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They 10x’d their turnover & built a second business with £500k+ profits: Learn from one of our clients

  • sara6648
  • Jul 10
  • 8 min read

When we speak to business owners about their accounting, they often tell us that they speak to their accountant once a year, at their year-end.


This is often when they find out what their tax liability is, and sometimes they are left scrambling at the last minute.


One of our clients has worked with us for around a decade, and in that time, they have 10x’d their turnover and have built a second business with over £500k of profits too.


While we can’t take the credit for all of that success, some of it will be down to our proactive approach to accounting, finance and tax.


In this article, we will identify how we believe they have achieved that huge growth, and how understanding their finances and our proactive approach has supported that.


You don’t know what you don’t know though:


As we have outlined in one of our previous articles, if you are mainly speaking to your accountant once a year, at your year-end, and you feel you don’t understand your finances as well as you would like, the good news is that it does not have to be like that.


Many traditional accounting firms focus on the compliance and speak to their clients once a year- at year-end.


So a more proactive approach, and year-round communication, is not something you would realise you need until you know about it.


With our most successful clients, we have regular communication with them, and we implement a proactive accounting process into their business.


What is a proactive accounting process?


In short, a proactive approach means that:

🔍 You have regular communication with your accountant

🔍 You have a good understanding of your business finances and tax liabilities, and 

🔍 You are able to make well-informed decisions, based on that understanding


Ultimately, this all helps you to focus on what you do best, and means you are more likely to achieve the goals you have.


So, how did they manage to 10x their turnover and also build a second business with over £500k of profits too?


  • It starts with a solid foundation:


When the founder-directors of this business first came to us, they had only recently formed the first business, and at that time they had no thoughts about a second business.


The founders had experience in their industry before launching though, so they had an understanding of the market.


They are also open-minded and are quite proactive already. They came to us wanting to understand their numbers better.


One of the first things we identified, however, was that the legal structure of the business had to be tweaked if they were going to achieve their goals.


It’s one of the reasons we start by asking new clients what they want to achieve with their business. When we start with the goals, we can work backwards.


  • Your business finances impact your personal life: Your accountant needs to understand how they link 


Your business is primarily there to ensure you earn money and that you can support the lifestyle you and your family want.


That’s why a key focus for us is to see and understand the people behind the business.


The directors of this business had different personal circumstances, so we had to identify the most tax-efficient way for each of them to take money out of the business.


Again, this is why we start with understanding our clients and the goals they have. 


What worked for one of the directors would not have worked for another of the directors, so our tax planning could not be ‘one size fits all’.


In addition, as personal and business circumstances change we continually tweak this approach, because what worked 5 years ago, might not suit your current circumstances.


Are you looking for an accountant that you speak to more than once a year?



  • Your accountant should be in your corner when you need them- not once a year!


Having us on-hand and in their corner has supported their growth.


The directors of this business like to plan and like to know where their taxes are going to be. 


We help them with that planning, including how to structure the ideas they have for the business, so that everything:


1) Is as tax-efficient as possible, and

2) Supports the goals that the directors have for the business


As an example, when they want to give bonuses to their staff, we support them to implement that into their payroll because we also run their payroll for them.


We have found that the best relationships between clients and us as their accountants should have a level of flexibility so that they can get the support they need, when they need it.


It’s not only about delivering a service. It’s about understanding what the client needs, and identifying how we can support them to achieve that.


To make well-informed decisions to grow your business, you need good information:


The important thing to note is to build a financial process based on the information you want to see.


One of our favourite phrases is that you can’t get good information out if you don’t put good information in.


Think of it this way: If you were on a desert island, and could not get access to all of your information, what 3 things would you want to know, so that you can tell whether your business was doing well or not?


In the early days of working with any clients, we aim to understand what those 3 things are, so that we can build them into their processes.


Two questions to ask yourself today:


1. If you were to rate your financial reporting on a scale of 1-10 (where 1 is ‘I don’t get any information at all aside from my year-end accounts’ and 10 is ‘I am getting all the information I feel I need to grow the business’) what would your number be?


2. If your number is less than a 6, what would you need to see to get it to an 8?


But remember, your process is constantly evolving:


With this client, their financial process is constantly evolving, because the information and reporting they need now is not what they needed 5 years ago.


That’s partly down to their growth, because that means there are now new targets, but it’s also because other things change too, like:

  • Your industry outlook

  • Your understanding of your industry and your business improves

  • Your costs fluctuate

  • Your team and support network help you take the next steps (like, with this client as an example, a non-executive director is on their board and asks them different questions to push their growth)

  • Your lifestyle (what you need out of the business will change because of life events like having children)


All of the above, and more, means that you have to be able to adapt as you go along. 


Like this client, it’s likely that what suited you in terms of management and financial reporting 5 years ago probably won’t suit you now- and it probably should not do if your business is moving forward.


It comes back to your accountant seeing you as a person rather than just as a business owner, and it also means them working with, and speaking to, you regularly, not simply focusing on compliance at year-end and speaking to you once a year.


Are you looking for an accountant that you speak to more than once a year?



3 areas we believe have contributed to their success:


As we have highlighted, this client has seen a 10x increase in turnover in their main business. They also launched a new business and have now achieved profits of around £500k in that second one.


Results like these are never down to one thing, so below we have identified 3 areas that we believe have contributed to their success.


1. Strategic decision making:


By having a plan they could look at and work towards, they were able to make smart, strategic decisions.


Whether you call it management reporting or something else, by having a clear view of the numbers in their business, and identifying that they had 2 successful revenue streams, they were able to make decisions to enhance their results.


As part of this, they spotted that they needed a different business model for one of their services, and so they launched the second business to ensure they could continue to serve both sets of clients in the best way possible.


2. Their team:


They have key personnel in both of the businesses so that they are run well. Their staff are great, and they have people in their corner to support them too. 


That includes us as their accountants with things like management reporting and proactively planning with them, but it also includes people like their non-executive director and other support they can tap into from time to time.


3. Their foundation:


This is in 2 parts. Firstly, their understanding of the sector they were in, because of their experience before setting up the first business.


The second part of this is that the success of the first business supported the second business. The learnings they had from that initial business made it much easier to set up and grow the second business.


Are you looking for an accountant that you speak to more than once a year?



What else can you learn from this client, so you can grow your business?


1. Work out where you are now, in terms of your financial information:


Work out where you are at now, and what information you have access to, because you might not need to change a lot straight away.


A few tweaks here and there might get you some really good information and give you a good starting point. 


2. Don’t rush to do anything until you do this:


Based on our experience, the best advice would be to not rush into anything until you understand what's wrong.


Work with what you have got initially, and try to understand what and where the problems are. They might be simple to fix.


3. You need this relationship with your accountant:


With the above in mind, it’s really important that you have a really open and honest relationship with your accountant. 


There is no point in holding back or thinking “I can't say what's going on in my business, because my accountant will think badly of me” or anything like that.


It has to be a very open relationship. We all go through good times and bad times, and the point is that you need to be able to rely on your accountant. 


You would not do this with the doctor (we hope), so don’t do it with your accountant


Not being open with your accountant is like going to the doctor and only telling them half of what’s wrong with you.


They can't fix the issue if they don't know everything.


You need an open, honest relationship with your accountant, which is exactly the relationship we have with this client.


🔍 Based on the above insights, what one thing could you do today to start understanding your finances better, so that you can grow your business?


SJO Accountants was founded by Sara Otley in 2008, and with expansion, our team now has more than 6 decades of experience in the accounting and finance industry.


We primarily help business owners with at least 5 team members to understand their finances better so they can grow their business, by implementing a proactive approach to accounting, finance & tax. 



 
 
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