How should an accountant be selected for a business?

Ken Blake
CPA

How should an accountant be selected for a business?

That's an excellent question. Obviously the accountant that you want is someone you are comfortable with and work well with and that's a little hard to know right up front when you're first looking at engaging an accountant to help you with your business. I think the best way to approach that is to talk with folks that you know and work with particularly insurance agents, bankers, people that rely on the product of accountants to give you some feedback as to the type of work various accountants do. Some accountants are a little bit more efficient than others. Some accountants are more proactive in taxes than others. Asking for referrals from business associates and like you say insurance agents or bankers that work with accountants I think is an excellent starting point to getting some good referrals. When you talk to accountants after you've had these referrals a lot of times you want to make sure that the accountant is on the same wave length as far as the involvement that you are looking for. Some accountants prefer to have a hands-off approach and merely come in at the end of the year to help pull the books together for the taxes. Others accountants are more proactive and they like to be involved in the ongoing discussions with the owner and that gets into the billing side of the aspect. Some accountants bill by the hour. Other accountants has what we call value pricing where they come up with a fixed contract that allows unfettered access if you will to the accountant. So knowing how much involvement with the accountant you want going in is really important in setting up fee structure and I would not be afraid to renegotiate or revisit the fees maybe six or nine months into the association if you feel that things are not going well. Most accountants are amenable to modifications because they probably don't feel as comfortable in the interim either. So I think open communication with whatever accountant you select is real important in your business.