The Role of Small and Medium Practices in Providing Business Support to Small- and Medium- sized Enterprises

Small and Medium Practices Committee 2 The mission of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) is to serve the public interest, strengthen the accountancy profession worldwide and contribute to the development of strong international economies by establishing and promoting adherence to high-quality professional standards, furthering the international convergence of such standards and speaking out on public interest issues where the profession's expertise is most relevant. Permission is granted to make copies of this work provided that such copies are for use in academic classrooms or for personal use and are not sold or disseminated and provided that each copy bears the following credit line: " Copyright © April 2010 by the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC). All rights reserved. Used with permission of IFAC. Contact [email protected] for permission to reproduce, store or transmit this document. " Otherwise, written permission from IFAC is required to reproduce, store or transmit, or to make other similar uses of, this document, except as permitted by law. Contact [email protected]. Preface The IFAC Small and Medium Practices (SMP) Committee is pleased to issue this Information Paper. The Paper analyses the literature and evidence base on the role of accounting practices, and in particular small and medium practices (SMPs) in providing business support to small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). apparent shift in the market away from traditional statutory compliance type services towards satisfying a demand from SMEs for services of a business advisory nature. The aim of the paper is to examine the evidence as to what services are being provided and to better understand the relationship between SMPs and SMEs. It is anticipated that this paper will provide a useful and helpful reference point for member bodies of IFAC in developing policy, training and products to meet the growing needs of SMPs in providing these services to SMEs. Acknowledgements We would like to acknowledge the support from IFAC to undertake the research on which this information paper is based together with the advice from Paul Thompson and the reviewers of earlier drafts of the paper. We would also like to thank the six accountants who took participated in a series of interviews designed to help us understand the nature of relations between SMPs and SMEs. Their insights and experiences have are greatly appreciated and helped shape our thinking as the research developed. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and as such do …