FindanAccountant is not the only accountant directory in town. Nearly all the accounting institutions have “Find a member” pages. But even if you are a member in good standing with one of these institutions, there is a good chance you are not even aware of this feature of your membership. The reason for this is simple - the accounting institutions have their main focus elsewhere - education, accreditation, and governance just being a few of them. Running a successful specialty accounting directory is a business in itself and cannot be successfully done as a side-project. We know, we’ve been doing this thing for over 15 years.
Don’t get me wrong, the Institution “Find a member” feature is extremely useful - we use it ourselves for our new Professional Membership Verification feature. From a verification point of view, these are a great service, but for marketing to the general public, not so much.
Even if members of the public did get to these sites, it is not necessarily the optimal place to find the perfect accountant for their needs. A CA might not be the right type of accountant to do a small business’s bookkeeping. Yes, they may certainly be proficient at it, but it would really be overkill, and likely reflected in the price. One could argue that that the CA might delegate it to a junior staff member, or even a sub-contractor, but there are many advantages in dealing directly with the person doing your bookkeeping.
Other organizations offer “Find an accountant” functionality too, such as accounting software providers. But these directories are not independent either - their agenda is to get you to use an accountant that uses their accounting software rather than a competitor’s. Ideally, an SME looking for a new accountant should be open to exploring different accounting software solutions, and find out what is available in the market. Software is continually evolving and there might be a better solution out there for a business's exact needs.
If an enterprise is looking for a new accountant to step in for an existing accountant, it is surely one of the best moments to be finding out all of the solutions on offer. This is not something a business is going to get by simply relying on a software vendor’s accountant search. (One could compare this scenario to getting insurance from a representative of a single company, as opposed to dealing with a broker who can shop around for the best provider for your needs).
Ideally, an SME looking for a new accountant (or even a private individual looking for somebody to do their tax returns) should use an independent accountant directory. It is only a fully independent organisation that can offer the full gamut of accounting solutions - accountants at all sorts of different levels (depending on your requirements) and accountants offering a wide range of independent software solutions. Every other kind of accountant directory has their own agenda - to promote their accounting accreditation for whatever your accounting requirement, or to promote the accountants that use their product.
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