Accountant type – bookkeeper accountant or business advisor accountant?

In response to my recent post “Evolution of Software as a Service (SaaS)”, Jason Holden made a comment that caught my attention:

…. The interesting thing about that is, most other accountants who say ‘oh no my client is used to Sage etc.’, well how do you explain that we are moving clients off a static version of Sage on their PC and onto winweb with all the benefits of our real-time support without any complaints, after all they are guided by their accountants advice not the other way round– so lets be honest the barrier is not the clients, it is the accountants who feel safe with Sage etc., clients don’t care! ……

I am asking myself is that really a fair statement? And should clients care?

From a micro and small business point of view, I have always understood accountants to be of three types the bookkeeper accountant, the bookkeeper accountant with a Software as a Service (SaaS) offering and the business advisor accountant using Software as a Service offering, who also offers bookkeeping.

The bookkeeper accountant is primarily interested to provide bookkeeping services and not much else to the client. And I would think there are enough companies that want exactly that service. To them it does not matter if they get last month numbers a few weeks later or even a few months. I think to use Sage or other boxed products is no problem at all.

If on the other hand you have a business start-up, or a growing business, and you want to see your numbers in real time, then the bookkeeping accountant can only offer this service with an on-demand, online Software as a Service product. Here both partners can work together in real time and a lot of IT headaches are taken from them at the same time (data backup, etc), the benefits are manyfold. David Terrar on his blog “Business Two Zero ” added the globalisation point to this discussion in his post about “Bricks, clicks and globalisation“. In this arena you can find a number of offerings like, Twinfield, Moore, Sage and our product AccountingOffice.

However, the business advisor accountant is a totally different “animal”, he/she wants to offer more services to the client in terms of advice for starting a business (lets face it who reads all these fancy start-up packs, that you can get everywhere) or running it. These accountants want to build a close client relationship, in oder to help the client to succeed, make the right financial and management decisions early on. And you only can do that when you are very closely connected or “integrated” with your clients business. This kind of service can not be delivered by software, online or not, alone. Live intervention of real people is required, the business advisor accountant, your virtual financial controller. Here you need a business infrastructure mentality, our OnlineOffice allows the advisor to see future development early on, sales forecasts, cash-flow forecast and the advisor is now also involved in the planning stages of the client business. The ROI for the client is enormous.

So was Jason’s statement fair, yes and no. It depends what kind of service you are looking for. You are the client and you should care.

〔13/06〕Update: Dennis has some interesting additions to my above post in “21st century accounting practitioners“.

Tags: Accountants, Accounting, Business Development, Business Infrastructure, Business Start Up, CPA, More Accounting, On-demand, Outsourcing, SaaS, Sage Accounting, sme-blog, Software as a Service, Twinfields, Web Technology, WinWeb

11 Responses to “ Accountant type – bookkeeper accountant or business advisor accountant? ”

1. Jason Holden
   
   Said on May 10th, 2006 at 12:19 pm

   You make some very valid points Stefan, but in my experience most start-up businesses or for that matter existing family run businesses on the whole see the accounting function as a necessity, and for that reason they are really not too bothered what piece of accounting software they use to run this side of their operation as long as they find it user friendly.

   I don’t blame the businessman/woman for seeing it like this, after all until online offerings such as the likes of Winweb and Twinfield came along it could be a long drawn out process to offer business advice to these clients, it either consisted of them sending you a disk (assuming they kept computerized records of some sort), you would finally extract the data and then travel out to see them, by the end of this process is could be between 2-3 weeks later (if not longer), or you would set up an appointment to go out on a set day, a date by which they had to ensure everything was up to date. None of which is ideal by today’s new standards.

   Things really have (are) changed (changing) a lot, and I personally think it is up to the accountant/business advisor to explain to clients the advantages of having the accounting function on a real-time system that the advisor can also access from their office on a more regular basis.

   I recently read an article in BusinessXL about Dino Forte co-founder of Converso Contact Centres in which he was talking about what he wished he had known when he started. He talks about ‘looking after the books’ and how for a growing business it is vital to ‘stay on top of things financially’ and part of this is done by having your accounting information up to date and ‘receiving regular (monthly) management accounts’.

   It really is a brave new world, for both new business and those that are more established, I don’t think they have ever had such an advantage in the market place as they do now with the advent of online accounting products to provide them with real up to the minute financial data to aid them in their business.

2. Stefan Töpfer
   
   Said on May 10th, 2006 at 12:35 pm

   Jason, I think my point is the clients need to know that this choice is available. But then I would say that, wouldn’t I.

3. THE SMALL BUSINESS BLOG » Blog Archive » PreEntrepreneur - IntraPreneur - Entrepreneur
   
   Said on May 11th, 2006 at 12:55 pm

   [...] As an example look at financial planning, find an accountant who is willing to play my favorite business game with you for an hour, Cash-Flow Reality Gaming, using our free AccountsOffice, with cash-flow plugin. You can not afford him/her to play with you all day, but he/she will show you how to play by yourself. Now, SaaS really scores again, because when you are done playing, you call your accountant, and you both look at the result online in real time. And that is just the beginning of it, but you will need an business advisor accountant. [...]

4. THE SMALL BUSINESS BLOG » Blog Archive » Business Start-up Beware!
   
   Said on May 12th, 2006 at 12:35 pm

   [...] Good job more and more accountants are offering a small business and business start-up advice service, to help the PreEntrepreneur, IntraPreneur and Entrepreneur. [...]

5. THE SMALL BUSINESS BLOG » Blog Archive » Plymouth Beware.
   
   Said on May 12th, 2006 at 2:32 pm

   [...] Reminds me of what Jason said a couple of days ago.Seems to me that our free accountant search database on our Homepage, will have a empty spot in Plymouth. [...]

6. THE SMALL BUSINESS BLOG » Blog Archive » Business Advisor Accountants At Work.
   
   Said on May 16th, 2006 at 8:37 pm

   [...] While I talk about accountant types, some accountants are out there doing it. [...]

7. THE SMALL BUSINESS BLOG » Blog Archive » Business advisor accountant: Philip Woodgate
   
   Said on May 18th, 2006 at 11:48 am

   [...] This is going to be another series (noticed how I did not say “mini” series) about small business business advisor accountants. Having started my series the other day with Stuart Jones, I think it to be a good point to introduce accountants who obviously share my passion for SaaS and have the business advisor approach. SaaS – Software as a Service is such an integral part of business success today, that you can not afford to be hampered in you business development by old technology or by outdated accountant – client relationships. [...]

8. THE SMALL BUSINESS BLOG » Blog Archive » Have you got what it takes to be your own boss?
   
   Said on May 31st, 2006 at 9:15 pm

   [...] Most importantly find an good accountant, and get him / her to play with you. [...]

9. Accountants - How could your accountant help you? | Holden Associates Blog
   
   Said on November 30th, 2007 at 12:23 pm

   [...] different, but often lack the knowledge or experience to get there, this is often where a good business advisor accountant can [...]

10. Pat Car
    
    Said on March 19th, 2008 at 12:13 am

    I have used an excellent UK commercial finance broker who managed to negotiate reduced redemption charges from www.mortgagebestrate.co.uk this has saved my business a lot of expense.

11. Electric Fishing Reels For Sale
    
    Said on November 6th, 2008 at 7:01 pm

    Good points. The statement is valid depending on the perspective of the accounting function being fulfilled. If it is simple book keeping, clients are less likely to be persuaded. But, if it is a business accounting function, that is a different story. To a certain degree you are paying a business accountant for, not only accounting functions but also business advice. An accountant fulfilling this function would have much more influence over his or her client’s choices.

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