A C C O F I S K A

Accofiska is an accountancy and bookkeeping practice headquartered on Ninoofsesteenweg in Lennik, in Flemish Brabant, west of Brussels. The firm has three offices, in Lennik, in Aalst and in Ternat, and reports a team of twenty-three. It is registered with the ITAA under number 50.024.314. That size places it above the average for practices in the area, where firms of fewer than ten people dominate.

The firm covers three areas it announces together: accountancy, audit and tax, to which it adds business advice. It serves companies and sole traders without distinction, and states that it works at every stage, from a start-up project to an established company.

Its positioning rests on a sentence worth taking seriously: the office states that it looks at the figures not from a purely tax standpoint but from a business economics standpoint, with the declared aim of finding how the business can be run more profitably. The difference is not rhetorical. A tax reading seeks to reduce one year's assessment; an economic reading looks at margin, cost structure and working capital needs, which is what decides whether the business will hold.

The firm highlights the guarantee of at least one named contact who takes the time to get to know the business thoroughly, backed by a team of twenty-three. That is the classic answer to the mid-sized practice dilemma: keeping the personal relationship of a small office while having the varied skills of a larger structure.

Services cover bookkeeping, VAT and tax returns, preparation of the annual accounts and advice to directors. The tools named are Adsolut, Billtobox and Exact Online, a combination covering accounts production, invoice flow and management on the client's side.

Listing audit alongside accountancy and tax calls for a useful distinction. The statutory audit of accounts is reserved for registered auditors, a separate profession; what an accounting practice can take on are the verification engagements and reports the law reserves for accountants, on incorporation with a contribution in kind, a merger or the conversion of a company. A client needing a statutory auditor should therefore check the exact nature of the engagement before entrusting it.

The client base brings together self-employed professionals, small companies and companies being formed in the Pajottenland, the Dender area and the western outskirts of Brussels. The three-office network covers a coherent territory, straddling Flemish Brabant and East Flanders, in an area where many businesses work with Brussels without being based there. For a company in that region, a nearby practice combining accounting, tax and advice avoids spreading the work across several providers.