If you’ve looked at the services of various online accountants you might have come across companies who rave about using a ‘network service model’.

Essentially this involves online accountancy firms outsourcing projects and tasks to a network of external accountants. I.e. a larger company using small, independent accountants to work on their clients’ accounts, bookkeeping or self-assessment etc.  

The idea being that it can make the accountancy work and the service quicker and more efficient, as well as reduce the unit cost.

It sounds great in theory, but the reality unfortunately doesn’t live up to expectations. We should know, we tried ourselves.

Back in 2020 we actually went all-guns-blazing in on an accounting as a platform model. Which integrated our own cloud-based software with a digital network of micro-practice accountants. 

These accountants accessed a centralised portal at Crunch HQ, where they would handle account processing, tax-related tasks, and respond to client inquiries regarding year-end accounts or self-assessment matters.

Crunch continually innovates and we wanted to build a super scaling and flexible extension to our unique accounting service delivery platform. 

This was specifically designed to build upon our strong ACCA Chartered Accredited Accounting Practice that provides all the accounting services to our clients

With 15 years of experience in building this, we knew precisely how to find, test and trial the best accountants in the UK in conjunction with our in-house accounting team to comprehensively check the work.

Whilst some of our partner accountants delivered sterling work, it seemed over time, the majority of the partner accountants work was of poorer quality that needed audits and amendments from our accountants. So the quality delivered to the end client was perfect.

Whilst we will never stop innovating, we have decided to use all the positives of the extended Crunch platform we built. BUT we have replaced the whole network with our own highly trained accountants.

Our conclusion is that network models like some of our competitors that focus on self assessments deliver poor quality, slow and in some cases incorrect work.

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In-house accountants only

Now all of our work is 100% done by in-house accountants. And we’ve expanded our team to 50+ accountants to meet growing demand for our service. This enables us to have full oversight and control of everything we are doing for our clients and guarantee perfection.

So when other accountancy online firms boldly claim that the networking service model is quicker and better for their clients, it makes us chuckle. As they clearly haven’t done their research!

And we’ve already been there, done that and found the only real way to deliver top-quality and secure accounting for small businesses.

If you’re a Sole Trader or Ltd Company looking for award-winning accountancy software and service to boost your business finances then you can try this for yourself. 

Simply check out our awesome Sole Trader and Ltd Company accounting packages and speak to one of our friendly advisors who’ll be happy to answer your questions.