I like a book keeper who is as serious about my business as his own. Some bookkeepers just see rand and cent.
With some sarcasm -
I think bookkeepers would like to see a business which cares about them as if they were owners too. And some bosses just see 'easy to replace workers' and 'buy more big cars for the bosses'.... I don't think these two ideals meet very often.

Is there anyone who would want to share their views on makes a good accountant in business today?
Will be greatly appreciated.

The traditional accountant is actually not suited to today's businesses. And today's business environment is not suited to the future accountant. It will take businesses a long time to understand this.

Accounting is traditionally a backward looking function. They record yesterday's activity and report on last year's bottom lines.

What's the problem with this? The way business is working at the moment, the financial department needs to stay abreast of changes and pre-emt or pro-act to changes (financially).

The future of business needs to have both the traditional accountant and a financial manager or management accountant or a project accountant or a fund manager (depending on the type of business).

For example, the traditional accountant does not have any grasp of the economy or economics.
This makes it impossible to make Project Appraisals financially and evaluate them for their feasibility
This also means that such accountants do not have any decision making ability and can not help the management.

Most accountants today are just about making sure you don't forget to pay tax and making sure you don't fail an audit. THIS WILL NOT HELP YOUR BUSINESS TOMORROW!

When I start any project or operation, I always clearly have two roles.
1. A day to day accountant to handle present and past.
2. A future financial planner with strong understanding of managing money, managing risk, and understanding the economy.

In qualifiacations you would be looking for one to be:
1. BCOM Accounting/ BCOM Taxation/ BCOM Internal Auditing / BCOM External Auditing
The other would be:
2. BCOM financial management / BCOM Economics / BCOM Investment Management / BCOM Portfolio Management /BCOM Risk Management

This is very true when running business in:
imports,
exports,
large contracts,
mining,
pension funds,
banks,
agriculture,
or retail/wholesale of niche products.