Gone are the days when we stand in line at the bank to pay in cheques that take seven days to clear – now money transfers instantly at the click of a mouse. No more queues at the supermarket or in the high street to buy retail essentials; we place our order and they just turn up at our front door the next day. Utility bills have moved online and we’ve taken control of the process by inputting our own meter readings and managing our accounts via the internet. You can even take bad debtors to the small claims court without even leaving your armchair!
So, why then do so many limited company contractors still wait several weeks for their annual accounts to be delivered in person, in stuffy offices based above shops in dreary town centres, with nightmare parking during office hours. And all of this costs contractors a day or half a day’s fee income! Why does so much of the professional services sector still cling to outmoded service delivery models that suit the suits, but fall a long way short of meeting customer expectations?
Contractors won’t win new contracts if they don’t evolve incredibly swiftly, gain new enabling technology skills and make process improvements to match market expectations and their clients’ needs. Why should they expect any less from contracting sector service providers? The main contracting service providers, such as recruitment agencies, umbrella companies, banks and insurers, have all embraced online real-time service delivery models – why not contractor accountants?
Enabling technology removes unnecessary processes
Enabling online technology can completely cut out unnecessary processes. Once a contractor has entered all their transactions online, processing end of year accounts can now be completed online in one click. Crunch accountants, for example, has invested in developing a banking-grade enterprise Java system that meets all the statutory requirements of Companies House and HMRC. It also replaces almost entirely the back-office function of an accountancy firm that runs on the old professional services practice business and process model.
But Crunch has not adopted a classic dot.com model either. Behind the online accounting software, which has taken three years and nearly £1m in development time to create, is a team of qualified accountants and customer services experts who are at the end of the phone to answer technical questions about tax and accountancy, as well as to provide general support for Crunch.co.uk users.
Offering a genuine choice of channel for professional services
This means at long last, just as with most other essential services, contractors can choose the channel they use to interact with their accountant. If a contractor prefers to input invoices in the dead of night, their online accounts are available 24/7, providing an ongoing real-time snapshot of corporation tax liability and available cash to withdraw at any one time.
And Crunch will soon be able to reconcile automatically with many of the major banks, with more planned for 2011, providing contractors with even greater up-to-the-minute control over their finances. If the contractor wants to resolve a tax query by speaking to a human being, a qualified accountant can be at the end of the phone during the contractor’s rest break.
Professional accountancy services have entered a new era of offering contractors an alternative to that annual meeting to discuss the end-of-year accounts, which takes months to prepare for and is sometimes left so late by the accountant that contractors can fear filing late. With interim accounts being done in real time, contractors can tell at any point how much they can declare as dividends, without having to guess or requesting the information from their accountant each time.
Ongoing investment to fund customer service, not dot.com cash burn
With 700 contractor clients, online accountants Crunch has begun to turn profit after just 18 months of trading. This means its latest round of investment, £500,000 from existing shareholders – which include Bebo co-founder Paul Birch and former Skype Chairman Michael van Swaaij – will go straight into developing the service and growing the business further. The development team is to be expanded into new office space and will focus on building even more features into Crunch.co.uk.
Contractors wishing to grow their business and take on employees will soon have even greater choice over how they manage their payroll responsibilities. Rapidly following the latest development of online end-of-year accounts included in the service and available at the click of a mouse, Crunch users will be able to access the enhanced functionality of an online payroll management system for up to ten employees.
There will be some contractors who will continue to visit their accountants each year to sign off on the annual accounts, because that’s their choice as the client. But contractors who prefer to do things differently and don’t feel the need to engage personally with their online accountancy services provider now have a genuine choice. Online providers like Crunch prove that accountancy has evolved to service the expectations of their contractor clients.