How Holly stopped worrying about the numbers

The short version

Holly runs a commercial washroom services business with her mum. She is brilliant at the work itself and happy to admit the numbers are not her favourite part of the job. After a run of accountants who either did too little or tried to run the business for her, she found someone who took the finance off her plate without the lecture, and who she now treats as part of the team.

Where they were before

Holly had been through more than one accountant and none of them had fitted. The first gave a level of service that was nowhere near good enough. She changed to another, and that one was no better. The third went the other way entirely. They were, as she puts it, a bit too big for their boots, and started telling her how to price a washroom service they knew nothing about. When she had not done as she was told, meetings got cancelled, and at one point she was sent an email that read like a telling off.

All of this was happening while the business was going through the single hardest thing it had faced. It lost a £300,000 contract at short notice, the kind of blow that can finish a company off. It did not finish this one. But it meant Holly needed clear heads around her and proper support, not someone charging the earth to tell her she was losing money she already knew she was losing.

How they found Leigh

Leigh came through a recommendation from a trusted contact who had heard nothing but good things about him. The first meeting could not have been more different from the last lot. He stripped everything back, kept the jargon out of it, and made both Holly and her mum feel comfortable handing it all over. As Holly says, when you are dealing with something as stressful as your finances, having someone who puts you at ease is worth a great deal.

What Leigh does now

Holly wanted everything in one place, so Leigh took on the payroll, both self assessments and the sister company. He also spotted a saving that no previous accountant had ever mentioned. Her mum quietly supports a number of charities, and Leigh flagged that those donations could be handled properly for tax, something nobody had thought to raise before.

It is the way he works that stands out as much as what he does. When the self assessment came round, rather than send them away to sort out a year of paperwork, he sat down with them in person and worked through carrier bags of receipts alongside them. When they have a question, they get an answer the same day.

He has also become the person they call before a decision, not just the person who tidies up after one. When they were weighing up whether to tender for a piece of work, they got on a call together, put the figures into a spreadsheet, and decided between them that it was not worth going for. That is a sounding board, not a bookkeeper.

The difference it has made

The business came through the loss of that contract and is still going. What Holly talks about now is peace of mind, a safe pair of hands, and someone who feels like an extended part of the team rather than an outside supplier.

If you would like to talk through your own situation, get in touch, or read more about the management accounts that give owners this kind of clarity.