Five Types of Accountants

As we all "know", there are five different types of accountants in the UK.

Traditional Accountants

Traditional accountancy businesses are run on a high profit margin but low volume basis.  Their working procedure tends to be bureaucratic and "traditional".  Their business approach (if any) is retrospective, introverted and irresponsive to the outside world. 

Most of the tradiontal accountants charge their clients high (if not exorbitant) service fees simply because they can and they cleverly take full advantage of the loyalty of their clients.  The favourite pricing methods of traditional accountants are hourly and turnover basis as it is considered to be the most efficient way to "justify" their huge accountancy bills.

The quality of the services to their clients is very low on their priority list as, being an tradtional accountant, they are "a bit" (if not deliberately) ignorant of what their clients really feel about the services they receive.  Some of them are even more concerned with the quality of the ties they wear at the meetings with their clients than the quality of the services they actually provide for their clients.  Isn't it sad?


E-Accountants

E-Accountants do things pretty much in an E way.  You DIY your bookkeeping even though you are not a professional bookkeeper.  The accounting software they recommend you to use includes ClearBooks, FreeAgents and KashFlow.  Some of them may even recommend you to use Sage and QuickBooks. 

E-Accountants tend to charge lower fees than traditional accountants because you are supposed to do 80% of the bookkeeping (and accounting) job yourself.  E-Clients, while paying lower fees to their E-Accountants, are required to pay subsciption or licence fees for using accounting software. 

Although bookeeping is not as "professional" a job as accounting, it does not mean you, as a non-professional bookkeeper, should do bookkeeping for your business on a DIY basis.  Doing bookkeeping, as we all know, is always a tedious and time-consuming job, no matter how you do it.  DIY bookkeeping together with E Accounting is a recipe for disaster.


Pigeon Accountants

Pigeon accountants relieve their clients of bookkeeping duty by sending freepost envelopes to them so that their clients can send business stuff  to their pigeon accountants using the envelopes.  The pigeon accountants can then do the bookkeeping in a pigeon style -  simple and efficient.

Because pigeons tend to run a business on a low profit margin but high volume basis (completely oppposite to traditional "human" accountants), pigeon clients tend to get a very low fee.

As your business stuff is delivered by pigeons, a few problems may occur:

1. Your pigeons can get lost;
2. Your pigeons can get killed by eagles or hawks;
3. Your pigeons can be too busy looking for food or mating with each other;
4. Your pigeons can be eaten by pelicans as shown in this video.

Donkey Accountants

As in other professions, there are always a few (if not too many) bad apples.  Donkey accountants are accountants who talk like a donkey, think like a donkey and act like a donkey.  They are as incompetent as donkeys.

How to spot donkey accountants?  It could not be easier to spot donkey accountants.  A typical donkey accountant has a long face with two eyes, one nose, one month and two ears.  So if your accountant matches the descriptions above, he might be a donkey accountant.


Turf Accountants

Are they accountants?