Academy Chartered Accountants Limited
Chartered Accountant
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Why us - what can you expect

What's so special about our accounting services?

Our clients are in business. That means they want to make money - whether that's a primary motivation or just a necessity to achieve other goals. So our job isn't just to do accounts (although naturally we do that to a high standard).

There are four things most clients really want - and a nice set of accounts isn't one of them. They want:
  • help to make money;

  • guidance;

  • help to avoid pitfalls;

  • and expertise.
So for most of our clients, we do New Zealand accounts and tax returns, just as any Kiwi chartered accountant should do. But we are also here when you need us. That may include an e-mail or chat about specific issues - or it may involve a detailed exercise looking at areas of the business, whether that be helping with setting goals - or improving systems - our any one of dozens of different areas - not normally thought of as strictly accounting.

In a nutshell, you tell us what services you want from your chartered accountant, and we agree a price. You pay that price by monthly A/P, and we deliver the services. (As an aside you can then claim your accounting costs in the year concerned - otherwise IRD only allows those costs in the following year.) You will never get an unexpected bill from us. Most of the time, the A/P is the only payment that will ever be needed - although you can choose to add one-off services at any time. And you can ring or Skype or e-mail us with any queries at any time, generally with no extra charge involved.

So what if the services aren't covered by the normal fee? For example you may choose to upgrade software through us. Or you may choose to set up a company or trust. Or you may choose to use some of our specialist business development services. Or it may be that what appears to you as a simple question had some tricky aspects that involve more work on our part. Again you will never get a bill from us with first agreeing to it. Almost always this will involve a set fee for an agreed service. In all of these cases payment will be expected either at the placement of the order (e.g. in the case of software updates) or on completion of the task.

And what do we expect from you in return? We expect regular monthly payments - it's like employing us as part of your team (but without all the hassles that involves). It means at the end of the year, you've already paid a guaranteed price for your accounts. But we only take on clients in two categories. The first is where we do GST returns and accounts via Banklink (or possibly an accountant's special version of Xero). The second is where we help you do the accounts in a commercial package designed for use in NZ. So we don't support for example Quicken, but we do support QuickBooks, Moneyworks, MYOB and Xero. We also work with other packages on their merits.

So how do we do that when you could be anywhere in NZ? We use Skype for general purposes - and a program called TeamViewer for remote access (we can also turn around the connection and demonstrate from our own machine when needed). This allows us to see what you're doing and to show you how we do things, and makes it easy to support and train users regardless of location. Of course you will require a broadband connection.

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