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106 • The 100 Greatest Ideas for Building the Business of Your Dreams

measures in place to make sure that you are taking these as seriously in actions as
you are in words. It is unlikely that a human resources department will be cost-
effective until you are a fair size. In any case your managers should carry out most of
what the HR department would do, and for the technical issues, tax and cars and so
on, use your accountant until he or she is stretched to carry out the role. At that
point you may consider outsourcing the specialist bits, or, if you are growing rapidly
get a headhunter to join the board as a non-exec.

Idea 62 - Choose the right accountants

Almost everyone I spoke to mentioned this. To be honest many of them had learnt
by taking on the wrong one to begin with. The right accountant is a terrific asset,
while the wrong one is potentially a huge liability. This gives us some clues to the
best advice:

• Look for an accountant who is appropriate for your size of business. They are
unlikely to be able to add industry knowledge because they have clients in
your area of operation, but they can give you good advice based on experience
of companies going through the same type of growing pains as you.

• From this we can gather that you must not be afraid to change your account-
ant when he or she has become less appropriate. If you have grown to twenty
or thirty people the accountant who is brilliant with start-up companies may
no longer be right for you.

• As you change your geography too you may have to change to an accountant
who is able to support your premises all in different locations.

• The time may come when you need the 'branding' of one of the big boys to
assist you in raising finance or buying businesses. One person gave this advice.
If you are going to an outfit like KPMG, choose an office that is local to you
but not in one of the big business metropolises. Once again this is because the