Over the years I have had many conversations with prospective clients, some have gone on to become clients and some haven’t, that is just the nature of business.
One thing that has always stuck with me is the misconception that it is hard to change Accountants. It is actually very easy to change Accountants and once the engagement is signed, it is the Accountant that handles the switch over – from writing to the old Accountant to handling any paperwork or software transfers. The other side of it is the idea that “it is better the devil you know”, essentially the switch is an unknown quantity because the initial conversation was great but is this going to be an Accountant that actually delivers or is this just another that is full of empty promises (much like your current Accountant).
To make the change easier I have come up with a bit of a risky concept. An Accounting Services Free Trial – something you will rarely see from an Accountant. This service is designed to give you access to Cloudsoft Accounting services without the need to change from your current Accountant and it will be free of charge. The free trial will be for a period of 1 month and will allow any prospective client to speak to us, have meetings, review their software and accounts and get any advice they might need without having to pay a cent and without needing to leave the current Accountant. At the end of that month you can sign on as a client or keep using the current Accountant (without them ever knowing you were thinking of leaving them).
As with any free trial there are of course some conditions. We cannot complete financial statements, tax returns, cashflow forecasts, etc during that month as you would need to be an active client for us to provide those services. But for general advice and queries we think this is a great way to dip your toes in and get a feel for whether we would work well together.