Shaped in 2011 by Georgi Rollins, Starfish Accounting pleasure themselves on being approachable, pleasant —- and undoubtedly not stuffy. Based mostly in Berkshire, the group contains 9 ladies and, whereas they’ve a various mixture of shoppers, the agency has a selected concentrate on serving to female-run companies. “I believe we have now a very good understanding of among the challenges that numerous our shoppers undergo,” says Georgi. “Now we have numerous conversations with individuals about how they will get further help to assist with their work life steadiness, or learn how to take care of maternity pay. Purchasers really feel comfy to ask us sure issues that perhaps they wouldn’t if we had been a bit extra fusty, quaint and male dominated.”
Giving the fitting help is an entire lot simpler due to Xero — which they adopted in 2012. “I had a play with a little bit of on-line accounting software program that one in every of my shoppers used, which was a horrible little bit of software program, however I actually favored the cloud-based facet of it. Then any person beneficial Xero, and so we signed up and have by no means appeared again. That was the most effective enterprise selections we made.”
Click on right here to look at Starfish’s story, or learn her tricks to create an environment friendly observe.
Tip #1: Embrace expertise to make VAT returns a breeze
With the following stage of Making Tax Digital (MTD) for VAT imminent, many accountants want to digitalise their VAT course of, however Starfish made the swap lengthy earlier than it turned a requirement. “I all the time hated coping with VAT returns as a result of they’re simply massive, unwieldy, clunky issues,” says Georgi. “So we switched to coping with VAT digitally very early on.”
One of many largest ache factors of getting shoppers on spreadsheets in addition to on Xero was getting maintain of cohesive, dependable information to finish the return. “The most important aggro was making an attempt to verify the information was correct and full. You then discover a suspicious line merchandise and it’s important to shuffle by an unlimited sheaf of papers to attempt to discover any backup.”
The group at Starfish now do all of their shoppers’ VAT returns by Xero. “When MTD for VAT initially got here in for companies who had been above the VAT registration threshold, it was a helpful lever for us to encourage shoppers to maneuver to Xero who had been beforehand reluctant to take action,” says Georgi. “And we made the choice at that time to not deal with individuals who had been beneath the VAT registration threshold any in a different way, so we registered all of our VAT registered shoppers for MTD for VAT.”
Submitting VAT returns on-line by Xero not solely ensures shoppers are MTD-compliant, it additionally makes the method fast, straightforward and seamless by streamlining the complete observe workflow. “On the information integrity and the information enter aspect of issues, there’s an unlimited array of instruments inside Xero that make life simpler — like money coding, and discover and recode,” says Georgi. “After which there’s the performance that sits inside the VAT return in Xero. We use the HQ VAT part to maintain an eye fixed out for which returns have to be filed. You possibly can run the VAT return as a report for various intervals as nicely.”
Tip #2: Develop your advisory companies by automating administration duties
With Xero taking good care of numerous the mundane duties, Starfish can consider the enterprise advisory aspect of their service. “Automating the admin duties is certainly a giant time saver, however I believe extra importantly, it helps us to do a greater job as a result of we’re not simply sitting there asking ‘have we received an attachment for this?’” says Georgi. “There’s all types of various issues that we are able to spend a bit extra time on now that we’re not frantically simply clobbering collectively the information.”
Even shoppers who had been initially sceptical are impressed by the advantages. “Once we’ve moved individuals throughout to Xero who’ve beforehand used spreadsheets and spent many many hours placing collectively the knowledge, they will’t consider how a lot simpler it’s,” she says. “On the finish of the day, the shoppers need to ensure that their compliance necessities are taken care of, however they don’t get excited a couple of VAT return or a tax return or a set of accounts. What they need is to have a relationship with an accountant who’s there as a enterprise advisor, to allow them to ask questions and perceive what the affect is perhaps of paying again a mortgage early or organising a brand new location or no matter it is perhaps. They need the compliance stuff to occur within the background, taking as little time as potential.”
Xero has helped take the ache out of the busy January and VAT season. “I used to get to the top of January pondering I ought to be capable of ease off, however I’d nonetheless have all these VAT returns due that had been going to take me ages and it felt actually nerve-racking,” shares Georgi. Now, Xero helps her get forward of the sport and unfold the workload all through the group.
“Seven of us work on VAT returns. It’s a lot simpler from a collaborative perspective. Certainly one of my group can put together a VAT return and I can go in and run a report. I can drill down into one thing and ping them over a query. We’re in a position to have these a number of contact factors with out it being tough.”
Driving effectivity to create a more healthy work-life steadiness
By saving time, spreading the load and streamlining workflows, the entire group has a greater work-life steadiness. “We’re very cautious to handle individuals’s workload so that they’re in a position to take a while out. We function a versatile and hybrid working fashion,” Georgi provides.
For accountants nonetheless utilizing spreadsheets for VAT, Georgi has one easy piece of recommendation: “Make the swap to Xero! In the event you’re nonetheless utilizing spreadsheets and bridging software program, you’re spending extra time on a given job than you actually need to and producing one thing that’s not the identical worth of output” she says. “It’s such a no brainer.”
For extra assets to help your shoppers with the following part of MTD, take a look at our Sources Hub in addition to our new associate information which outlines many efficiencies that your observe can entry by Xero.
