LES COMPTABLES & FISCALISTES ASSOCIÈS DU TOURNAISIS

CFAT, in full the associated accountants and tax advisers of the Tournai area, is an accounting office on Boulevard des Nerviens in Tournai, in western Hainaut. The firm reports twenty years of experience and a team of eight staff, which places it above the average for practices in the region, where structures of two or three people dominate.

What clearly sets this office apart is its fee policy, which it puts up front rather than leaving to discussion. It advertises itemised and clearly defined fees, and explains the mechanism: its software records each service performed, so as to guarantee what it calls a fair price and to provide a breakdown of the work.

That practice is worth flagging because it answers a recurring complaint in the profession. Accounting fees are usually fixed and opaque: the client receives an annual amount without knowing what produced it, and so can neither contest it nor reduce it by changing their own organisation. An itemised statement, by contrast, shows what costs, for example poorly prepared document filing.

The firm's third argument concerns its software, which it presents as up to date and of direct benefit to the client. It draws an explicit link few offices state: modernisation saves time in handling the file, and therefore fees. That is consistent with billing by service, where any time saved feeds straight through to the invoice.

Services cover bookkeeping, VAT and tax returns, preparation of the annual accounts and advice, with a service the office describes as personalised and matched to the client's real needs rather than to a standard package.

Itemised billing also changes the relationship the other way round. It makes visible what loose organisation costs on the client's side: badly filed documents, bank statements sent late or missing invoices all generate billable time the statement shows line by line. An owner who sees that detail can act on it, which an opaque fixed fee never allows. That is probably the most useful effect of the policy, and it benefits the office as much as the client.

Opening hours are published and generous, Monday to Friday from 8am to 6.30pm, which leaves room for a visit outside conventional office hours. The client base brings together self-employed people and small companies in the Tournai area and western Hainaut. For an owner who has already changed accountant over billing, this office offers precisely what is missing elsewhere: an amount that can be explained line by line.