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The sales rep raised an interesting point. "Why don't accountants bill people immediately?" he asked, complaining that instead of an immediate bill he was informed, "I'll get to it later." The rep continued that people expect to be billed and the strange practice of tax and accounting professionals who don't operate the way the rest of the business world does, isn't helping their image.

To be fair, it's not limited to accountants alone. Our mechanic bills us a couple of weeks after repairs. But then, he sometimes has our 10-year-old non-luxury cars delivered to our house afterward, has loaned us his personal car while ours is in his shop and operates a full-service gas station. And certainly a lot of small businesses bill when they get around to it because they don't have a lot of help or sophistication.

But accountants have less of an excuse. They don't all understand business, but they do understand that business has to get paid to get the money into the record keeping system. It's a simple step to the "If I don't get billed, I don't get paid" realization that ought to bother anybody.

The sales rep's comments suggests that not billing does harm, at least to the image of the profession. If a client thinks a tax or accounting professional is not fully professional because that person doesn't bill quickly, it's probably going to be harder to sell additional services.

Would you buy more products or services from an organization that you don't think is top flight? Maybe not.

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