What makes a good accountant

There are many accountancy firms in the UK but what makes Gilbert Finance stand out? The answer is their understanding of your business paired with many years of financial expertise. Jay Gilbert from Gilbert Finance describes what makes a good accountant in the video below.

Gilbert Finance and Accounting are an established accountancy firm in Leeds, West Yorkshire.

More about Gilbert Finance and Accounting is available on this website but we have published the transcript from the video to help with those who may not be able to view it.

Every new business needs a good accountant, a good solicitor and a good business advisor.

One of the challenges in accounting is the definition what an accountant is, in the same way people use the word "Banker" to describe someone who is at the till of the local bank to the head of Goldman Sachs, the word Accountant is used to describe someone from a basic bookkeeper to the FD of Google.A good accountant has certain qualities and things about them that can help your business grow such as, the need to understand the business structures available, limited liability partnerships, sold trader, limited companies etc and which is correct for your business and explain that to you. Because each has its benefits and downsides.They need to give you good, solid tax advice, not just the fancy schemes but how to grind out tax savings day after day so you pay the minimum tax and keep the maximum of the cash and profits in the business.They need to be able to help you raise finance and know how to present this to various fundraisers, banks, private equity grants etc. They need know how to put the information to them and also have contacts in those areas so they can introduce you to sources of it and indeed have a track record of success in this area.Another thing that I find really important is proper commercial experience from the Accountant . Its good if they've worked somewhere other than an accounting practice, preferably in business say as a FD or a chief accountant in the business so they're really understand what business is about and how to do it, that also kind of helps with personality wise because they tend to be a little bit more personable, social skills are better and they can certainly get on with the people in your business well.Another couple of things I think are really important is that they are reliable you know that they get back to you in a few days of most of the phone calls, preferably on the day and that they contact the business every few months to make sure that they know what's going on, because the only way you can offer proper advice is to be involved in the business, so just a call "how's it going?", "do you need anything?", "what's happening in the business?", so they can be proactive in advising you as a client on what you need and how they can help with the business.If your current advisor doesn't do that I would suggest you have a look at changing them, other advisors would be  to be happy to talk to for free and it’s a lot easier to change than people think and you could save yourself money and grow your business a lot better with better advise.

If you'd like to talk us about any business matters please feel free to call me at any time. Alternatively email me at e mail Gilbert Finance contact me on linkedin or look us up on our website www.gilbertfinance.co.uk