Reflections on 2023

We reflect on our progress, accomplishments and lessons learned in 2023 and our vision for 2024.

Progress and Accomplishments

2023 will probably always be associated in my mind as the year we got ‘unstuck’.  From the time we rebranded in 2020 there was a vision for how we could develop the practice to support our clients.  Then COVID struck and thereafter we seemed to get stuck in a series of failed recruitments.  

At a certain point in a business, recruitment becomes such a critical process to crack.  Without it, nothing can move forward.  It’s tempting to gloss over these failures, some of which were bad luck and some of which were bad judgement, but it is important to see that these setbacks were also a process of learning lessons which I will share with you.

One thing we learned was that we can’t cut corners or ignore doubts.  Perhaps it is a feature of all small businesses or perhaps something that is special to us, but whatever the reason, we discovered that thoughts that started ‘it could work’ or ‘let’s not worry about’ ended badly.

Another was to trust our instinct.  It was not a given that an apprentice fresh out of school would be the key that unlocked the process, but something told us Aleks was the right person.  We are incredibly proud that someone so young has made such a difference to us through her diligence, reliability and hard work.  Her growing into the role is what allowed Beth to take over some of my duties as accountant and for us to start moving forward.

Our other lesson learnt was that recruiters need to really ‘get’ your business.  One of the breakthroughs was to start working with Ricky Wilkes at Wander.  As a client he understands our client base, he knows our service from the receiving end.  This leads us to another highly significant accomplishment which is recruiting Stephanie to the team.  It is still very early days, but I think it is clear to everyone that the skills, experience, values and drive she brings represent a huge opportunity for the business.

Whilst these are the headlines from the team, we must not forget that our platform was the existing core team of Joanna, Beth, Angie and Sam.  Joanna in her role as Deputy Practice Manager has taken on accountabilities for staff training and another great feature of the year has been the team gaining new skills.  Everyone is progressing through AAT, in house briefings and training has gone from being ad hoc and sporadic to being consistent and planned.  We have introduced the idea of ‘Total Accounting’ (a reference to Johan Cruyff that probably only excites me), whereby everyone is getting skills in everyone else’s roles.  It makes a big difference because we are all getting to see the implications of our work on each other.

Beth’s move from Accounting Assistant to Accountant was overdue thanks to us remaining stuck in previous years but the transition is significant and one of the big accomplishments of the year is the success of that move.  The messages of goodwill that clients sent in response to the handover are a testament to her.

We are also moving forward with our vision of becoming a self managing organisation sharing responsibilities and reward for the success of the business.  The idea of self-management is worthy of its own blog but in small ways we have edged a bit closer.  We have established a 6 monthly ‘Co-hesion’ morning where we all have the opportunity to align on and contribute to future developments and we are delighted that Beth has become our latest shareholder through our Growth Share scheme.

Perhaps the most visible consequence of the developments has been the new services we have launched - our Co- Create workshops and the Group Pulse calls.  We were delighted with the quality of these events, embedding them will be a key focus for 2024.

Reflections

It feels appropriate to me that the word that has emerged this year as a catch all for our new services is ‘Co-nnect’.  As many people know, accounting has been transforming in the last decade with technology and the role of the accountant is up for re-invention.  We also know that technology can lead to dis-connect.  As our heads get ever deeper into our screens we can lose touch with the people around us.  Added to which COVID has taken us out of the habit of seeing each other.  

At one point it would have seemed laughable for accountants to talk about being in the business of connection between people, but it is clear to me that our role is going that way.  We can connect people to what their numbers mean, we can help them stay connected to their goals, we are often the only people a small business person gets to talk to about their business.  What seems certain is that if we don’t make the relationship and the interpretation valuable our role will disappear because the machines are taking over.  

Added to this, we seem to value relationships a lot as a team.  We care about each other and we care about our clients.  We aren’t without our faults, but that is the strength I see every day.  What is new this year is that we are seeing the connection between clients and our community as an equal part of the mix.  We sit at the centre of a business community that is already starting to be a highly valuable support resource.

At a philosophical level, I am convinced that we can achieve more through staying connected and collaborating and that the support of the people around us is critical to our success.

Goals and Vision for 2024

Clearly there is more for us to do to flesh out our vision for supporting small business owners through Co-nnect.  There are more initiatives to be added to the workshops and pulse calls.  We will be launching more support around budgeting, some free, some group sessions and some one-to-one.  We are interested in initiating a buddy system.  We are developing a network of providers helpful to small business owners in South London.

Although we are excited about this we have also not forgotten our core function which is accounts and tax.  We know that unless this is seamless, easy to use and reliable we have no foundation on which to build Co-nnect.  With Stephanie on board and driving Co-nnect, my focus will return to our systems, processes and core services.  

Making Tax Digital, which has been postponed many times, has not gone away and there is a project to be done around how we set everyone up to streamline their tax affairs.  We also need to re-examine our communications around Accounts and Tax.  We are aware that the different points of contact have become confusing for clients and whilst we try hard to communicate clearly and effectively we can do better.  We are looking at a client portal so that documents can be shared and accessed by everyone without hassle.

It has been a while since we looked at our tax planning service.  I am proud of what is in place already because what is much more usual in accounting is very ad hoc if it exists at all.  That said, I can see scope for improvements and I know that will be welcomed by all clients.

In other words, although we have exciting projects planned for Co-nnect, I see 2024 as a year for us to invest in and work on our core services.

Finally you can expect to see more marketing from us in 2024.  We have engaged Social Style Pro to lift our social media presence off the floor.  We are targeting some modest growth in business, nothing dramatic but our client numbers have stayed the same for some years now and it is time for us to grow again.

So we are excited, as ever there is a huge amount of work to do, but it is work we have been wanting to do for some time.  Thank you to everyone for supporting our journey, we look forward to Co-nnecting in 2024!