My Own Accounting Firm…The Stress

This post is really a sort of an answer to comments / questions posted in my previous post on the Results of My Experiment. Instead of replying to those questions through another comment, I thought about writing a post (or two or three) about my experience in having my own firm.

There are basically three things asked in my previous post – is it a lot of stress? What clients do I mainly deal with? And how’s the money?

First of all, the stress. Being my own boss is nice because I don’t have to answer to anybody. But then again, being my own boss means I get to worry and think about everything (I don’t have a partner by the way), which is not an easy task to do.

I mean now that I’m running my own show; I finally understood why my previous boss / partners kept on hounding us managers to collect from our clients. In my own firm, if I don’t collect what my clients owe me, my people do not get paid their salaries, I won’t be able to pay my rent and my utilities and I won’t be able to buy the equipment and the supplies needed to keep my business rolling. Plus, I won’t be able to have any funds for my personal needs. So yes, in this aspect, having my own accounting firm can be stressful.

And how about if one of my staff makes any mistake and I was not able to see it on time? I have to shoulder the blame on this. At least when I was in the big accounting firm, my boss kind of shielded me from the consequences of any errors I made. Now, the buck stops with me. Can you just imagine how it is when you realize your people made a mistake and you will be the one answering it? Not easy I tell you.

But then again, the stress here is much more manageable than the stress when I was still in a big accounting firm, particularly if you consider that I used to handle public companies. Now that was a somewhat nerve – wracking experience. One major false move and the firm can lose its (big – ticket) client and its reputation. With my own firm, thankfully, I don’t handle such big clients. Plus I’m closer to my clients right now and I have a good working relationship with them so I can readily address any problem that they may have as well as easily meet any (negative) consequences resulting from my or my people's actions / mistakes.

And that is all I have to say about the stress. On my next post, the clients and the money…

Please take note (not trying to be defensive here) - these are based on my own experiences. Others may agree with me and still others may have different views altogether. If you own an accounting firm and have a different take on this matter, please feel free to leave a comment below so that others will see and read them and gain more knowledge from them.