T. L. Wall Accounting and Tax Corp is a pretty small, local accounting company located in North Syracuse, NY. By small, I mean it’s mainly myself and another accountant for most of the year, along with an office assistant. During tax season I bring in a couple other people to help us get through all the extra work but mainly it’s just the 3 of us year round.
We do pretty well for ourselves, all things considered. We’re certainly never going to challenge companies that have hundreds of employees for all clients but there are many benefits that bring clients to us instead of them.
This isn’t a commercial for just our accounting firm. There are a good number of small accounting firms in our area and most of them are doing extremely well. There are lots of reasons why people like working with us, and we’re going to name 5 of them.
1. You can actually talk to and work with the person at the top.
Unless you’re the president of a multi-million dollar organization, you’re never going to walk into a large accounting firm and have the opportunity to talk to the person in charge. You definitely know you’re never going to have that person even looking at your taxes or books, let alone knowing what’s going on with them.
In a small firm, the person at the top looks at everything before it goes out to a client. The owner might actually be the accountant who’s working your account rather than handing it off to someone else. Either way, it’s nice knowing that the person in charge knows what’s going on if you need to talk to them specifically.
Also, you can talk to the person at the top multiple ways. You can go into the office, talk on the phone and even send email, knowing who’s going to get it… and they’ll respond to you (although during tax season it might take a little while longer).
2. Your account can educate you on how to work a budget.
When you establish a relationship with a small accounting firm, they want to make sure you know how to manage your money if they notice something is lacking. Many of them are willing to take some extra time to help you set up a budget or learn how to pay bills. It doesn’t matter whether you’re looking to set up a budget for your small business or a personal budget; they’re there to give you a helping hand.
3. Your accountant will have business contacts to recommend you to that are based more on trust than possible revenue generated leads.
Unlike large accounting firms, you’ll find that small accounting firms not only know which local businesses to recommend you to if you need any types of services such as investing or legal issues, but they’ve met and vetted these people also. They can’t take this lightly like larger firms can because every time they make a recommendation their reputation is on the line.
4. Small accounting firms can set up different types of accounts for their clients.
If you go to a large firm, you’ll find that they have pre-determined packages and rates that can’t be negotiated. With smaller accounting firms, they have the flexibility to tailor themselves to the types of services you actually need rather than have a one-size-fits-all model.
The reason for this is simple. With a small accounting firm there are fewer mouths to feed and no stockholders to appease. There are no partners that have to buy in and be taken care of for the corporation by the peons of the company, who work overtime for the billable hours. Even though they’re always looking for new clients, they’re also usually pretty content with the ones they already have so there’s no aggressive push to get you into an expensive program.
There’s no denigrating large accounting firms. Most of them are very good. We believe smaller accounting firms will offer a more personal touch, which is something we do with our clients.
