When I started my career in accounting, the role was well defined. You looked after the books. You submitted the returns. You kept the client compliant. The relationship was transactional: the client provided data, the accountant processed it, the output was financials and a tax return.
That model still exists. For many South African accounting practices it still dominates.
But that is where it ends. Is it:
- Sufficient for compliance? Yes.
- Sufficient for building a financially healthy, strategically sound South African business? Absolutely not.
What South African SMEs actually need sits at the intersection of accounting, business advisory and coaching. Someone who understands the numbers deeply enough to interpret them accurately, understands business well enough to connect them to strategic decisions and understands people well enough to ask the questions that produce genuine insight rather than defensive answers.
I am NOT a business coach. They are completely different and operate very differently to accountants in practice. They have their own place and I do not step into that space. When I say ‘coaching’ in this post, I mean guidance from an accountants view based on the information in the accounts.
The three levels of value
| Level | What it delivers |
| Information | The raw material. Financial statements, tax returns, management accounts. Accurate and timely. This is what compliance accountants provide consistently. |
| Insight | The interpretation. What do these numbers mean for your specific business, your goals and your situation right now? This is what good advisers add to the information. |
| Change | What happens when the insight is received by a business owner who trusts their adviser enough to act on it. This is what great coaching enables. |
The accounting profession has historically been very good at the first level and much less consistent at the second and third. The reasons are partly structural: compliance creates volume business that does not reward depth of relationship. They are partly cultural: accounting training does not typically develop coaching or advisory skills.
Information is what accountants have always produced. Insight is what good advisers add. Change is what great coaches enable. The most valuable accounting relationship delivers all three, and the South African SME market needs more of them.
What the coaching element actually looks like
When I describe myself as an accountant (accounting practice) with a coaching dimension, I mean something specific. Questions asked before answers are given. Financial data presented in a way that invites the client to draw conclusions rather than simply telling them what the numbers mean. Assumptions are challenged, particularly the assumption that the way the business has always been done is the way it should continue. As far as possible, holding clients to the goals they set, not sympathetically but consistently.
It also means I do need to understand the business behind the numbers. The strategy, the competitive context, the owner’s personal goals and the constraints that shape what is actually possible. That breadth of understanding is what allows myself to say:
- given your current gross margin, the hire you are considering makes financial sense from month four.
- Or: your pricing is inconsistent with the market position you say you want to occupy.
- Or: you have been carrying this underperforming client for 18 months and the cost in margin and management time is material.
These insights require financial literacy, business understanding and the trust of the client relationship. Compliance alone does not produce them.
Why this matters for South African SMEs specifically
South Africa has a specific need for this kind of advisory relationship because the structural environment in which South African SMEs operate is particularly complex. The regulatory burden is high. The economic environment is constrained. The cost of capital is significant. Skills are scarce.
In this environment, a South African SME owner navigating alone, with only a compliance accountant as financial support, is at a structural disadvantage relative to one who has a genuine advisory partner. The advisory relationship does not change the external environment. But it changes the owner’s ability to navigate it: with better information, better decisions and the accountability structure to execute consistently.
That is what I am building at BC Accounting Services. Not just an accounting firm. A practice that takes the financial health of South African SMEs seriously enough to invest in the kind of advisory relationships that actually move the needle.
Ready to work with an accountant who also acts as more than your compliance partner? Book a free discovery call with Bruce.
About the author
Bruce is the founder of BC Accounting Services (BCAS), a Xero Partner and Certified Adviser based in South Africa. He works with SME owners and growing businesses to build financial clarity, strategic direction and measurable performance through the PCP Method: Purpose, Clarity, Performance.
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