I’ve heard several stories in the last few days about accountants giving what appears to be bad advice re newsagencies. Too often I see newsagents rely on their accountants to guide them on basic business decisions that don’t need accountant input. Here are the four stories (without names) to illustrate my point.
- An accountant advising a newsagency purchaser assessing the business records of a possible acquisition failed to properly assess the business performance and then charged too much. A $5,000 bill to assess business numbers seems steep to me.
- An accountant told a business to stick with manual business records when more automated processes would have cut the billings levied by the accountant against the newsagency business.
- An accountant said that a particular in-store equipment investment was not appropriate only to recommend the same item be purchased from a client of the accountant. The deal was no better for the newsagent.
- An accountant failed to draw to attention of the owner falling GP and thereby failed to facilitate the uncovering what was later found to be employee theft in a timely manner. The data was there for the accountant to see.
Some accountants handing newsagency business records don’t understand the businesses and therefore fail to provide the advice the business needs. This can get in the way of newsagents making good business decisions.
For what it’s worth, I think newsagents should back themselves more. They’re the ones in the business. They should have the business skills and knowledge to make decisions too often I see pushed onto accountants who are not in the business and who often do not understand the business.
Out of curiosity what would be the average newsagents spend on an accountant a year ?
Too much
$4000
We are just over the 10grand mark ,now I really think I am getting ripped
Shaun’s
I am a small newsagent and pay about $3500/$4000 per year and I thought that was steep.
Our accountant prepares our reports for the ATO and our bankers. We’re responsible for the data in and the insight and decisions out. The accountant does what is expected.
We use MYOB to analyse GP, ROS and all positions in between. MYOB is a clumsy & cumbersome system to use, unless you’re on it all the time. I often think there must be a small business accounting system that is better suited to the multi tasking time poor environment we work in.
Xero is excellent. Your accountant should cost no more than $4K and preferably close to $3K.
$6000 last year, and my husband is an accountant so he prepares a lot for him.
Have distribution business as well as shop.
Included in that has been extra work when we were selling the business, plus help with other problems.
Hope our accountant doesn’t read this blog !!
$800 – $1000 a year and that is with calls and any extra reports during the year if needed.
We get our accountant to do everything ,end of year financials , bas and wages . Wages we are cutting out of the picture and doing it ourselves ,something we should have always been doing they charge us $3000 just for that alone . I feel like a real fool after reading what others pay
average $4500 + gst over the last 3 years
Dero looks good, can it import from retailer?
Ooops xero looks good, can it import from retailer?
shauns cheaper isn’t necessarily better, a good accountant can save you lots of money, but the more you can do yourself (like wages) the better off you are.
Soon Rick.
Jenny this is the problem ,how do I know if I am getting a better job for my money than what I would for half the price .Wages is something I should have been doing from the start , funny how the accountant is always looking at ways to improve our business eg cut back staff but was happy to charge $3000 to do wages each year for 6 years
The most difficult thing with wages is starting out. Setting it up and understanding the enormous number of rates and calculations can be daunting for many. Once you get the hang of it you’ll whip through them each week in no time at all.
can anyone give me good accountant contact we want to buy a newsagency and have no experience or much knowledge so need some advice. everyone says newsagency is not a good business to buy so don’t go for it and therefore they are so many in the market at the moment. we want to speak to someone who knows about newsagency business.
Aami if you are in NSW I can recommend Grant Arnold of Pinker, Arnold & McLaughlin. Ph 0295214002. He specializes in doing Due Diligence for newsagency purchasers
Andrew you are a pathetic troll out to gain support for your own failures. There are plenty of success stories as the evidence shows.