I was a little surprised to see this news piece on Reuters over the weekend.

The CBI are reporting that "Jobs, profits and trade at British accountancy, law and recruitment firms declined at record rates in the last three months and are expected to fall faster in the next three as economic woes worsen...".

While we at Just Accountants have seen a slowdown in the volume of companies looking for accountants over the last couple of months, the trend is seasonal and matches what we saw at the same time last year.

However, October - which falls into the quarter being talked about in the piece - was a record month for us.

What it shows, I think, is that there is still business out there for accountants who are prepared to go out and grab it.

I actually spoke about this very issue with a couple of our more established accountancy clients in the last month or so and both suggested that things aren't anywhere near as bad as they seem. Neither firm had really lost clients or experienced a significant slowdown in potential new business.

Again, this makes the CBI report all the more surprising. I'd be very interested in hearing the views of accountants on this, because we're just not seeing the types of things they are suggesting are happening.