This is a unusual headline. It’s not about a high-pressure salesman trying to sell you some useless nicnac. It’s to do with you as a client of an accounting firm, which then sells your name, your contact details and your most private financial information to another accountant.
Selling accounting fees is a common occurance in the world of public accounting. It’s a good way to expand the client base and potentially the profit potential. So why do accountants buy someone elses fees. There’s a few reasons, the ones that top the list are:
- The old accountant was undercharging and/or underservicing, so there’s scope to push more services and/or increase fees;
- The purchaser also dabbles in another field (usually financial planning) and so theres scope to tap a new list of clients.
The problem for you (the client) is that the very person you’ve been dealing with for years is now gone, and now you have to strike up a relationship with someone entirely new. Someone you don’t know, and might not even like …
It all happens very suddenly. One day you’re dealing with Max from down the local office, the next day your confronted with some slick car-salesman-like dude from across town. They promise it’s business as usual.
Unitl next year comes around. They say that Max was seriously undercharging for the work that’s involved in your file, and all of a sudden your given a bill you can’t jump over! … with 7 days to pay to top it off!
You think “I wish I’d seen that coming”.
Well actually, there are things you can be on the look-out for to help identify if your accountant is about to sell you out:
- They’ve been negative for a long time, unhelpful, even downright rude (this itself is an indicator that a trigger to change is all that’s needed). They only ever do the minimum for you (lodge a tax return), and even then you’re a bother to them. Trying to get anything done by them is like pulling teeth!
- Strangely, they suddenly seem upbeat and positive one day. Unless thy’ve had a heart attack to change their world view, chances are they’re about to come into a large sum of money, and simutaneuosly lose all their problems (you!).
- They start returning your calls, and are pleasant to you once again (they want to kame sure that as meny people transition over as they can get. They may even be required to assist the move).
If you find yourself in front of a new accountant, at least make sure that they are giving you a fairly compelling reason to stay with them. If they haven’t already done so, ask!
But ultimately, they’ve not shown any allegiance to you, why stay with them? If you’re going to have to work with a new accountant, why not one you’ve chosen?
If you’ve noticed these things, then why wait to see who you’ll get? Why not start looking for a new (and better) service provider now!? In fact, you could even start right here, or perhaps here.
