Recently, our Director, Mark Alderson, shared his insights with Yorkshire Accountancy News on what SME clients really want from their accountant today.
In the following article, Mark explores how expectations have shifted beyond compliance, and why business owners are increasingly looking for proactive advice, clear communication, and a more strategic partnership.
For years, business owners have leaned on their accountants for compliance and peace of mind. And while that hasn’t disappeared, it’s no longer enough. Nowadays, business owners are clearer, more commercially aware, and far more intentional about what they want from the relationship with their accountant. And increasingly, they’re asking for more than just a set of finished accounts.
Added value is expected
With regulation and technology where it is, accounts are either right or they’re not. VAT returns get submitted. Year-ends get filed. That’s the baseline.
The real value now lies in being able to supply the commentary around the numbers.
Over the past 15 years, there’s been a clear shift. It used to be that businesses felt they had to reach a certain size — perhaps £500,000 or more in turnover — before strategic conversations felt relevant. Advisory was seen as something for larger, more established companies.
Now, even one-person businesses want to talk about growth, direction, and long-term plans. They’re coming into business already thinking about the end goal. They want to discuss three, five, and ten-year plans — not just what the next 30 days look like to ensure enough cash is in the bank at month-end.
Compliance is assumed. What they’re looking for is a partner and someone who can add value through meetings, conversations, and clear direction. Put simply, someone who is seen as an extension of their team.
Cut the jargon
Where does the profession still get it wrong? Often in pricing and communication.
Some firms price too low to win the work, then find they can’t justify the time needed to deliver properly. Others go in high, armed with a list of services they want to sell, rather than focusing on what’s actually right for the client. In both cases, it doesn’t last. It’s not sustainable, and it’s not good for the client.
The other issue is language.
Accountants have a habit of hiding behind technical terminology (which is a common issue in other industries as well), sometimes unintentionally, sometimes to make the job sound more complex than it is. But most business owners don’t care about liquidity ratios, gearing ratios, or debtor days as concepts. They care about what it means.
For a client, average debtor days are not just a number in a report, it’s the reality that, on average, it takes their customers 47 days to pay them, and many are surprised when they hear it put that plainly. If supplier days are 24, despite longer payment terms being available, that has a direct impact on cash flow.
The calculation itself takes minutes. The real value is explaining the impact in normal English and linking it back to what’s happening in that specific business, alongside making suggestions to improve the company.
Responsiveness and accessibility matter
If you underprice, you can’t be responsive. You can’t drop everything to come back quickly because the time simply isn’t there. That creates frustration on both sides.
Clients want to feel supported. They want to know their accountant can act as an extension of their business. But that level of support needs to be agreed from the outset of the relationship.
What does the client expect from the relationship? What does the service include? What is the fee?
That upfront clarity sets the tone. Sometimes the answer is “not right now”; even then, the client leaves understanding what they need and what it costs to do it properly.
Once that’s established, fast responses and clear communication follow naturally. Not over-servicing for the sake of it.
Technology increases efficiency but doesn’t replace expertise
Technology has been part of the profession for years now. Bookkeeping platforms and invoice capture tools aren’t new, and business owners have become increasingly comfortable with them.
Initially, there was a perception that automation was simply “doing the accountant’s work”. The reality is different. It’s a more efficient way of doing the manual tasks that used to take hours, such as typing bank statements into spreadsheets or processing transactions line by line.
Instead of spending five hours on data entry, that time can be spent reviewing a profit and loss account and asking: where can we make meaningful changes? Where are the pressure points? How do we improve performance?
Accountancy is a service industry. Yes, there’s a product at the end, whether that be year-end accounts or management reports, but what clients are truly buying is expertise and partnership. They’re accessing someone who works with dozens of other business owners, who has seen similar challenges before and helped others navigate them.
Technology enhances that. It gives accountants more quality time to use their experience properly.
And that’s the direction of travel. The accounts will increasingly be automated. The compliance will continue to happen in the background. The real role of the accountant is to add value and to help clients reach their goals, whether that’s more money or more time.
Because in the end, it’s usually one of the two.
