Friday 30 March 2012

Can Your Small Business Accounting Skills Help Family Businesses?

By Charles Wallace


Why do entrepreneurs seek out the information and council of new business accountants? Don't you have one already? Is your present business account unacceptable in some shape? Are you unhappy with their results? Why?

It looks improbable in the acute that a business would have been successful for 5, ten, or 20 years without qualified business accountants on the payroll. So what's up?

Usually from my experience, business owners like you who are trying to find an exciting new business accountant relationship are looking for somebody to help navigate the complexities of current and future tax laws and the tough to understand tax laws faced by all businesses and enterprises like yours particularly. Aren't you looking out for someone to provide tax planning information so you can maximize your day-to-day and long-term efforts?

Naturally you need someone more technically savvy than the business account you already have or you would not be prepared to think about making a change, or is there another reason? My observation is that while business owners expect their accountants to grasp the tax laws and how they apply to them, they are also looking for someone they feel at ease with from the viewpoint of training for leadership.

During their initial interviews with business accountants - where they will probably come to the conclusion whether this one or that one is the best accountant for them, they will very probably make their decision based mostly on their "gut feeling" about the individual they will be telling their deepest darkest strategies to for several years to come.

Naturally small business accountants, all professionals in fact, would like you to ask them questions during those primary interviews. They are prepared for that with volumes of pat answers. What you ought to be hunting for are the categories of questions they ask you. Each time they raise a question it tells you a little more about their point of view in tax matters and many other things.

Of course you are looking for the best planning for your business you can get. However if you don't like their perspectives on matters not related to tax laws you may hesitate to take them seriously on the problems for which you are engaging them. You aren't searching for a new pal, finding wonderful small enterprise accountants shouldn't be some variety of recognition contest and this isn't a "rent-a-friend" offer.

However you need to respect them on several levels in order to work with them successfully over a period. As a profitable business owner you have got a well developed and ultra delicate BS detector, so based mostly on what you hear in that first interview, yes interview - you are interviewing them for this vital role in your business, you will be able to tell who you are coping with if you're listening.

There is a test that I usually advocate called the NIH Syndrome Analysis (Not Invented Here Syndrome) which will help you see them for who they actually are.

Small company accountants, for one reason or another, often fall into the trap of believing that the last brilliant idea to come along was theirs. And if they know lots more about you and your business than anybody else it gets simpler and less complicated for you to go with their brilliant ideas with no question.

The insolvency courts and tax court records are littered with examples of circumstances where business accountants and other professionals let their clientele go down the wrong paths quite innocently and quite unintentionally - because they were blind to the concepts of others.

Tax planning, planning period, is a never ending process and the landscape and opportunities are in incessant flux. Unless your small enterprise accountant is happy to hear you, stay up to speed through continuing education licenses, and call in consultants on your behalf when they're in doubt, you aren't going to be content with the result.

Here is a simple tip. Listen for them to claim, in response to a question you ask, "What would you suggest?" or "What do you think?" or "What have you heard?" or "What do you think might work here?" or something along those lines. Listen to their answer to your answer. If they ask your opinion and offer applicable feedback, something your BS detector deems deserving of the type of person you want as a pro consultant - you are on the right track toward the selection of the right. Small business accountant for you.

If they don't ask "What do you think?" or something similar, they're depriving themselves of the prevailing, and potentially best, thinking on the subject as you know your business better than anyone and you've been pondering this for a period of time and without doubt have discussing it with your mastermind group of successful contemporaries.

Also , if they do not ask "What do you think?", it's impossible for them (and you) to test their assumptions. You won't ever know when they do not completely understand the difficulty, issues, history, for example.

And most vitally of all, they are not helping you believe the problem through and they're showing a disregard for your opinion that will not maintain a productive relationship over a period.




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