Many accounting firms prepare financial statements for their clients and ensure that they conform to generally accepted accounting principles. However, the purpose of the statements is to indicate how the business is performing in terms of profitability, liquidity, return on investment, inventory turnover, ability to meet debt requirements, etc.

Simkover and Associates ensures that the client has been made aware of and understands the key implications of the financial statements or financial forecast. Depending on the ultimate use of the statements, implications can differ dramatically. For example, in cases where the statements are going to the bank where they will be used as support for continuing a bank loan, it is crucial to review the bank's performance criteria and specified performance ratios. So it is very important for the accounting firm to have strong expertise in the business implications of financial statements, and also to convey these implications to the client in PLAIN ENGLISH without confusing the client with financial techno-talk. This is how we operate at Simkover and Associates.

Simkover and Associates is highly responsive to clients' questions and other communications. There is a policy that all phone calls and emails must be answered the same or next day. This applies to all clients regardless of size of the business or the fee. All clients are equally important because they all must obtain a favourable impression of the quality and promptness of the services provided to them. This is why they are happy to keep coming back, and to refer business from their friends and contacts. Simkover and Associates even ensures that voicemails are checked and answered during vacations, because clients with urgent concerns should not have to wait one or two weeks for a reply.

The clients of accounting firms are often concerned about the competence of the staff working on their file. This is difficult for them to gauge unless the client has an accounting background, so they may wonder whether the latest income tax legislative changes have been taken into account in order to minimize the tax burden. How do we know if the client's accounting systems and accounting staff are working efficiently, or whether significant cost savings could be realized by making some small changes? At Simkover and Associates, we have 20 years prior experience working within the accounting systems of large corporations. This gives us insight into the various pitfalls of the systems as seen from the inside of the company. It also provides us with the expertise to recommend upgrades to more sophisticated systems as the clients grow. These upgrades often provide the client with more breakdowns of financial data which is useful to run the business on a day-to-day basis, or the ability to plan the business and easily check each month how we are doing versus the plan.

At Simkover and Associates, only C.A.'s with 15+ years experience are used at all times, to ensure the highest quality of work and to make sure that we are not using the client as a training ground for inexperienced staff. Incredibly, this does not result in high fees, because we are constantly verifying to ensure that fees are kept at competitive levels.

Many clients feel that their accounting firm should be well known in the business community. When hiring a new firm, they feel that this will provide them with peace of mind in terms of the competence of the accounting staff and the reliability of advice received from the firm. Simkover and Associates is not a household name in Toronto even though we have been in business for over 14 years. This is because we have a limited client base and we do not advertise on television or radio, preferring to rely on client referrals for business expansion. However, we only use C.A.'s with 15+ years experience, which eliminates the need for layers of managers and partners to verify the work of less experienced staffers. This approach results in the highest possible quality of work at a low cost to the client. In terms of tax advice, the client can rest assured that no issue is too complex for our firm, because we have constant access to one of the top tax experts in the country. This ensures that all difficult tax issues are handled in the best possible way for the client. This service is not expensive because the tax expert's time is only used on an as-needed basis, in situations that warrant it. The overall conclusion is that it is important to consider whether "reputation in the community" will really deliver high quality at a reasonable cost, or whether a firm like Simkover and Associates can deliver the same or better quality at a lower cost.