Kai Daniel
July 8, 2022
It’s a well-known fact that it’s 80% less hassle to switch accountants than it is to change hairdressers. We tried the latter and had to face the wrath of Pablo. Would not recommend. But jumping ship and settling down with a new accountant is far easier than you might think. Plus, if you’ve found yourself thinking about switching accountants, that’s probably a sign that the time has come and your current accountant just isn’t up to scratch.
You know you need a pro (ideally one with great hair, like us) looking after your books, sharing wise advice and making sure you’re keeping up with those pesky tax obligations. But there’s even more to it than that. When your accountant knows you, understands your business goals and challenges, and has your future success in mind, you’re on to a winner.
In case that was too subtle, we were talking about ourselves just then.
Been putting up with high fees, average service and a contact that sounds generally uninterested (or potentially constantly hungover)? Good thing it’s easy to switch accountants. Sometimes the grass actually is greener on the other side. And when you move to BOM, that lawn is fluorescent.
Before you come over to the brighter side, we like to have a yarn to learn about your business and see how we can support it on the journey to greatness. Just don’t forget about us when you’re all successful and hanging out on Richard Branson’s private island. To help you along, we’ll also give you a few pointers (free of charge).
From there, we’ll crunch some numbers to propose the pricing and services we think would suit you best. If you’re happy, we send some paperwork for you to e-sign and welcome you to the BOM family.
Our onboarding process is generally pretty fun, but there are parts the government makes us do that can get a little dull. For example, we’ll need to verify who you are. This is an anti-money laundering (AML) requirement by the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs for new clients at any financial institution. Which isn’t as scary as it sounds, promise.
Here’s what we’ll need for the AML verification:
Now that you’re one of us, we’ll break the news to your old accountant. We’ll let them know we’re picking up your accounting work moving forward and we’ll grab all the documents we need from them (which, by the way, they’re obligated to give). We do recommend you send them a courtesy email or call, but it’s not mandatory.
You shouldn’t need to worry about your old accountant giving you a leaving present in the form of an invoice. Most accountants won’t charge for providing this info and if they do, it’ll be a small number because this stuff doesn’t take long.
At this point, we have to follow some accounting etiquette and ensure there is “no professional reason” why we shouldn’t work with you. This is sometimes known as “ethical clearance” and it’s rare that anything pops up here. Say for example you owed your old accountant some dosh, that type of thing would be cleared up at this stage.
If you’ve signed up to bookkeeping services, we’ll jump on an onboarding call to go over the process, learn a little more about your transactions and make sure you know what to expect. Whatever questions you have during this call, just fire away.
In short, moving to greener pastures starts with giving us a call. We’ll lay out our pricing and services, send some really exciting paperwork for you to review and e-sign, and then you’ll provide your ID and proof of address.
Bob’s your uncle. BOM’s your accountant.
Oh, and in case you were wondering. We went back to Pablo the hairdresser. Our new guy just couldn’t get those mullet highlights quite right
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If you find a cheaper all inclusive accounting solution similar to the 'BOM Difference', we will beat it by 10%. In addition, if we haven't made your life as a business owner easier after 3 months, we will donate all subscriptions fees to your favorite NZ charity.
