Small and medium-sized entities as users of accounting services: do professional accountants meet the needs of their SME client?

Professional accountants are no longer regarded as mere bean counters with a calculator, but instead a one-stop provider of value-added business services to meet the growing demands and expectations of their clients. Published literature suggests that the small and medium-sized business entities' (SMEs') decision to outsource business advisory services from their professional accountant is influenced by the relationship between the professional accountant and SME as well as the way traditional compliance accounting services are provided. An interpretivist research paradigm and a qualitative methodological approach were used for this study. Data were collected through interviews conducted with 18 participants from SME clients of professional accountants. The findings indicate that professional accountants do meet the needs of most of their SME clients. It was, however, evident that these expectations were mostly limited to traditional accounting services due to SMEs being unaware that their professional accountant could potentially offer business advisory services to meet their non-traditional accounting desires.