How to overcome the obstacles your practice will face in Spring 2021 More challenges lie ahead – here’s what you can do to take action
@FluidlyPartners
Caroline Plumb, CEO and Founder, Fluidly Caroline is Founder and CEO of Fluidly, an all-in-one cashflow tool for accountants and small businesses. From forecasting to funding, Fluidly helps you keep clients happy and launch new services. Caroline previously co-founded recruiting and consulting business FreshMinds. Caroline also serves as a non-executive director of Mercia Asset Management, an early-stage technology investor, is a former Prime Minister’s Business Ambassador and received an OBE in the 2016 Birthday Honours list.
Caroline Plumb, Founder and CEO at Fluidly, offers practical solutions to the biggest challenges your practice will face in the months ahead.
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o you remember when it was just the occasional government announcement you had to worry about? Big new initiatives, like Making Tax Digital, popped up every now and then, but you had enough time to get your head around them before they came into effect. The last 12 months couldn’t have been more different. Countless schemes, unlike anything that has come before and with everchanging criteria, have been launched at an astonishing and sometimes overwhelming rate. For the first time, clients are listening to the Chancellor’s Budget speech too. While the worst of the pandemic is hopefully now behind us, most industries are still dealing with the after-effects of the first wave of upheaval. Employee morale, the pros and cons of remote working, new ways of interacting with customers – you probably already know what will shape the months ahead for your practice. So here’s a few tactics to get on top of these
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challenges and ensure your firm doesn’t get left behind. Looking after your team Accountants have gone above and beyond, saving thousands of businesses from the brink of collapse, but they haven’t had the recognition they deserve or the time to properly recharge. With so many of your team on the edge of exhaustion, how can you ensure staff remain happy and supported? Employee wellbeing is like company culture – it starts at the top. So make sure managers are properly trained, doing regular 1:1s with direct reports and in a position to catch issues before they get worse. Health benefits platforms like Vitality can play a big part here, by providing discounted access to mindfulness apps and online mental health support services. Simple things can have a big impact too. Doing something to say thank you, like a free food delivery from Deliveroo
or Uber Eats, can make staff feel appreciated. HR tools can also be useful, by helping you monitor whether staff are taking advantage of annual leave, so you can bring it up and set the right example. A profitable and competitive practice Like your clients, you’ve probably introduced new ways to cut costs and make money over the last 12 months. Perhaps you’re paying less rent – through downsizing, renegotiating your lease or dispensing with your office space altogether. Maybe the cash coming in has changed too, if you’ve settled on a new pricing model or a different way of charging clients. With more accountants offering support online and bundling their services in similar ways, the playing field between practices has been levelled. Traditionally, business owners in London would probably turn to accountants in their local area. But now, what’s to stop them from hiring advisers in
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