I like getting in my car and going to visit my clients - am I weird?

Manufacturing businesses will no doubt, have close contact with their accountant. Maybe it is discussing business generally, receiving tax advice, or discussing the annual accounts.  Have you ever been to your accountant’s office to have these meetings? Why?

What is there at your accountant’s office? Nice chairs? Nice cup of tea? It amazes me how much advice from a traditional accountant is given at their office. (Mind you, there will be some who still deal with the accounts by post!)

Your accountant or tax advisor cannot learn an awful amount about your business from his/her office. The only way to truly understand a business is to conduct work and meetings at the client’s premises. After all, the meeting is about YOU and YOUR business, not your accountant’s business.

What benefits can be gained from meeting at your premises? From my experience of travelling around North West manufacturing businesses, I get to know each and every client’s business thoroughly. I will notice if there have been any changes. For example, new equipment; an extension; new staff; new vehicles. More often however, I actually get to know proposed changes in advance.

The ultimate benefit to your business is that you receive well-targeted, specific tax and business advice on a proactive basis.

I went to see a client recently in order to give some taxation advice. Whilst there, we were talking about asset purchases. It was an opportunity for me to discover that the current year had very little spending and the following year there was to be significant spending. Through our discussions, we decided to alter the spending pattern to ensure that we would receive 100% tax allowances on assets as opposed to 40% on the total spend.

So, am I weird? Maybe so. But surely to a client’s advantage.