As a business owner, what have been your biggest successes and failures?

My biggest successes to date have come from recognising that the only constant in life is change. Learning to embrace this change has allowed Beanstalk Accountants to offer tailored accounting solutions to our clients utilising the newest and most efficient accounting software available. This has involved taking the time to investigate, research, learn and master the new environment of cloud based accounting software and add-on business applications.

Having mastered this environment, Beanstalk Accountants are now tailoring this software for our clients as a solution to many of the challenges they face on a daily basis. We offer our clients a fully integrated cloud based accounting solution.

An example of a solution of this kind is a cloud based Point Of Sale (POS) system that we recently set up for a local cafe. We have fully integrated this physical POS system with an online POS system on our client's website. Both POS systems are also integrated with our client's cloud based accounting system. This allows our client to monitor the performance of their business from anywhere in the world, at any time, in great detail, and all at the click of a button.

This solution would not have been possible only a few years ago and has come about due to the huge change in internet speeds over the last few years.

 

By embracing change and mastering the newest and best range of cloud based accounting software available, our clients are now able to spend far less time 'doing the books' so that they can focus their time on servicing their customers better - a great success!

My biggest mistake to date has been not making the jump from a home office to a serviced office sooner. I spent just over 12 months working from a home office during the initial establishment phase of the business. I did this because I wanted to keep the overheads of the business as low as possible. In hindsight, this was a mistake, as working from a serviced office has opened up many new doors for our business.

We now collaborate with many of the businesses operating within our workspace on a daily basis and this has brought about great benefits to our business including new referral partners, new clients and new friends!

 

How important is networking for you and do you feel that your working environment has helped this?

Networking is very important for our business. Not just for gaining new clients, but also for gaining the confidence to stand up in front of a group of business people and explain to them what our business can do for them. The working environment at WOTSO WorkSpace has definitely helped with this. Being surrounded by like-minded business people at WOTSO inspires us and allows us to collaborate and work together on improving and growing our businesses.

Tell us about one challenge that you've overcome in your business and what do you think are the challenges facing all business and startups?

A big challenge for start-up accounting businesses is that we need to establish a new client base from scratch from day one. We have overcome this challenge by surpassing the expectations of each of our new clients with every service that we provide for them. Because of this, our clients have felt comfortable referring us on to their colleagues, family and friends and we have experienced exponential growth in our client base as a result.

A major challenge for all businesses is keeping up to date with changes in technology. Many do not keep up with the pace and attempt to continue running things 'the way that it has always been done'. It is important for business owners to understand that their processes and systems must adapt to changes in technology in order to remain as efficient, effective and most of all as competitive as possible in an ever changing and evolving environment.

 

Why did you decide to work in a shared office/workspace environment and do you think it's helped your business?

This is a very simple question to answer - cost and collaboration. The cost of a shared workspace environment is attractive because the transparent pricing means that we can budget for our costs upfront and predict our profitability levels in advance. The collaboration element is inviting as we are able to work amongst what is essentially a team of business people all working together to help and improve our businesses simultaneously.

 

What do you think the future of work looks like?

I think that the future of work looks more passion-driven, more flexible and more fulfilling than it has been in the past. I have noticed a change in the perspectives of my clients over recent years. Clients are now starting businesses with friends and family that are looking to work collaboratively, in an enjoyable working environment, pursuing their passions together as members of a team. Their business processes have become far more flexible and automation has removed a lot of the drudgery that was previously involved in the compliance side of running a business in the past. For example, I can now meet with a client at a coffee shop and discuss their accounting system with them on an iPad connected to the shop's Wi-Fi.

During our meeting we can review the clients' POS transactions for the day, issue quotes, invoices and complete the employee payrun for the week. This level of flexibility has never been available to business owners in the past and is paving the way for new tech-savvy business owners to sell the products and services that they are passionate about whilst living a far more fulfilling working life than what has been available to them in the past. What an exciting time it is to be in business!