Save content
Have you found this content useful? Use the button above to save it to your profile.
AIA

Design the accountant's perfect bag

by
30th Nov 2010
Save content
Have you found this content useful? Use the button above to save it to your profile.

The first thing the trainee accountant used to need back in the 1970s when I started out, after a smart suit, was a briefcase, recalls Nigel Harris.

Then you found when you went out on audit you also needed a couple of ring binders, plus last year's files, not to mention the Yellow and Orange tax handbooks, your calculator, sandwiches, folding umbrella, Walkman, condoms – OK, maybe not the condoms, but you get my drift: the typical accountant has often needed to carry around quite a bit of baggage.

Fast forward to 2010 and not a lot has changed. The files have been replaced with a laptop, but you still need room for your iPod, phone charger, calculator, sandwiches, umbrella (and maybe your choice of contraceptive). Different contents, same problem – how do you cart this lot around and still look professional? Or do you stuff all the smaller stuff in your suit pockets and turn up at the client's premises looking like the Michelin man?

Back in the old days, of course, you had the audit junior to carry all the files. With graduate-only recruitment and higher charge-out rates that's a luxury few can afford these days. What you need is a decent bag!

I have tried them all – the leather briefcase, the trendier attache case, the bulky pilot's case, a funky back pack and a messenger bag. All have their strengths, but which one gets the AccountingWEB readers' vote?

Here are a few suggestions courtesy of “Mens product of the year 2009-10” website www.blokesbags.co.uk, the brainchild of David Gledhill whose mission in life is to make us all look a little neater. His motto is “there should only be one bulge in your suit”!

To start with you could consider a versatile leather briefcase - lots of pockets, and features both a shoulder strap and carry handles. If you want to make a fashion statement, you could even go for the top of the range Italian leather briefcase

Not into leather? Blokesbags has a great range of vegan bags, such as this one in pebbled faux leather finish with a cool lining made from 45 recycled plastic bottles.

Backpacks are popular these days, being particularly practical for lugging around heavy laptops. They come in a range of materials, from simple hemp up to luxury natural leather.

Shoulder bags are handy if you need lots of bits and pieces rather than big, heavy files - a nice distressed leather one looks the business on the train and in the board room. A larger format is the messenger bag, most have room for an A4 file plus all your bits and pieces.

So we're throwing down the gauntlet to AccountingWEB readers – what does your perfect bag look like? What features must it have? Do you need lots of small pockets or just one big one? Is leather better than plastic or fabric, or don't you care? Tell us in the Comment section below and we'll put your requirements to David and see if he can come up with your dream bag.

Tags:

Replies (12)

Please login or register to join the discussion.

avatar
By cymraeg_draig
30th Nov 2010 23:40

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.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wenger-WA-7453-02F00-Patriot-15-4-inch-Matching/dp/B000NOP9L8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1291160260&sr=8-2

Thanks (0)
Nigel Harris
By Nigel Harris
01st Dec 2010 14:00

Do you need all that junk?

On a personal note, my current work bag is a leather shoulder bag. I made the mistake of not properly measuring my laptop though, so it doesn't fit! Nor does a big ring binder. However, 99 times out of 100 I only need a pad of paper and my iPad these days.

Moving away from the old pilot's case made me review what I was carrying around all the time so I managed to jettison most of it, and haven't missed it since. The old case is sat here in the office gathering dust, still with most of its original contents!

I agree with CD, for those occasions where you need a bundle of files something on wheels is a must. Unless you have an audit junior with his/her own car ...

Thanks (0)
avatar
By Davo
01st Dec 2010 14:50

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. 

Thanks (0)
avatar
By Albert Camus
01st Dec 2010 19:31

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

Thanks (0)
By Bob Harper
02nd Dec 2010 09:00

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

Portfolio Marketing

 

Thanks (0)
avatar
By leon0001
02nd Dec 2010 11:07

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.

Thanks (0)
Nichola Ross Martin
By Nichola Ross Martin
02nd Dec 2010 11:31

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.

 

 

Thanks (0)
avatar
By ChrisDL
02nd Dec 2010 11:42

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!

Thanks (0)
avatar
By naomi2000
02nd Dec 2010 15:46

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.

 

 

Thanks (0)
avatar
By jafair
03rd Dec 2010 16:35

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!

Thanks (0)
avatar
By adam.arca
24th Jan 2011 13:23

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.

Thanks (0)