What we do
Our business lines
Everyone has an idea of what an accountant and business adviser does – but we’re willing to bet there’s a whole lot more to it than you might think! To help you decide which pathway you want to follow, get to know some of our business lines below and find out what you can expect to be working on in your first year.
Audit
An audit is an independent, objective exam of the accounts of a business – also called financial statements – which is carried out annually. As auditors, we scrutinise our clients’ accounting records and carry out various tests to provide both our clients and their stakeholders with the assurance that their financial statements are a true and fair reflection of the company’s financial performance over the year. We also support our clients to ensure that they are compliant with the many financial regulations they are subject to, and which are continually changing! Within our Corporate Audit team, you will get the inside view of a wide range of clients – from Food & Drink to Technology & Life Sciences, to Engineering & Manufacturing and Construction.
We also have the following specialist teams within Audit:
Financial Services Audit
Our Financial Services Team focuses on the wealth and asset management sector, including corporate asset managers, private equity and venture capital structures, LSE listed entities (including FTSE250s) and boasts a number of multi-national household names as clients.
Funds Audit
Our Funds Team focuses on a large portfolio of open ended regulated funds split across some of the UK's largest names in the sector. These structures make investment in a portfolio of investments, typically ranging from equities to bonds.
Pensions Audit
Our pensions audit team works with pension schemes across the UK. We work closely with other professional organisations who operate and manage these schemes, manage their investments and look after their members. We are able to do this using our digital audit approach working from our office without the need to travel to the client.
IT Audit
Our IT Audit team enhances the audit service by evaluating client systems and applications. They help shape our audit approach, boost efficiency, and improve audit quality. Utilising specialist tools, they analyse client data for unusual trends and high-risk areas. In addition, our IT Audit specialists offer a range of security, risk and controls services to our clients.
Financial Reporting Advisory
Our Financial Reporting Advisory team supports medium and large entities, as well as fast-growing small businesses, with their technical accounting advisory needs, such as analysis of specific transactions / contracts or complete conversion into a different GAAP (IFRS, UK GAAP). We also provide financial statements preparation services to audited businesses, including working with consolidations.
Your qualifications
In Audit, you’ll usually work towards your AAT, ACCA or ICAS qualifications.
Business Advisory
Our Business Advisory team works with clients across all industry sectors and at every stage of the business lifecycle -start up, growth, disposal or succession. Compliance is a core part of what we do – helping clients prepare their accounts and tax returns correctly, and ensuring these are submitted on time to avoid penalties. In addition to those essential services, our goal is to build strong relationships and really understand how our clients’ businesses work, so that we can provide tailored advice to help drive them forward and achieve their ambitions. We want to be a trusted adviser to our clients and add value to their business.
What you’ll do
Your role in Business Advisory will involve preparing management accounts, year-end accounts, VAT returns, and both corporate and private client tax returns. You will become well-acquainted with debits and credits by completing bookkeeping records, and you’ll have plenty of opportunities to interact directly with our clients to learn about their businesses and establish relationships. You will also work with our specialist Digital Advisory team, supporting clients with their cloud accounting software and apps. With the world becoming increasingly digitalised, and the move towards a fully digital tax system, we help clients make the most of what cloud accounting platforms can offer to help them make informed decisions in real time. This is a key focus for the business line and something we take pride in doing well, having won the Xero award for Large Firm of the Year in 2020!
Your qualifications
In Business Advisory, you’ll usually work towards your AAT, ACCA, ICAS, ATT or CTA qualifications.
Tax
Our award winning tax team provides tax services to a wide range of clients across the UK and overseas. The complex and diverse nature of tax will keep you on your toes and means that no two days are the same. Contrary to what you might expect, skills in interpretation, reasoning, problem-solving and communication are more important than numeracy, as tax is a mixture of law, regulation and accountancy. Tax is a fast, exciting profession, with regular change generating opportunity. It’s a people business where you will find yourself meeting different challenges, creating opportunities and problem solving for our clients. For this reason, a career in tax combines a rewarding blend of mental challenge, lateral thinking and analysis, with the opportunity to develop into a vast variety of roles and specialisms.
The various teams within tax means we can provide our team with a breadth of expertise as they move through their career, together with gaining sector knowledge along the way. We have vacancies across our tax practice and we’ve summarised below some of the core tax teams that sit within the wider tax department that you can have an opportunity to work within.
Corporate Tax
This involves working with clients including large corporates and multinational groups, owner-managed businesses, as well as advising on transactions.
Personal Tax
This comprises compliance and advisory work, for individuals, trusts, partnerships, private equity and more and covering areas such as inheritance tax planning.
Specialist Tax
This includes international tax, global mobility, share incentives, employment tax, and tax reliefs for video game and film production, research and development and construction projects.
Financial Services Tax
Our Financial Services Tax team has a portfolio of investment fund clients across the UK as well as overseas.
We help our clients with a wide range of tax issues around the establishment of new investment funds, investment fund transactions and the remuneration of investment fund executives. We also provide tax compliance and investor reporting services.
Your role in the Financial Services Tax team would comprise of both tax compliance work (preparation of tax computations and returns for all of the entities within the investment fund’s structure) as well as tax advisory work (drafting reports on various investment fund matters). Every day will be different, giving you a challenging and exciting experience within the world of tax.
VAT
“Beyond the everyday world … lies the world of VAT; a kind of fiscal theme park in which factual and legal realities are suspended or inverted.”
As this famous quote from a Court of Appeal Judge suggests, VAT is not like any other tax. It is charged at every point in a transactional chain, unlike a tax on end of year profits, and the decision as to how much VAT should be charged rests with the supplier in every case.
Have you ever wondered why an “eat in” price can be more than the cost to take away? Why do Subway charge more for a toasted sandwich? Why does the difference between a cake and a biscuit matter? The answer to all of these questions, and much more, is VAT.
Our VAT advisers are curious and look for opportunities at every turn. Unlike other areas of Tax, we have no recurring work, so we have to build relationships and identify value for our clients to ensure we keep ourselves busy. No one day is like that before it in VAT, and we are often at the cutting edge of the work we do as a tax practice and a firm. If you like to challenge convention, always ask, “Why?”, and have an entrepreneurial spirit, VAT could be the area of tax for you!
Your qualifications
In Tax, you’ll usually be working towards your ATT, CTA or ICAS qualifications.
Restructuring
Our Restructuring team assists business owners, company directors and individuals through business challenges and tough periods.
We provide sound early advice on solutions that are available to help restructure or to guide though insolvency procedures if that is the most appropriate option. We can assist with corporate solutions such as Advisory work, Company Voluntary Arrangements, Administrations and Liquidation (which can be used for both solvent or insolvent companies). We also advise on personal insolvency options such as Trust Deeds and Bankruptcies (called Sequestrations in Scotland).
We have experience working with companies and businesses across many sectors including construction, hospitality, retail, manufacture and technology. Given the wide range of options and sectors that we get involved in each client is different which provides varied experience and challenges to overcome. In personal cases this can often involve dealing with a family home, for example.
Working in restructuring is a dynamic environment working alongside business owners, employees and creditors in often very challenging situations. People skills are vital to manage stakeholders with conflicting demands. Common sense and commerciality are also essential as we look to sell assets, actively control and trade businesses, negotiate legal settlements and seek to maximise the outcome for creditors and shareholders.
What you'll do
As part of the Restructuring team, you will get involved in meeting with directors and individuals, onsite visits to identify and deal with assets, statutory compliance to ensure that all legislation is adhered to and interaction with creditors and shareholders. You will prepare Receipts and Payments accounts and Outcome Statements. You would also carry out investigations into historical conduct through analysing financial and trading records and reviewing the actions of directors and individuals to trace and realise assets. There is also the opportunity to take part in Business Development to start to build up relationships with referrers such as solicitors and other accountants.
Your qualifications
In Restructuring you will usually work towards your ACCA qualification. Once this is achieved there are specific insolvency related qualifications of the Certificate of Proficiency in Insolvency and the Joint Insolvency Exam which you can progress towards after you gain experience.
Consulting
Our Consulting team, headed up by Zoe Hodge, bring ‘real-world’ experience in business management across a range of sectors. Each of the team bring something different, so their combined experience and approach offers the perfect combination.
Using years of experience, we listen to, and quickly understand our clients’ requirements. Our focus is on high quality, practical solutions, delivered at pace. We take ownership, we question the status quo, and we provide actionable insights which will improve performance.
The areas of consulting we focus on are:
Strategy: Strategy starts with a vision and is underpinned by goals, objectives, and a delivery roadmap. Done well strategy provides clarity and direction to an organisation.
Performance Optimisation: There are multiple aspects of a business which may welcome our support and analysis, to identify how to optimise performance and make the relevant changes. A well-defined Target Operating Model is the ideal way to deliver performance improvement.
Complex Change Support: Change can be a constant, but it can also be complex to achieve. We assist our clients in translating strategy into a practical checklist for execution and operational readiness whilst navigating the numerous pitfalls and risks along the way.
Consumer Duty: As one of the largest regulatory changes for a decade this represents a significant shift in terms of capability and culture for financial services firms. It is clear that 31 July 2023 represents the beginning, not the end, of firms’ work. The real work lies ahead, and many firms have noted that a compelling plan of action is required to deliver the culture change envisaged.
Deal Support: Whatever the specifics of the ‘deal’ might be, the need to manage the process is critical for success. Our experience means we know the steps to take before, during, and after implementation.
What you’ll do
As part of the Consulting team, each day will bring new and exciting experiences. Your role will involve a diverse range of activities from research, data analysis, attending client meetings and supporting on client engagements, developing thought leadership articles and our internal processes. You will be immersed in a culture of continuous learning and growth, where you'll have the chance to learn from experienced colleagues. We will support you with tailored training opportunities that align and foster your professional development in this role.
Your qualifications
In Consulting we typically offer Project and Change management training such as Prince 2 Practitioner and Agile Change Management. However, if you are interested in pursuing accountancy qualifications such as ACCA, we can also consider this.
