From my experience, an accountant is a financial advisor as far as guiding you through your country regulation goes. Where I come from there are a lot of paths you can follow to become a consultant/freelance, and you want a good accountant to guide you through it because some paths end up being significantly more expensive (especially tax wise) for you.
What makes a good accounts I guess can also depends on your country legislation. From my experience, I'd ask those questions: are they working in my interest? Am I paying any late fees, arrears or interests on top of the taxes I'm supposed to pay? Are they staying on top of changes to the laws/regulations? Do they return my emails timely and with comprehensive answer to my questions?
Those things are off the top of my mind of course, there is more. In my case, although I'm not a very demanding or complicated client, I've been lucky enough to have found an accountant who I completely trust and, after the initial "setup" phase, it has mostly been a set it and forget it kind of situation. I get reminders for when tax payment deadlines are coming up, and neatly filled forms which I just have to pay. They notify me of changes to regulations (which in my country seems to be at least every year) and how that affects me. And whenever I need an estimate of how much in taxes I'm expected to pay in a given year, I send them an email and get an answer within 24 hours.
YMMV, I'm sure the things you need to worry about and ask yourself to asses the situation vary from country to country.
What makes a good accounts I guess can also depends on your country legislation. From my experience, I'd ask those questions: are they working in my interest? Am I paying any late fees, arrears or interests on top of the taxes I'm supposed to pay? Are they staying on top of changes to the laws/regulations? Do they return my emails timely and with comprehensive answer to my questions?
Those things are off the top of my mind of course, there is more. In my case, although I'm not a very demanding or complicated client, I've been lucky enough to have found an accountant who I completely trust and, after the initial "setup" phase, it has mostly been a set it and forget it kind of situation. I get reminders for when tax payment deadlines are coming up, and neatly filled forms which I just have to pay. They notify me of changes to regulations (which in my country seems to be at least every year) and how that affects me. And whenever I need an estimate of how much in taxes I'm expected to pay in a given year, I send them an email and get an answer within 24 hours.
YMMV, I'm sure the things you need to worry about and ask yourself to asses the situation vary from country to country.