We needed a plumber this week and I called on our reliable plumber we have used for the past 33 years who lives around the corner. After he did the job we chatted as we have done before, catching up on families and business. He started complaining about the plumbing industry and how people don’t seem to care about integrity, doing a good job and being reliable anymore and mentioned a number of projects he’s had to work on to fix the dodgy job that a previous plumber did. Some of them huge commercial projects costing tens of thousands to fix. Jobs that are supposed to be signed off by the plumbing authority but they condone self-assessment so each plumber signs a consent to say the work was done to the required standard. The problem is, he said, that they don’t seem to care that they cut corners which, in some cases, could endanger lives. And although I realise there are lots out there doing the right thing, I tend to agree that there probably are many who don’t and commented that I’ve found the same thing in the bookkeeping industry.
The truth is if you put ten bookkeepers in a room there would be ten different ways of doing the same thing (you might have heard me mention that before) and half of them would be wrong. I realise that as bookkeepers we are not endangering lives when mistakes are made but we may very well be endangering the health of a client’s business. And it’s often a very costly exercise. So what’s the answer? Well, the TPB have made a start by regulating the industry but I know there are bookkeepers out there breaking the law and hoping they won’t be found out. So I think we need to do more.
At Pure Bookkeeping we’ve made our mission to transform the bookkeeping industry by helping great bookkeepers grow their businesses. And if you also think the bookkeeping industry could do with a shakeup, I’d love to hear from you. You can leave your thoughts below.
P.S. We’re about to run a series our Seven Secrets of Growing Your Bookkeeping Business Seminars in May and June around Australia. So far over 1000 bookkeepers have attended leaving with strategies to get paid what their worth and how to empower business owners around their finances. If you’re interested you can register here or watch our free video here. We would love to see you there.