Continuing on from my post on Tuesday – my second three thoughts on what every business should look for in their accountant.
Services
Does your adviser off everything you need in one place?
Northcote work with businesses from Startups right up to medium size Corporate clients. We have a skill set across a broad range of services lines. Tax returns to business plans, payroll to working capital forecasts, Audits to Annual returns.
We do it all, we do it well and we do it for an agreed fee up front.
Approach
It’s very important to get yourself an advisor who you can relate to and who relates to you. You might want lots of contact with your Accountant when their style is to give you very little.
At Northcote we’re very proactive. This isn’t just a buzzword – it means that we’ll be in touch regularly to hear what’s happening with your business, that we’ll bring you ideas beyond the traditional compliance services and
Accountability
You need to know your Accountant will be accountable to you. Some of our clients tell us their previous Accountants were late filing returns and difficult to get hold of.
We’re so confident in the service we offer that we use Service Level Agreements and Key Performance Indicators to agree up front with our clients what they expect from us. If it was ever the case that we didn’t meet this (it hasn’t happened yet) then we will offer an appropriate reduction in fees.