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Bags
Bag ? Isnt that what a car boot was invented for, to throw all your assorted rubbish in?
Iv'e never yet had a case or bag of any description that wasnt trashed inside 6 months, and leather ones seem to hold a fascination for every dog in the area, if mine dont chew them then the client's dogs do.
If you really must have a bag, I'd suggest what I use to carry court files - saves giving yourself a hernia, and can be adapted to carry pretty much anything.
Design the accountant's perfect bag
Noone carried condoms in the 1970's. The girls were on the pill, and AIDs hadn't been invented yet.
Butterworth's guides were heavy, and audit manuals.
The more junior you are, the more you carry
When I first came into accountancy (in the mid 1990's) I had to carry a lot. I bought a £5 sports bag and threw it all in. At the hight of my "big swinging dick" period, I carried nothing - expect my expanding waistline (from 32 to 38ins in 10 years, now down to a respectable 34") a wod of cash to entertain clients and prospects with, a few business cards (a la Patrick Bateman) and a black montblanc fountain pen, tucked neatly into the inside pocket of my bespoke suit. Happy days :)
Albert Camus
Interesting question
Remember, in the old days? Accountants judged clients (and set the fee) by the type of carrier bag they delivered their books in. Maybe that is still true for some firms who have’s pushed technology but the opposite is very true; a firm will be judged on the small things like bags.
So, first the bag should be high quality and branded, like all the folders and boxes give to clients as part of the firm’s Business Organizer System. You do that don't you? OK if cost is the issue just work out how much time you will have by having every client organising the prime records in the same way and understand you can link the fee to the quality/organisation of the records.
Second, the style of bag will be part of the firm’s brand, like the style of the person’s clothes. One firm may have a pinstripe suite another will go for smart casual, while another may wear jeans depending on the firm’s positioning/niche.
As for size, it should have room for the firm’s Welcome Book, service sheets/brochures, Case Studies, branded articles/reports/whitepapers written on specific topics that demonstrate the firm’s unique value proposition. So, if the firm was Bain & Co there would be a Profit Hunt brochure, a few copies of the book Decide & Deliver and maybe the article Average companies are way behind on decision making.
Interestingly this report found that average companies score 28 out of 100 in terms of their ability to make and execute key decisions. The best companies score 71 so I suppose the big question is can a firm's of accountants decide what bags they should use?
Bob Harper
1978 essentials
Custom briefcase, black plastic, for newspaper, sandwiches, apple, pencil case, Casio HL101 calculator, ruler and folding brolly. Still room for ATC manual or a book.
Files and paper in carrier bag - preferably Sainsburys.
Shoulder bag
Big enough for my laptop (A4 folder sized) and with separate pockets for a thin folder, my blackberry, wallet, business cards, keys, pens, lipstick and still enough room to fit a decent sized text book, and a sandwich, maybe. I think Hermione had one similar in the latest Harry Potter...
I was given a Mulberry which looks the business, but is just a tiny bit too small, so most of the time I use a bag that came free with Viking direct about 15 years ago and is perfect, but faintly embarassing. So I guess the perfect bag would be leather (or smarter)version of the Viking "original".
Bags for client books - those reuseable supermarket ones seem to be incredibly hard wearing.
Carry the audit files in a bag - I wish!
When I was an audit junior, if you managed to get this years file, last years file and the audit manual into one bankers box then it was a very small audit!
In these days of paperless files, the main thing I need to get in the bag is the laptop and power supply - these new slimline laptop bags are rubbish!
bags
Please don't carry an obvious "laptop" bag unless you want to make life easier for petty criminals . There's also the problem of disentangling your £19.99 black Targus bag from everyone else's after that "quick drink" in the pub. I thinkn we all know someone who's taken the wrong laptop bag home.
Pop a fully loaded netbook into a padded laptop sleeve and stick it into an ordinary hand bag or tuck it behind your FT if you can't bear to carry a manbag.
It needs wheels if you have a bad back
We may be paperless but the client may not be. I find that as well as the laptop and power supply, lunchbox etc, I always have a thick pile of printouts and photocopies of things the client can't put onto a memory stick. If I put all that over one shoulder I pop a disk so it must have wheels. I still have my leather briefcase from the eighties and a slim laptop pops in nicely but if you add paper it just gets too heavy. And clients do notice your bags - a client I visit regularly with a pilots case on wheels asked me why I always have my suitcase when I go to see him!
ChrisDL - you're so right
Being resolutely non-paperless, I still get great use out of my 15 year old pilot case. Trouble is, when I've got a couple of full jiffex files plus this year's WP file in, the bl**dy thing weighs a ton.
And if I do take my laptop, it goes in my, yes guilty, £19.99 Targus bag. Given that my days as an audit slave are long gone, however, I needn't worry about identity issues in the pub.