What is the Outsourced Accounting Team
11th February, 2022
Interview with Chris Ropner, Head of the Outsourced Accounting Team at Haggards Crowther.
Hi Chris, before we get into your role at Haggards Crowther, tell me a bit about yourself.
I am a partner here at Haggards Crowther and have worked with Tim and Andrew Haggard for over 20 years in a variety of roles, even before the practice was established in 2004. My area of expertise is in the outsourcing of our client’s accounting function.
What is the Outsourced Accounting Team?
We provide fully outsourced accounting services for our clients. More specifically, businesses that are slightly more mature, e.g., more than a year old, where the Director/Partner realises that they have too much work to do and not enough time, so something has to give.
Alternatively, it could be a director who recognises the business needs regular input from a qualified accountant, but the role is not enough to be full time and they don’t want to suffer the additional costs of employment.
Even if they are open to employing someone and the role requires a full-time position, quite often they realise that they’re not going to get everything they want from one individual because their need isn’t solved by just one person. It is not cost-effective for a qualified accountant to bookkeep.
The depth and breadth of what we can offer here at Haggards, for a fraction of the cost, is hard to come by in a single in-house position. It takes a team of people with different skills and experience to provide the comprehensive level of service that they get here at Haggards Crowther.
What do you offer?
Essentially, what we offer business owners is the freedom, peace of mind, and headspace to do what they do best while we take care of the financial side. What I find is that people don’t go into business because they’re good at accounting; they go into business because they had a dream and a vision of what they wanted to build; accounting just became something they had to do.
We essentially provide a one-stop-shop for outsourced accounting work; what that means is that we offer, among other things:
- Bookkeeping
- Cash management
- Debtor control management
- Annual accounts and tax returns preparation
- Management Reporting
- Financial health check via KPI’s
- Regulatory reporting
- Attendance at board meetings
- Transparency and a clear picture of the business
- Pre-agreed Service Level Agreements
What can a client expect from Haggards?
Our clients have access to a dedicated team of three people who work closely with them:
- Client Manager (qualified accountant)
- Assistant Client Manager
- Senior Accountant
The benefit of working with these 3 people is that the client gets access to 3 different skill sets that flex to the needs of the client, and the team has great knowledge of the client, their business, and how they like to work.
These three people work as part of a larger team. So that means even if someone is off sick, on maternity leave, or annual leave, there will always be someone at the end of the phone who understands what you need and can help. Click here to meet the whole Outsourced Accounting team.
Some clients like regular management information and others like quarterly or yearly information. What all our clients have in common is the need for greater clarity about the overall health of their business, which is what we give them. That ability to stand back and assess what’s working and what’s not.
What we find is that everyone is different and that’s reflected in the extent of the services our clients require, but our aim is always to implement good processes and automate where possible to drive efficiency and keep costs down. And we’re not afraid to ask slightly uncomfortable questions, so the client can gain greater insight into how their business is performing.
Ultimately, we want to take away the accounting stress for our clients so they can concentrate on doing what they enjoy doing!
If you would like to have a chat with us about the services we offer, please get in touch with Chris Ropner at 0207 384 0924.
With over 18 years of experience in the management information sector, Chris understands the value that innovative software solutions can offer clients, especially when fused with seasoned professionals who are capable of managing data input. He highlights that it’s the most effective way to provide clients with detailed information on how their business is performing on a regular basis.
