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Being partner in a successful accountancy practice can be stressful. Just ask Cath Walker, who left the firm she’d helped set up in order to start Walker Accountancy. “I’m practicing all by myself,” explains the Derby-based accountant, “working from home with a bunch of nice clients.”
The decision to go solo was triggered by family commitments and the need for extra flexibility. Getting up and running was relatively painless – Cath’s existing client relationships gave her a place to start, and plenty of new business arrived through word of mouth.
“I’ve had quite a few enquiries through the ProAdvisor website too,” adds Cath, who’s a member of the QuickBooks ProAdvisor Programme.
The Expert Clients Need
Cath offers bookkeeping, tax and payroll services to help her clients tackle the accounting challenges they face: “I don’t expect clients to know it all – that’s why they come to see me. For instance, lots of people don’t know what they need to do from a compliance point of view.”
“I use QuickBooks on a day-to-day basis,” she continues. “I do my own bookkeeping on it and I do bookkeeping for several clients. I also use it to run payroll for my clients.”
Key Features for Accountants
Value for money is one reason Cath has stuck with QuickBooks since 2003, when she first started using the software. As she explains, “it doesn’t cost me any more to do payroll for one or 100 clients.”
But it’s not just price that matters. The software makes it easy for Cath to transfer figures to and from her clients, reducing the number of site visits and helping her work much more efficiently. “I can open up their files whenever I need to, without having to go out on site,” she says.
And QuickBooks makes her more efficient in other ways, both large and small. “The find facility is very good,” says Cath. “If you’re looking for an invoice and want to know if the client’s processed it, you can search for it very easily.”
Once she’s tracked down the relevant invoice, it’s easy to get to the bottom of any mistakes too. “Behind the scenes it logs everything, so I can see when clients change things. I can see the date, who changed it, what was changed – everything really.”
The reports make Cath’s life easier too, allowing her to home in on key details without wading through pages of figures. “I use the drill down feature,” she elaborates. “You double click and you’ve got a list of what’s in there. It’s much easier than other software I’ve used, and it helps people manage their businesses better.”
It’s clear that flexibility is very important to Cath. “Because I work from home and it’s just me, I can leave early and pick the kids up. I can then do extra work in the evening.” As her business develops, the timesaving tools in QuickBooks will play a big part in helping her maintain that freedom.
What Next?
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