DEDHAC

Dedhac is an accounting office on Laagweide in Heule, in the municipality of Kortrijk, West Flanders. The firm sums up its positioning in an image it uses itself: the accountant is a business's travelling companion, from start-up through to growth. It also accepts its size, describing itself as a small office with strong involvement.

That combination is a deliberate trade-off. A small office cannot offer the depth of skills of a thirty-person structure, but it guarantees that the owner always speaks to the same person and that this person knows the file without having to re-read it. Dedhac sets client satisfaction as a daily aim and announces a long-term commitment rather than a one-off service.

The scope is listed without apparent hierarchy, which gives a fairly complete picture of the practice: bookkeeping, tax advice, VAT, company formation, cessation of activity, liquidation, legal advice, business advice and support for new entrepreneurs.

Having formation, cessation and liquidation together on that list deserves attention. Those are the two ends of a company's life, and the second is announced far less often than the first. A poorly prepared liquidation nonetheless leaves lasting tax consequences for the shareholder, on the liquidation surplus and on the treatment of remaining assets.

The office keeps the books of sole traders as well as companies, two distinct regimes in accounting and tax terms. It announces a comprehensive approach covering accounting, tax and investment advice, and provides a page of useful tools and links for its clients.

One point deserves spelling out about cessation, which the office announces alongside formation. Winding up a self-employed activity is not the symmetrical opposite of starting one. Cessation triggers taxation of capital gains on business assets, the treatment of remaining stock and the adjustment of VAT deducted on investments still inside their revision period. Those three items are prepared years in advance, by choosing when to sell a vehicle or a building. A practice that announces supporting the end of a business as explicitly as its start signals that it handles such files, which few sites say.

The client base brings together self-employed people, small companies and companies being formed around Kortrijk. The firm also publishes its vacancies and internships, a sign of a structure organising its succession rather than depending indefinitely on its founders. For an entrepreneur in southern West Flanders, that profile matches a local office covering the whole life cycle of their business.