Choose and work with an accountant

Accountants can offer your business a range of accounting services, from basic bookkeeping to specialist business advice.

Your accountant should be suitably qualified through one of the accountancy industry bodies, and you should also consider their experience with businesses of similar size or operating in the same sector as you.

Different accountants can help your business in different ways, you should consider the following:

• experience - do they have experience in your sector and of businesses of a similar size? Can they deal with your business' specific needs?
• costs and charges
• size and personnel - how many partners do they have and who would look after your business?
• efficiency - what response times do they work to?
• additional services - can they offer specialist business advice or help beyond basic accountancy services?

When you have drawn up a shortlist of potential accountants, you should arrange to meet them to make sure they are the ideal choice for your business. You should take your business plan and other background information about your business to the meeting. A good accountant should want to know as much about you as you do about them. They should also be happy to pass on names of clients for you to take up references.

To get the best out of your accountant, you should arrange to have regular contact with them. You should always allow yourself plenty of time to discuss tax implications before the preparation of end-of-year accounts.

You can use the ICAEW tool the find an accountant. 

Read further information about the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA).