Let’s get this out of the way: I am not the accountant for everyone. Shocking, I know. But if you’re looking for someone to spend three billable hours justifying why £4.70 has been classified as stationery instead of “blog posts,” then I’m probably not your guy.
I run with a small team. What we don’t have are endless resources or some call centre of trainees waiting to pick apart your petty cash receipts like it’s an episode of CSI. There are accountants who do that sort of thing. They wear matching ties, send you long emails with flow charts, and charge you a fortune to explain nothing you’ll ever use.
At the other end of the spectrum, if you’re turning over £10 or £20 million, you probably need an infrastructure that I simply don’t provide. Whole floors of auditors, corporate finance departments, maybe even a tax partner who speaks fluent Latin to make your group structures look more impressive than they actually are. None of that is me either.
Where we sit is somewhere in the middle. If your business is between £250k and £2.5m turnover, that’s where we shine. We’re not just ticking boxes, we’re relating to you, the business owner. We know the headaches, we’ve seen the mistakes, and we’ve lived through the fires. We’ve probably seen your problem five times already this year, and we know not only how we’d deal with it, but how other successful owners have.
And that’s the real benefit — you’re dealing with the organ grinder, not the monkey. Walk into a bank and take advice from your “bank manager” (if you can find one — mine’s like a Yeti: I see footprints, but I’m not sure he exists). At the end of the day, he’s an employee. The accountants in the big firms are employees too, and they don’t know what it’s like to wake up at 3 a.m. wondering how to cover payroll. That’s a business owner’s reality. That’s what we understand.
Even within the space we occupy, we’re not right for everyone. Sometimes it’s a personality clash. Sometimes you need something we don’t provide. And that’s fine. A good relationship with an advisor isn’t about you desperately hiring the first person with “accountant” on their business card. It’s a two-way street: you’re choosing us, and we’re choosing you. That’s how it works best. It’s a mutually beneficial, symbiotic relationship — not a hostage situation.
So if you’re looking for someone to argue over £4.70, I’ll happily recommend a few small accountants who’ll take the job. If you’re building a corporate empire, call the Big Four and enjoy your meetings with people who’ve never run a lemonade stand.
But if you’re in the middle — growing, stressed, juggling staff and cash, and just trying to make the damn thing work — then that’s where we come in.
