Key Things to Consider Before Picking the Right Accounting Firm for Your Small Business

Choosing the right accounting firm is a challenging decision for any small and medium level enterprise or a start-up.

11:10 20 August 2021

It makes a world of difference: working with a good accounting firm can put your business on the fast lane to growth whereas a bad one could cost you a lot of time and money and lead your business along the wrong path. With plenty of options to pick from, it can be a hard decision to make. Before you make that all-important choice, here are a few things to ponder over.

 

• Each business is unique in its own way and therefore it is important that the accounting firm you’re going to work withunderstands your business and appreciates how it is different from the rest. Despite having a breadth of experience, accounting firms with good reputation and track record are always keen to know about the clients and take the time to determine where their clients are right now and where they’d like to go.
  
  
• Talk toa firm with proven expertise in your sector and your line of business. Find out from them whether they have working knowledge on advising companies in your sector. There are several benefits to taking this approach. A company that understands how things work in a small business like yours will be able to offer pertinent insights and bring in a fresh perspective about those areas of business where you’re likely to encounter issues.
  
  
• Deal with companies that are a similar size to yours, as they’re most likely to understand your business problems. It is all the more better if the company has any hands-on experience working with a company at a same life-stage and same headcount as yours. They can help youidentify the evolving needs of your businessso you can always be prepared and do your best to avoid any mistakes that you’re likely to make along the way. 
  
  
• The traditional methods of accounting are obsolete now. In the bygone era, an accountancy firm’s main and only role was simply to file annual accounts and ensure that the business complied with all its tax requirements. But things have changed and now. It’s no longer ‘can you balance my books for me, please?’ Armed with the power of disruptive technology, many accounting firmsprovide a range of services and solutions to their clients, right from bookkeeping to payroll management and from modelling/budgeting to processing R&D tax credits. Although it's key to use disruptive technologies like data analytics and machine learning to be able to offer timely insights that enable key business decisions, providing the much-needed human touch is also equally important. The best accounting companies in the UK have always found a way to bring together the best of two worlds and that’s precisely why working with them pays off in the long run.
  
  
• A growing trend among small businesses is to engage with accounting firms thatspecialise in offering innovative cloud accounting to their clients. And, it’s not difficult to see why they’re doing what they’re doing. Cloud accounting continues to surge in popularity mainly on the back of a widespread digital transformation across corporate UK. Businesses embrace cloud mainly for the efficiencies and the growth opportunities they bring to the table. Besides, accessing data on the cloud is fairly simple across all kinds of devices and can be done across devices whether it be a laptop, tablet, or a mobile phone. The benefits and the flexibility that cloud-based solutions provide are simply too good to pass for any small business. Disappointed with the results they get from their outdated in-house systems, a large number of small businesses in the UK are enthusiastically adopting cloud accounting. They’re making the switch from legacy systems having realized what they stand to lose by not keeping up with the times and what they gain by taking their accounting process and data to the cloud. With the trend growing popular, more and more companies in the UK, both small and large, are going to integrate web-based solutions and applications powered by cloud into their current business processes.

Choosing the right accounting firm could make or break your small business. When your priority is to grow from strength to strength, you cannot afford to slip up and correct your mistakes as you go along. One costly mistake could throw you off guard. So it definitely helps to deal with an accounting firm that understands your business, takes a radical approach to help you take key management decisions, offers plenty of innovative cloud-based solutions and a range of services in a cost-effective manner to meet your business requirements and promises stellar support all through the year. Bear in mind the points mentioned above before you begin your search for the right accounting firm for your business.