Sunday, September 03, 2006

What matters most

I used to be an accountant, but I'm alright now

In fact I'm still a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales - the ICAEW. That makes me a chartered accountant - and it was a pretty tough qualification to achieve in 1981 when I sat my final exams. 25 years later and I can still remember the pressure!

Your accountant might be a member of the same professional body - it's the biggest accountancy institute in Europe. Equally your accountant might be a member of the ACCA, CIMA, ICAS, ICAI or any one of a number of smaller professional bodies. He or she might even be a member of a recently formed grouping of advisers who do not have any 'real' professional qualifications.

I have explained in an earlier blog that anyone can call themselves an accountant and that there are good reasons for choosing to use a professionally qualified accountant.

There are material differences between the exam syllabuses for each of the different bodies. A CIMA qualified accountant has different skills and expereinces to a Chartered Accouuntant and an ACCA is different again.

What really matters though is not what your accountant studied, or the prestige of his/her professional body, or the robustness of their process for insisting on continuing profesional development, 'quality' procedures or even their complaints procedure.

What matters most is how good a fit there is between what you want and your accountant's experience and experitse. Sadly some accountants claim expertise beyond that which they really have. Others do not have the experience to do what you need - and they can get away with this because you may not really know what you need either.

In a future blog I will provide further guidance on this issue.

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