5 Ways I Transformed my Business no. 5: Team

Final point in this series – but the most important one if you want to grow and improve your practice.

For a long time I was resistant to having any team members. I had worked in big businesses before I started my practice and had been responsible for teams of up to 30 people. This was draining in itself; it often felt like having 30 children!

For too long I worked on my own, doing everything all of the time; all the admin, bookkeeping, payroll, vat, accounts and tax returns. About 2 years after starting I was flat out and not enjoying it, I felt there was a lot of work I shouldn’t be doing. Eventually I took on a bookkeeper.

This was great, but again I became swamped and the holiday in July 2017; which I’ve already mentioned where I had to work 3 days, was the trigger to one of my biggest and best business decisions which was to outsource.

Originally I’d been reluctant to outsource, the scare stories about poor quality and lack of communication had scared me off. It was while having lunch with a group of accountants that the subject of outsourcing came up, I was told how it had worked really well for some of them and I decided to give it a go.

The first outsourcer I tried was okay, quality of work was good, but the communication was poor. The second was too arrogant to try and work in a mutually beneficial way; it was their way or no way. This one never got off the ground.

The third attempt I struck gold.

I initially started with year end accounts preparation to draft accounts stage. This went very well and 2 months later I also outsourced payroll.

I am now in a position where accounts preparation, payroll, bookkeeping and vat work is all outsourced.

This has freed up a huge amount of time. I now have time to speak to clients properly, to find out what they really want to achieve and work with them to get there.

I’m able to plan and review work properly. I spend time constantly reviewing the ways we work (systems and processes) to make improvements in our efficiencies and the services we provide to business owners.

Around 50% of my time is now spent on working on the business rather than in it. This time has been created for me by having a great support team, the great work they do has given me the time to spend on improving the services we deliver to clients.

If you’d like to work with Start Accountants to improve your practice/work life balance/help you enjoy work more, please get in touch.

 

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