Front Page Advantage Case Study

Background

Front Page Advantage is a Website Marketing Company based in Basingstoke, Hampshire and has been trading since 2007 with 12 staff. Like most small businesses, before working with us they already had an accountant in place but when the Owners/Directors, Chris and Lucy Pearson, bought out the other shareholder in 2018 to have full control, they had been disappointed with the level of service their accountant had provided, with the fees seemingly ever-increasing for the same service.

The frustrations they had were similar to a lot of new clients we take on in that they were receiving very little advice and despite paying big fees each month were only getting basic bookkeeping and annual accounts returns completed.

In our first discussion with Chris, it was apparent that what he was looking for was split into two different areas of service.

1. Even though his accountant had moved them to online accounting software, they weren’t taking advantage of all the benefits that come with this and still spending a lot of time having to manually load invoices, expenses, mileage claims etc. Even though payroll was done by the accountant, Chris still had to post the journals himself into the accounting software and send out pay slips.
2. Chris and Lucy were paying a big enough fee to their previous accountants that should have included advice on what might help the business grow and run more efficiently but in practice the advice was a once-per-year review of the Accounts that needed to be submitted to companies house, with no future focus or linking the numbers to the actual business operations.

Our Approach

After our initial call, we pulled together a proposal to deal with the two main frustrations and sat down in person, because that’s the best way, to go through our suggested plan.

The first part of the solution was to set up the accounting software to save the business owners time which included:

• Integrating the accounting software with automated supplier invoice uploaded software.
• Set up mileage apps on the business owner's phones so mileage could be more easily tracked, with mileage automatically calculated and regular trips set as favourites.
• We would take over payroll and all of the monthly postings into their accounting software plus send out pay slips, providing an end-to-end service.
• All the bank accounts were automatically linked to the accounting software so transactions didn’t need manually typing in by anyone (the owners still retain control of bank payments).
• Set up multiple automatic invoice reminder functionality for overdue debtors that weren’t on direct debits.
• Set up automatic customer statements for overdue customer invoices to ensure the accuracy of invoice matching and get the cash in quicker.
• To further help the client, we also suggested completing some extra client contract admin that isn’t the typical service accountants provide but it's more efficient for us to do than the business owners.

The client was extremely happy with the suggested approach and the time it would save the owners directly.

The second part of the plan was more strategic, with our senior staff getting to know the business better but also the goals of the Owners/Directors. We talked through the growth plans of the business and how this would impact both the cash flow and the profitability of the business going forward. The owners knew their business well and were running it profitably but having open conversations on what they knew, matched with our experience of supporting growth businesses and the hurdles to unlock more growth became clearer.

Quote from Chris Pearson, Owner – Front Page Advantage

“We get so wrapped up with running the business, taking on new clients, expanding the team, we often don’t take stock of where we are and where we are going. The conversations with Phil at Hyson’s really add value to us, not just from a business accounting perspective but also as a mentor to brainstorm through what the next few years look like for the business and for us as owners.”

Outcome

At the time of writing this case study, Front Page Advantage have been a client for 3 years and their business has tripled in size during this time with us. The owners now spend very little time trapped in both the accounting and non-accounting admin with the confidence that this is being dealt with quickly and proficiently by Hyson’s, Chartered Accountants.

With the customer overdue reminders being regularly and automatically sent, the bad debts have been reduced to almost zero, and the cash tied up in customer debts is lower now than it was when they joined, even though the turnover has tripled.

We continue to support Chris and Lucy with all their accounting needs for both the business and personal tax returns. As their business grows to the next phase of expansion, we will be here to provide advice and enable them to spend more time at what they are best at, which is growing their business.

Final thoughts from our client

“We had been with our previous accountant for more than 10 years and we perhaps lazily, just assumed that the service being provided was the same with all accountants, but we couldn’t have been more wrong. We are now paying less accounting fees, waste less time on admin tasks and moving to Hysons has enabled us to spend more time on client growth and training our team.”

Lucy Pearson, Owner Front Page Advantage.

If you’ve been with your accountant for a while want to chat through your frustrations, or explore how we might be able to help, then just get in touch.

Take a look at our other case studies.