Everyone talks about finding a good accountant. Less attention is given to a far more important question – are you a good client?
That’s maybe a question that’ll interest our audience – how can the people who solicit your advice make your job easier? Sadly, we’re not going to suggest that your clients arrive with tribute, however tempting it would be to normalise bringing a cake with you to your accountant.
But it’s fair to say that those of you in practice have your favourite clients. Some of them just make more of an effort, while others pace in and issue a series of demands that can be impossible to fulfil. Like the business owner that’s trying to convince you that their new motorbike is a company car.
So, if you’re considering writing a list of dos and don'ts to keep your days worry-free, or if you’re a client yourself, and you're wondering how to charm the new business partner in your life, read on.
📦 Bring the paperwork
Let's start with the simplest rule. When your accountant asks for records, send the records. Not some of the records, not a handful of screenshots, not a sketch of how you felt during the lunch you ate on expenses after you lost the receipts. The accountant wants the records.
Accountants possess many useful skills, but they are still currently bound by the limitations of the human body, and can’t summon missing accounts from the ether. A client and an accountant need to trust each other, and that involves full disclosure, businesswise.
What’s better is organising these records. Maybe year by year, month by month. If you do that, your accountant’s eyes might well up with tears of gratitude.
🦈 Be honest
Ideally, a client’s accounts will be running smoothly, and all the accountant needs to do is tick through a checklist. But, often, there are snags and, if there are, it’s best practice to give up the game immediately.
Many clients accidentally treat important information like the plot twist in a detective drama. After a tense 20 minutes in the booth, they finally admit, "okay, okay, I also started another company”, or "well, there is the overseas property", or "the police have told me I’m "under caution", what’s it to you?"
While it’s perfectly reasonable to want to impress your accountant, they still have a job to do, and that job doesn’t involve judging you. They've seen stranger things. Far stranger things. Unless your thing is particularly strange, in which case, your thing might be the strangest thing they’ve ever seen.
But you still need to tell them!
🔫 Don’t shoot the messenger
This feels like an obvious distinction. And yet, every accountant has delivered a piece of bad news only to discover they have somehow become personally responsible for the existence of tax. Shooting the messenger has historically been an ineffective management strategy and remains equally ineffective during tax season.
Good clients understand that sometimes the answer is simply "no." And good accountants understand that sometimes the only answer you can give is that delicious monosyllable. Sometimes, we just have to take our "no” medicine.
But, better yet, don’t put them in a position where they have to say "no”! Maybe don’t float your own labyrinthine blueprint for avoiding a 0.03% tax on cutlery, or whatever.
🤖 Let’s not get AI involved
For many years, accountants had to contend with schemes and tricks that had disseminated through word-of-mouth. A friend who mentioned one neat trick to avoid HMRC entirely – it doesn’t work!
Thanks to our tech oligarchs, we now deal with the similar but eerier, "ChatGPT told me", or "I saw a video online", or the increasingly common, "I asked an AI to build me a tax strategy".
Unlike most humans, AI tends to be wrong with the confidence of a man explaining why his only child’s future is now irrevocably tied to the buoyancy of Bitcoin. Sending your accountant a 12-page AI-generated tax plan doesn't necessarily save time because now they have to work out where or when the tax laws it’s relying on existed.
You’re already hiring an accountant, don’t add another cook to the kitchen – especially not one that refuses to wash their hands.
⏰ Communication is key
Accountants spend a lot of their lives waiting – usually for records, or answers to questions that were emailed three weeks ago.
Good clients don't disappear the moment an accountant asks for information. Even something as simple as "Yes sir, of course sir, I'll send that over next week. Thank you so much for putting up with me" works wonders.
It's amazing how much stress can be avoided through basic communication. Particularly during busy periods when accountants are juggling deadlines, regulations and weather so hot that the cells in their spreadsheet are merging by their own volition.
🤝 The golden rule
The best accountant-client relationships are collaborative. The best clients ask questions because they want to understand, and they listen to advice even when it's not what they hoped to hear.
They appreciate that good accounting work takes time. And they recognise that having someone who understands their business is often worth far more than the fee on the invoice.
Interestingly, the clients accountants remember most aren't always the easiest. Sometimes, they need a lot of support, but they're respectful. They value the relationship, understand that both sides are trying to achieve the same thing. That's what makes the difference.
However, if you can just sort out your accounts and just sort of send over something totally completed, that’d actually be really good, too.
🧠 Final thoughts
The good news is that being a good client isn't particularly difficult. You don’t need to be perfect – you just need to be organised, honest, responsive and willing to listen. But, of course, we should all strive for perfection in all we do.
If you're ever unsure whether you're being a good client, ask yourself one simple question – would I want to deal with me? That’s probably a question you should be asking yourself quite often anyway. Not you specifically, just all of you, probably. The collective you.
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