Your accountant is not a diva

Can someone please explain to me why people are so bloody afraid to speak to their accountants? They treat them like they're some kind of superstar. When usually it's just some number geek sat in an office getting excited over a particularly complex spreadsheet. #excelporn

It reminds me of the super diva celebs you hear about. You know the ones. They've usually got an entourage of henpecked, stressed looking people surrounding them and a massive list of demands and conditions. Don't look directly at the artist. The artist must only be addressed by one letter. You must provide 75 tonnes of wagyu beef and ten thousand skittles with all the green ones removed.

Well I've got news for you people. Your accountant is not Mariah.

I am so tired of people treating accountants like this. I absolutely love that my clients trust me enough to come to me with stuff like this, so this is no complaint about them (love you guys!). But there is something wrong in this world when they come to me with their tax questions, when I don't do their tax, while they throw thousands of pounds at their accountant to do that stuff and don't want to talk to them. Because their Accountant just isn't easy to talk to. Or uses complicated language. Or charges them every time they pick up their phone.

FFS there is no excuse for this behaviour from professionals in today's world of tech and instant answers. I know there are a lot of number geeks like myself who can actually speak plain English. You can have a chat with us and not want to fill your ears with molten lava to escape the incessant bore-fest. High fives to all you wonderful guys and gals for smashing that boring stereotype out of the water.

But there are also a hell of a lot of dinosaurs and relics of a bygone age. Who still have handwritten ledgers and tax tables and windows XP on a noisy tower pc in the corner of their dusty office. You know the kind of office. It's got a leather topped desk next to the chesterfield sofa. And maybe a quill pen. 😂🤔 This stuff has to stop if they want to survive. In fairness a lot of them will be retiring soon, but it's not just an age thing apparently. It's just a lack of imagination thing. Although that's hardly surprising given the nature of the accountancy world. But still...

TBF it's great for me. My clients are awesome people and I love to have a natter and get the lowdown on what exciting things are happening in their businesses and what their future plans are. And all those solitary, stuffy, grey accountants are just making me look better and better all the time.

But maybe that's the key. My clients know that I care. They know that I want to hear what's going on in their world. They know that I share the elation of their successes and the pain of their setbacks. And they know I'll do my best to help when they need it. So I don't mind fielding a question on furlough when I don't do payroll, or checking they're taking the right salary when I don't do their tax planning.

In fact, I think I deserve to start making some diva demands. From now on all clients must bring 2kg of chocolate and must address me as Princess Consuela Bananahammock. Now run along and fetch me my skinny vegan decaf latte and take my pet llama for a walk on your way. There's a good minion.