Humanise The Numbers - for ambitious accountants in practice

It can't be easy to transform an accountancy firm from one that's charging clients about £200 a month to one that's charging clients in excess of £1000 pounds a month.  It can't be easy to grow from scratch an offshoring team out in the Philippines – from zero to ten in just twelve months.  And it can't be easy to approach every one of your 30 team members across two locat...

Don't you agree that it would be profoundly useful if you could get a sideways view of what's going on in the accounting profession, a sideways view from a fellow financial professional, but through a different lens? On this Humanise the Numbers podcast discussion with Claire Evans, you'll get the perspective of someone from the financial services industry.  Claire's worked in...

I found it profoundly, remarkably, valuable to enter into a podcast discussion with someone who has a really broad perspective across the profession – someone who spent 15 years in practice, someone who has worked at technology companies such as Xero and Dext and who works now with literally hundreds of leaders and managers of accounting firms, someone who can signpost what the best firms are doin...

It can't be easy, can it, to grow a firm from one person to 18 in just three years and to take your client numbers from 50 to 700 within the same time frame?  Well, that's exactly what Rachel Harris of the accountancy firm striveX has achieved.  And one of the reasons for the success of that journey is down to Rachel's 'team first' approach.  Even though she's gone fr...

What does it take to grow an accounting business from its initial two founders to 40 people in five years? Great question. What does it take to grow an accounting business which generates average fees per client of £30,000? Another great question.  What does it take to grow an accountancy business where its people absolutely love working and where the clients respect and love the work that the fir...

Nearly every time I ask the question ‘what matters most to clients?’ –  technical work, the speed with which the work's done or the relationship work – and whether I'm with an individual accountant, a leadership team within an accountancy firm or presenting to an audience of accountants, the answer that almost always comes back is that it's the relationship work that the clients val...

It's not every day that you get to have a deep and valuable conversation with someone who's deliberately, consciously, ambitiously looking to shift the profession towards the place it used to hold in the hearts and minds of its clients.  And that's why I felt so excited, so privileged, to be able to spend some time with Will Farnell on the Humanise The Numbers podcast, talking with...

When you get the opportunity to meet a leader, one that's been at the forefront of influencing and managing change across the whole profession because of his involvement in Xero, you grab it with both hands.  It's a great honour to have welcomed Gary Turner, ex-UK lead at Xero, onto the Humanise The Numbers podcast to discuss growth, leading and managing change, the successful implementa...

How good are you and your leadership team, and your managers generally, at holding people to account for their behaviour and their results?  It's one of the sticky, challenging, thorny aspects of leading and managing people, leading and managing accountancy firms. In this podcast discussion with Des O'Neill of the CPD Store, you'll hear Des and I unpack the detail behind determining...

When we started the Humanise the Numbers podcast, it was a bit of an experiment to see if there was any life in talking with leaders of accounting firms and some of the top advisors to the profession from around the world.  And now, two years on, it's no longer an experiment, because I consider it a privilege to be able to have deep, meaningful, valuable conversations with leaders in the prof...

One of the challenges or, arguably, one of the opportunities facing your firm, facing the profession, is the march of technology.  But more importantly, as technology takes over more of the technical work of accountancy and bookkeeping, there’s a real need to invest more time, more energy, and more money, even, in the development of human skills, the skills that help you work better together as a...

It’s fascinating when you get the opportunity to hear the powerful and valuable insights from the leader of a large finance team, responsible for the financial reporting of a £250 million turnover business, who then decides to drop that and start her own accounting business, grow it quickly, organically, and then begin to acquire other firms in order to accelerate the growth of the firm.  Well, th...

Have you ever wondered if, in your firm, you could be doing more in the environmental, sustainability space? Could the environmental message result in you winning new high-grade clients? Could it help you retain people or maybe even recruit new people? In this podcast discussion with Peter Ellington, you’ll hear his candid, open and quite revealing insights, insights based on the research he’s don...

It’s a rare privilege to have a conversation with someone who has nearly 20 years’ experience of working with in excess of 2,500 accounting firms, someone who is willing to share deep insights about their experiences of the profession and how it’s changed over the years, as well as what’s needed, what’s necessary – now – to run a successful growing accountancy firm, someone who is currently in the...

What do you think it takes, in a relatively short five-year window, to grow a team of 14 people and to win 800 clients?  Well, in this Humanise The Numbers podcast discussion with Johann Goree of OnPoint Accounting – with four offices, two in Scotland and two in England – you’ll hear Johann share how he has adopted a human approach to running an efficient firm that embraces and welcomes innovation...

Your firm, like every firm, isn’t perfect. Your firm, like every firm, has team members who want to progress their careers and get better. And as they get better, your firm will get better too.  The old adage that, if you don't grow your people, you won't grow your practice, is as plain and obvious as the nose on everyone's face.  It was a real privilege to welcome Paul Barnes from...

As a leader of an accountancy firm, or as a leader of a department, you’ll get to a stage where you wonder:  how on earth do I further improve the EBITDA or profitability of my firm or department? How do I improve its capital value? Which is why I was just delighted that Sam Edwards, of the firm Strategy&, an advisory firm to businesses acquiring or selling other businesses, said yes to joinin...

One of your firm’s greatest challenges and, arguably, one of the areas of greatest reward, comes from the 'how to' of getting the best out of your people, out of your team.  One argument says that we should build social capital, building stronger connections between ourselves and our team and between team members, so that they feel a greater sense of camaraderie. But the challenge with t...

It takes something special, don’t you think, to start up a brand-new accountancy firm just a couple of months after the start of a global pandemic.  It’s what Sharon Hirsch of Argus did in May 2020, and on this HumaniseTheNumbers podcast discussion with Sharon, you’ll hear her share a number of valuable insights:  the KPIs that matter most, what her emotional charges are and what it is that’s driv...

What do you think it takes to run a fast-growing, leading technology business with 350 people across the UK? In this podcast discussion with the UK General Manager of Intuit QuickBooks, Jolawn Victor, you'll hear Jolawn share a wide range of insights into what it takes, not only to run and lead QuickBooks in the UK, but also to run and lead a successful accounting business, drawing on her own...

How do you change, even as a sole practitioner, the tone of the work in your firm so that you become increasingly valuable to your clients, so that your clients are willing to pay more money for what you do with them and for them?  In this podcast discussion with Michael Hemme of MDH, an accountancy firm in Croydon, you’ll hear Michael share what he’s doing to build what he calls “soft” skills. I...

It's not often that you come across a leader of an accounting firm who has built strategic health into their practice, with crystal clarity on a shared vision, crystal clarity on a core purpose and crystal clarity around the values related to how the firm behaves and the standards they uphold across the firm. In this podcast discussion with Steve Price, of the Manchester firm Inspire, Steve o...

There are a few landmark moments in the life and journey of every business, and we’ve just passed through one of those moments at Remarkable Practice. I'm proud to say we now welcome Douglas Aitken as a fellow shareholder and director of the business and, because of that landmark moment, it felt appropriate that we bring Douglas onto the humanisethenumbers.online podcast, so that you get the...

It was a great privilege to spend an hour in deep conversation with Glenn Collins, Interim Head of ACCA. Glenn has 23 years of history with ACCA, supporting firms like yours. It was great to get Glenn’s views on high-growth accountancy firms, on the importance of the POD approach to high-growth accountancy firms, and the importance of strategy and anchoring to core purpose, the real meaning behind...

What is it that you and your firm have to do to make the shift from compliance only to compliance plus advisory , where advisory is generating significant high-value fees from work that you enjoy and which, by the way, your team enjoy as well?  In this HumaniseTheNumbers.online podcast discussion with Joe Sole of the 8-person firm Sole Associates, you will hear Joe unpack some of the detail, not j...