We often get asked who we work with, but perhaps a more interesting question is who we don’t. We cover multiple industries, most notably services, hospitality, technology and online retail, and we deal with businesses from the smallest start ups through to multi million pound turnover companies, as well as working with landlords and personal tax clients. We primarily market to women in business but at the last count around one third of our clients are male, and we quite like beards! So what do we look for when deciding whether or not to work with a new client?
Xero
We are a 100% Xero accounting firm and are very proud to be a gold champion partner. Xero is the best in class online accounting software for small and medium businesses, and the ability to provide real time information to our clients is incredibly powerful. For us it is absolutely critical that a business client is prepared to use Xero. You don’t have to be using it before we will take you on, and we are happy to quote for a project to convert your accounting records onto Xero from alternative accounting software or from spreadsheets if needed. But if you are not happy to consider using Xero, then we are not the right accountants for you.
Specialisation
There are some industries that have really specific accounting or tax rules that we are simply not sufficiently specialist in. Farming is an excellent example where you wouldn’t get the right level of advise from us. The other two that come to mind are law firms, and doctor’s surgeries. There are some excellent accountants out there that are much better able to help.
Location
We happily cover the whole of the UK and have clients scattered all over, although the majority are in the south east. One of the many advantages of working in the cloud is that we can see what you can see whether you are based around the corner or on the other side of the world. However we can only help a business if it is a UK based business as the UK accounting and tax rules are the ones we are qualified in. We do have clients who live overseas, currently in Europe and Africa, but we only cover their UK income.
Personality
If you are going to trust us with the level of information needed for us to be able to work with you effectively then it is important that you like us! The same works both ways. We feel that personality and fit are really important both when hiring people in the team so you get a similar vibe from whoever you speak to on the phone, and when selecting which clients we want to work with. I view a lot of my longer standing clients more as friends than anything else – somebody where you can sit and gossip over a coffee (or a glass of wine).
Approach
The clients we most enjoy working with are those who are keen to push their businesses forward and value the advice we give that help that to happen. If you would rather talk to the man down the pub than ask us the question then we can’t really function as a business advisor should. We are really passionate about helping our clients to achieve what they want to with their business and personal goals. Only being involved once a year to file your tax return is fine, but not what we get inspired by.
We are never going to be all things to all people, and want to make sure that we are working with clients where we are the best placed to really help. If we don’t think that we are a good fit for you then we will do our best to give you contact details for somebody else that can help.