What sort of accountant am I?
Mar 03, 2020
Last week at a networking event, I told someone I am an accountant. So they started asking me if it had been a busy time in January with tax returns, to which I replied that I’m not that sort of accountant.
I spend a lot of time saying that. I am a qualified management accountant, which means that I have spent all my working life working in business, and not in an accounting practice. My dad is an accountant and I swore for years that I wouldn’t be one, but I’m definitely a chip off the old block! I also decided I would be bored if I did year end accounts and tax work, so I decided to go and work in companies, producing their monthly reporting and performance measures.
I loved it! I got to spend time with business people every day, talking to them in non-accountant speak about how the business is performing and where it is going. I got involved in budgets and forecasting, and 5 year strategic plans. I worked for a variety of companies, from Guinness World Records, to Channel 4 at the height of the Big Brother era, to working in a glass factory at Philips Electronics making TV screens.
I love using numbers to show how a business works and giving people clarity to help their decision making, whether a new hire, or return on investment on a marketing spend.
And now I do this work with small businesses, working to make sure you understand your numbers as a small business owner, and empowering people to run their businesses on a solid financial footing. I fill the gap between the bookkeeper and the year end accountant, as I feel that many accountants do not really offer this service. You are often paying them to do the tax returns and file the accounts, but they don’t get involved in the running of your business.
Not seeing your accounts from one year end to the next (and often much after that) is not enough to be monitoring your business and making sure you are managing it effectively. With the arrival of cloud systems such as Xero, the information should be at your fingertips and information available each month.
Fancy a freebie?! Click here to get one of mine for your business.
