Cost Control;

 

You may have more leverage than you think when it comes to hiring an accountant. The major accounting firms are so anxious to build their growth-company clientele these days that you could be in a good position to negotiate favorable rates.

"It's generally possible to get one of the 20 largest firms to give you a fixed rate for three years," notes Judson Beamsley, president of Tek-Aid Industries Inc., a distributor of microcomputer products in Arlington Heights, Ill. "We dropped the fee for a full audit from $27,000 to $17,000 under a three-year contract guarantee."

Of course, you may have problems keeping your rate down when the contract ends. Beamsley, for one, was notified that his Big Eight accounting firm planned to raise its fees by 50% at the expiration of its contract. "So we contacted another Big Eight firm and negotiated a rate that was $2,500 less per year than the previous fee," he says gleefully. "It's like anything else -- the fee is always negotiable, and people who don't negotiate pay."