Hell, but I struggled to write this. It exposed my own weaknesses. And all my biases. It’s based on 60 heartfelt responses from business owners. And 16 sincere responses from accountants. About each others’ roles.
I hope it helps you:
- To better understand your relationship with each other.
- To agree on what services you expect from each other.
- And what service levels to expect.
- And what your respective deadlines are.
- And what the price of such services will be.
What accountants want business owners to know…
Tell us everything. Don’t lie. Don’t ask us to risk disbarment. Our career (and lifetime income) is worth more than your short-term cash flow challenge. And we know you will sing like a canary when SARS offers you accommodation at Pollsmoor.
We know more about tax than you do. Much more than you remember from your mate at Friday’s braai after your 12th beer. If you want an opinion, pretend that we are like your doctor who charges each time you visit. No matter the reason.
Give us all your paperwork. Every VAT claim and every tax deduction needs proof. If you can’t prove it with paper we can’t prove it to SARS.
You are not our only client. Don’t bring us your work at the last minute and expect instant service. We have clients ahead of you in the queue. Many of whom pay us without complaint. And some of whom actually pay us on time.
We do history, not fortune-telling. Our job is to match your 12 month old pile of paper to SARS needs. We don’t do financial planning, AKA fortune telling.
Your job is to forecast cashflows. And to pay your suppliers on time. And to get payment from your clients on time. And to have enough cash ready when the government sends its bill. That’s why you run you your own business. And make all that money. It’s your job to do enough bookkeeping to achieve this. (Bookkeeping is what you do to to keep your paperwork in order. Like keeping track of invoices (in and out) and cash flows (in and out).)
Read every every piece of paper before you throw it into a box. That way you see issues before they’re looming crises. At the very least, open your bank statement and check it each month.
If you want advice, ask first. Before you act. And tell us everything. It takes time to consider all your facets. Expect to pay for such time. Don’t ask for free resuscitation services after you’ve screwed the pooch.
We do numbers better than we do people.If you want a warm relationship, get a dog. Please treat said dog better than you treat us. We also don’t do imagination. SARS does not like creative and you don’t pay us enough to risk you getting an audit.
Your bank statement is not a cash flow statement. Your business won’t survive if more cash goes out than comes in. Nobody cares if you’re unprofitable. But miss one payment and the world notices. Survival means getting the cash in faster than paying the cash out.
We don’t work for the government. We don’t make the rules. We spend years at learning to adjust to each new government foible. And swathes of time afterwards. Our job is to keep them off your back. We know how violent your complaint is when you get audited.
Do not pay personal bills from your business bank account. Or vice versa. That complicates our work. That demands more resources. That means a bigger bill. Stop complaining or start doing it right.
Ignorance is not bliss. If you want to own your own business you should know which rules define this game. The government defines those rules. Lots of rules, which keep changing. Most of those rules have nothing to do with accounting. Like, BBBEE, PAIA, POPI, NCA, BEA, CIPC…
Don’t yell at us each time you trip over a new rule. We invest time and money staying current with our profession and its rules. You should read a newspaper at least once a month to stay current with yours.
What business owners want accountants to know…
Nobody taught us how to file paper. Tell us exactly what you want so we can help you to help us. (And we can save some money.)
We don’t know the difference between balance sheets, income statements, and toilet paper. As far as assets go, your secretary has a great current asset, while my missus has a somewhat more fixed asset.
You’re our interface to the government. You’re our business advisor. You’re the only person who sees what we’re doing. Why don’t you tell us WTF we’re up before it bites us? And get creative, won’t you?
Yes, we mix our personal & business accounts. Sometimes it’s urgent. Like pending divorce or starvation. And we pay from the only account that holds some cash. Often that’s the business account.
We can’t tell you everything because we’re often embarrassed about what we did. And we forget what we did, when, and why.
We’re too busy trying to survive to learn bookkeeping. Or practise it. Let alone keep track of CIPC, SARS, POPI, the new Companies Act, and a slew of other acronyms we can’t remember. Why can’t you give us the Cliff Notes?
In closing.
90% of us small players close down within 10 years. 99% of us, after a lifetime in small-business, do not have enough to retire.
These numbers should give us reason to relook at how we’re doing what we trying to do. And to start to treat this small-business game as if we controlled IBM. (If we do that we soon will.)
Feel free to vent your feelings and comments.