It looks like accountants have been telling you porkies.
They have explained in all seriousness that accountancy is difficult. Challenging. You’ll never keep up with tax, you couldn’t possibly do your own bookkeeping (or shouldn’t), and quite frankly you should pay them a lot of money.
But the great news is, accounting isn’t quite so difficult anymore.
Cloud Based Accounting Puts Paid to the Lies
You see, something amazing called “cloud based accounting “ has come on the scene. It puts your accounts online, in the cloud, so you can access them 24-7. You can link them to your accountant, and even your bank, and the HMRC, and a few other things besides.
Before cloud accounting, accountants had to do everything by hand. Sending you letters in the post (gasp!) and ringing you up on the house phone and arranging long appointments to which you would bring paperwork and receipts and documentation in a big binder.
All this extra work meant your accountant spent most of their time organising all your paperwork and chasing you for information and making both your lives miserable. By the time all that was done, there was no time left to get help with strategy, growth, budgets and other truly useful stuff.
The 7 Ways you’ve been lied to
Lie 1. Accounting is hard
It’s actually not. It just it has very strict rules that you must follow. This is why cloud computing works so well – computers love rules! “If this, then that”.
Lie 2. The Taxman is out to get you.
He’s not, we promise. in fact, HMRC are actually very helpful, but, like a big, scary guard dog, you have to know how to handle them.
Lie 3. Bookkeeping takes ages.
Modern accounting packages can import all your transactions direct from the bank. The cleverest amongst them (hint: Xero!) can even auto-reconcile them for you
Lie 4. VAT returns take ages.
If you have all your accounts up to date (see Lie 3), then it takes just a few minutes to prepare (and with packages such as Xero, you can even submit direct to HMRC!)
Lie 5. You only need to talk to your accountant once a year.
WRONG!! Your accountant should be helping you form the strategy of your company, not just telling you how much your tax bill is.
Lie 6. SAGE is good.
In our opinion, SAGE is old, cumbersome and tricky to use. Modern cloud based packages are a cinch! (It’s no secret that we favour Xero)
Lie 7. Accountants are actually born 50 years old.
Did you really believe that accountants under 50 didn’t exist? Paul Barnes is in the under 35’s category for accountants, as evidenced in this very important and approved-by-accountants article at Accountancy Age. (Seriously!)
Lie 7. Accountants don’t know how to have fun.
You’ve clearly never been to Numbers World, the theme park built just for accountants. (Some even take their ties off for the Log Flume). The truth is that accountants have personality too. You just need to pick the one whose personality matches yours.
So, now that you know the lies….
You will know that there are still some accountants who want to make the work they do look really difficult (so you pay them more).
And some are just so particular that they do everything the long way.
Not us.
We think spreadsheets are SO last century, and cloud accounting is for cool cats, and that development of your new app to prevent world hunger should get the bulk of our discussion time when we meet.
True story.
