Accountancy at the click of a mouse: the accountant becomes invisible

I am often asked to predict how the world of accountancy will look in 10 years time. So what is my vision? Well, we are already starting to see various initiatives which effectively ‘productise’ accountancy services. But I still think accountancy firms look at these products too much from their own point of view rather than that of the entrepreneur or small business.

It is great to see accountants now extensively describing and explaining services to demonstrate value for money. But in reality these small businesses often view the accountant’s work as a necessary evil, even when it is attractively presented in colourful brochures and websites. And they perceive the price to be too high.

Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s admirable when any business decides to become more transparent in the way they communicate about services and fees. But truly market oriented thinking is still lacking. The accountant still considers his role as central to the process; that it remains his responsibility to ensure certain tasks are carried out. But, in my view, in 10 years’ time, the accountant will be invisible.

Think about a start up business. An entrepreneur has decided to set up a company that sells services and/or products. This is usually a radical decision in which a belief in the service or product provides the motivation for its development. Processing accounts plays second fiddle, at least, in the way accountancy services are currently offered to the market.

Why? Because as I said before: although accountancy firms do their utmost to be transparent about services and fees, the entrepreneur has no real interest.  Processing the accounts is a ‘must do’, rather than a service that is perceived to offer real value to the core business.

I still think it’s possible to establish a company, accounts and all, with just a few simple clicks of a mouse. In a previous blog item I already tried to explain what, in my eyes, is important to an entrepreneur. As a financial professional you are surely capable of establishing which information is important to an accountant by asking a few questions or looking at a few criteria, right?

How would you pitch to, say, an entrepreneur who decides to import products from abroad? You have got two main ways to explain why they should pay money for your services. One: you explain the kind of activities needed in order to set up an administration with foreign currencies and different bank accounts. But that’s like a car dealer explaining to me how the parts of a car are laid out in the factory prior to assembly. It’s something which, at that point, doesn’t interest or concern me in the slightest. Two: you omit this explanation and only point out which information you can make available, realtime and online, for the entrepreneur to use running the company. In other words, don’t start apologising for the fact that the services your practice provides cost money. You need to look at it the other way round, reasoned from the entrepreneur’s point of view. By explaining which kind of information is important to the entrepreneur, you increase its value. Wouldn’t it be brilliant if the client was presented with a schematic overview of the information streams important to their trading company? This overview helps the entrepreneur to form a clear picture of what to pay attention to. Yeah, I know, it’s easy for us, but for a lot of clients this picture is very enlightening. Numbers are added to this basic overview, which brings it to life and makes it more relevant, so the entrepreneur feels more involved. Don’t tell your client he should be more financially aware; just feed him the information that makes it happen.

A behavioural change does not demand a change of behaviour. Because, in fact, everything already revolves around invoices and payments which, if all goes well, will make the company successful. I was once taught not to make things more difficult than they are: you buy something and then you sell it on for a bit more, that’s all.

In this kind of set up your practice’s activities become completely invisible. And so much the better; as an entrepreneur I’m not interested in how the information is constructed. I only want to know what kind of information I get. The accountant becomes a provider of information. Information that, in the eyes of the entrepreneur, represents a value so important they’ll want to pay money for it.

Information is provided by answering a few online questions about the nature of the company and its activities, and that’s enough to set everything up. All your practice’s knowledge and expertise productised in one information product. I am convinced this can work 80% of the time. Maybe Twinfield will become invisible, too, and function as the platform that will enable all this for your firm. A platform that consists of a state of the art accounting engine that processes accounts in the most efficient way. Extra functionalities and processes will be taken up by associated and integrated Twinapps partners, and they will be called upon, or not, depending on the answers to the online questions. In the end, every Twinapps partner is also an information provider, needed to help the entrepreneur run his business. The accountant is also connected to the platform, whereby starting out entrepreneurs are serviced as described earlier. As the company expands, the practice becomes more visible and the collaboration will grow into a partnership. Your role changes from information provider to financial consultant, and you end up assisting the entrepreneur in correctly using the information provided to steer the business. Can you imagine?

Author: Mark Davies, Country Manager Twinfield International United Kingdom