Haines Watts working with The Works

John, Barry and I worked together at another agency, but we felt the owner didn’t share our vision for its future. So we resigned in 2006 and set up on our own. We expected to lose money at first but, because  we already had a strong reputation in our sector and some of our clients chose to come with us, word of mouth spread quickly and we made a turnover of £1.2 million in the first year. It’s since increased to £4 million.

Our ability to build strong relationships, with our own people and our clients, has proved invaluable – you never know when you are going to meet people and work with them again

A business is only as good as the team working in it, so we work and play hard. We provide pizza lunches, nights out bowling and champagne and cake for every staff member’s birthday. But gestures don’t pay the bills, so we share the rewards of our success with our colleagues as they’re the ones who have helped the business do well.

In 2014, we saw a decline in sales and profits, but we couldn’t pinpoint any one reason aside from market factors. Rather than hiding this, we made everyone aware and tasked them to find better, smarter ways of working, while continuing to live up to our promise to our clients.

The response from the team was amazing – we saw a new energy and an immediate turnaround: 2015 ended up being our best year to date.

A more positive moment will no doubt follow this year – as 2016 is our 10th anniversary, we have planned a series of events to celebrate.

As a thank you, we will give each member of the team their birthday off and will recognise the long service of the three founding team members. We will also host a summer ball and aim to raise £10,000 for charity. It will be a year to remember.

Our previous accountant couldn’t, or wouldn’t, work with our accounting software, and as a result we never had access to timely management information. Haines Watts’ approach couldn’t have been more different.

They sent their own staff to train with us on our own system and now we have the ability to run accurate reports of our own monthly, quarterly and annual management accounts, and use them for our planning and forecasting.

Haines Watts also provides us with a specialist team member for each of the areas of support we need, from book keeping and wages to business tax planning, personal financial planning and personal tax.

Each of these people has become a key member of our team and we think of them as  part of our business

In our sector, you have to remain flexible. To do this, you need to source expertise from external suppliers when the need arises.

We found demand for digital services was growing, so we integrated with a web development company and formed a new division called Works Digital. Haines Watts helped us to manage the integration and the financial implications that resulted.

This division has since exceeded its first year business targets and we expect to double these in the next financial period.

‘At the helm’. Alternatively, I could use ‘An early riser’, as I get up with the sun and often get emails from clients who think there is something wrong with my computer’s clock – why else would any sane person be emailing at 5.50am!

We know that sound, professional advice is just a phone call away – and it’s available to everyone on the team.