If you’re looking around for an online accountant, then The Accountancy Partnership and Mazuma are probably both on your radar. At first glance, The Accountancy Partnership and Mazuma might sound like they offer the same service.

Both provide accounting services for businesses, such as tax returns and accounts, as well as bookkeeping and payroll. But here at The Accountancy Partnership, we do things a little differently.

Pay for the services that you actually use

At The Accountancy Partnership we provide a range of accounting services to help you run your business efficiently, without charging you for services that you don’t need. Bookkeeping (the process of managing your financial records) is a good example of this.

Any accountant who works on a set of accounts will need the business’ bookkeeping. No matter who your accountant is, you have two choices:

• Take care of your bookkeeping yourself
• Have an accountant or bookkeeper do it for you

How it works with Mazuma

Mazuma will charge you for bookkeeping, even if you prefer to complete it yourself. It’s probably one of the reasons why their fees are more expensive.

Even then, they’ll still only complete your bookkeeping once a month, at the most.

If you want more up-to-date access to your figures, you’ll be responsible for taking care of everything yourself, using FreshBooks – despite paying Mazuma for their bookkeeping service.

How we do things at The Accountancy Partnership

With The Accountancy Partnership you can:

• Complete the bookkeeping for free yourself, either with Pandle (our own software), or any other software you prefer.
• Or, you can have us complete your bookkeeping for you, from as little as 50p per transaction – only paying for what you need.

If you choose to do your own bookkeeping, you can update your records as often as you want, and always have the correct financial information available. That means knowing which invoices need to be paid, which customers still owe you money, and how things are looking at any given moment, rather than waiting until the end of the month for Mazuma to send your monthly report.

If you use Pandle, our trained bookkeepers will support you every step of the way. From initial set up calls, to our in-app live chat support and product tours, you can get instant answers about anything you’re unsure of. Even if you don’t use our bookkeeping service!

The benefits of our proactive bookkeeping checks

Even if you do your own bookkeeping with Pandle, our bookkeepers will regularly review your records– for free. It’s just one of the little perks of being a The Accountancy Partnership client.

Our proactive bookkeeping checks ensure we spot potential problems before they develop into something bigger, and let you know if there are any improvements which might help you.

Should I use The Accountancy Partnership or Mazuma?

Because every business is different, some need more support than others. Here at The Accountancy Partnership, we only charge clients for the services that they use.

And whilst we don’t like to brag, our clients clearly like the way we do things…

Comparing bookkeeping software

Because Pandle is our very own software, it’s specially designed for the businesses that we work with. We can release updates which solve specific problems our clients and other small businesses have.

It also means we know the software like the back of our hand! Our Live Chat team of bookkeepers (who sit right next to your accountants at our UK offices in the Northwest and in London) can help if you ever need it.

Mazuma provide their own receipt scanning app, MazApp, which bookkeeping clients can use to submit their documents.

Thanks to a partnership with FreshBooks, Mazuma are also able to provide this as another option. They’ll enter your records into FreshBooks for you each month as part of their bookkeeping service, or you can manage it yourself and access your records more quickly.

FreshBooks is pretty user-friendly, and has lots of excellent support articles, but as a Canadian company it doesn’t fully service UK VAT and tax.

This means it doesn’t support the Flat Rate Scheme or the domestic reverse charge, and you’ll need bridging software to submit your MTD VAT return.

Choosing the online accountant who is right for you

As we’re much larger than Mazuma, we have systems in place to make sure your level of service never drops, regardless of illnesses or unexpected absences.

Every accountant is paired up with a ‘buddy’, so if your normal accountant is on holiday or ill, their buddy can help you with any queries relating to your business. You won’t have to wait to get the answers you need.

Having a big team also means we have hundreds of years of experience between us. With accountancy and tax laws being such a massive subject, it helps to have such a diverse range of knowledge!

Learn more about our online accounting services for small businesses, and get an instant online quote.

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About The Author

Elizabeth Hughes

A content writer specialising in business, finance, software, and beyond. I'm a wordsmith with a penchant for puns and making complex subjects accessible. Learn more about Elizabeth.

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