
Derek
[email protected]
http://www.mononpoly.tic.com.au
0409 882 958
Skype – derekjones2113I’m an ex number cruncher myself and note that the industry has changed a lot since GST was brought in.
Business is that good that Accountants now ask the “bad” clients to leave preferring to concentrate on the one’s that pay bills and never phone to complain.
I worked for 15 years mainly with small business people and always took the time to to pay an annual visit, phone on a regular basis, and knew the names of all their children, even down to the family dog. People like to feel that your care, but as Derek says that can also offer proactive advice to clients. A lot of Accountants look at “you can’t do that” without offering sound alternatives. I would agree that if you are looking at offering your services to investors that you also need to “walk the talk” and be a property investor yourself with a good sound knowledge of tax structuring.
If this is you then please drop me a “PM”Amanda
“It is better to be inconspicuously wealthy, than to be ostentatiously poor…”Finally someone asked this question!!! Good on you – a good sign your business will grow.
With my last account choise I was looking for someone :
1. who’s possible to contact (I know it’s a busy business, but I wasn’t to see a real person)
2. who is succesfully done and doing the same type of investment and income as me
(eg. when I was an employee I had an accountet that was an employee. As I’m running a business I’m only looking for a business owner. After all in the she’s such a good accountant and she understands how to make a money in the business – why is she still on empoyment??? And if she has no idea about a business – how can she tell me what to do with my money! Makes sence to me.3. The right accountant actively looking for the ways to reduce your tax. and the wrong one only tells you what you should pay!
4. Also some shalenge I had whan registering a company… there’s so many things you should do after you registered a company, and noone tells you the full list. But if you don’t do it – you get massive fines! I mean – you need a superanuation fund, a workers Compensation, Risk Assessment, regulination fund…There’s certain paperwork you have to keep for each of them… Also you have to notify ASIC about any changes to your company structure… How can one possible know this it’s her first company! There’s definately a gap on the market for those servises.
Good luck with your business
Cheers,
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