Why accountants are cooler than you think

Guest post by Murray Pullin
Director of Zoosme Accountants

Accountants have been the butt of many a joke for years but it seems that a few are breaking the mould and becoming trendsetters in business. Times are changing. And for the record, actuaries make accountants look like stuntmen!

So what’s happened? The role of the accountant continues to involve tax computations, report writing, form filling, keeping up to date with legislation, and plenty of other monotonous jobs that nobody really wants to do. However, thanks to great software writers and process engineers, a lot of the work is done by automated computer processes – I bet your accountant doesn’t tell you that.

Well maybe that’s because they don’t operate that way. Maybe that’s why you have large professional fees, and maybe that’s why you never hear from your accountant. They’re simply too busy ensuring that your business is compliant. And that’s what you’re paying them for.

That’s still a pretty dull job though, right? As an accountant, I didn’t study for years to complete forms or produce repetitive tax computations. In my view, the role of an accountant is to support clients. This means not only support in ensuring the business is compliant and not liable to the penalties enforceable by HMRC, but also to ensure that the business is on track to continue to grow, develop, and remain successful. At the end of the day, a successful business is a retained client. It’s simply in our interest to ensure the business in driven to succeed.

“The role of an accountant is to support clients. This means not only support in ensuring the business is compliant and not liable to the penalties enforceable by HMRC, but also to ensure that the business is on track to continue to grow, develop, and remain successful.”

So how does an accountant do that I hear you ask? What do we know? Well we work with lots of different types of businesses across many different industries which are all set up and run differently. We engage with these clients and talk to them about their business. It takes up time, but we learn. Learning about the client, the business, the product, the staff, the success stories and the problems. And we listen. Everyday is a school day. In return we offer advice, a solution, and sometimes, just a bit of compassion. WHAT? Accountants are human beings afterall. And that is something that makes accountants cool – we’re a people business; not a paper business; and not a numbers business.

Back to the technology now. Accountants are known to be the architects of solutions using Excel. Excel is a great tool. However, a spreadsheet is simply a generic productivity tool that’s a workaround solution for all things. It’s not an accounting solution, and it’s not a business reporting solution.

Now I have worked with some amazing business analytics solutions in the past, so I’m very aware of the barriers that are in place to move onto one of these reporting platforms. A small business simply does not have £30,000 to spend on reporting in their business. However, there are tools aimed at small business owners that are cost effective from as little as £5 per month that deliver results that can help you make better decisions for your business.

I’m very proud to say that I’m a KashFlow partner. I’ve been working with the solution since 2009 as both a business owner and as an accountant. It works! It works really well! In fact, I wouldn’t run a business without it. But I am, of course, very biased. I’m a KashFlow partner afterall. But I have tried others. I have tried them all. And I choose KashFlow because it works! It works really well!

As an intuitive accounting solution, the cloud accounting software offers more than accounts. In fact, it doesn’t feel like an accounting solution, and it doesn’t look like an accounting solution. That’s because it’s more than an accounting solution. It’s a tool that’s a business productivity tool tailored to how you wish to run the back office of your business. Sending invoices is simply not sending an invoice. It’s a record. A record of sales. A record of outstanding debt. A record of cash received. And a record of VAT. And all you did was send an invoice. It’s cool. And working in an accountancy practice with this tool with our clients makes us cool, and our clients cool.

The days of form filling are numbered. The Government are even moving away from forms. Businesses are becoming smarter and are choosing to adopt smarter techniques to build, produce, serve, and deliver. This is the same in the back office. Be smarter. Work smarter. But most of all, be cool!

Zoosme Accountants have teamed up with KashFlow to help you discover the secret of how thousands of small business like you are running their businesses more efficiently and increasing sales using Cloud. Click here to find out more.