’An extension of our own’: accountants look to collaborate with bookkeepers

Kevin San & Associates director Kevin San says partnering with bookkeeping firms was an opportunity that paid off for his firm in 2017, and believes other small-to-medium sized firms will follow on that trajectory in the new year.

“I think we’ll see small-to-medium firms start to dip their toes into bookkeeping and payroll to increase their fee footprint in the medium-size client sector,” said Mr San.

“Clients will be quite spoiled for choice with a service at every price point in the SME sector.

“And there will be great opportunities for the industry to grow our fee base via additional services, whether for established firms or new ones, and there’ll be plenty of opportunities for firms to collaborate.”

Conversely, Mr San believes collaboration will be the way forward for both accounting and bookkeeping firms as they aim to offer clients a “complete solution”.

“Our experience has been that bookkeeping firms are expanding into advisory, and it makes sense for them to partner with a tax agent so that they can offer their clients a complete solution,” said Mr San.

“Our experience has been that if a bookkeeping practice has processes that are very similar to ours, then plugging into their processes feels like an extension of our own.

“And then the tax compliance becomes extremely efficient for us to do.”