A day in the life with Jared.
*We’re hiring for a Senior Accountant. Read more at the end of the post for details*
Take a glimpse into a day in the life of Jared, Operations Director and one of the Account Managers at Ashton McGill. From his morning coffee to reviewing year-end statutory accounts, Jared takes us through his day and shares insights into his role as both an Operations Director and an Account Manager.
Morning routine.
Coffee. Regardless of whether I’m working from home or from the office, each day starts with coffee. Today I’m in the office, so after a few sips, I sit down at my desk and review my diary for the day.
Review meeting with a client.
A big part of my role is acting as Operations Director for Ashton McGill, but today I’ll be wearing my other hat which is that of Account Manager. To kick this off, I have a review meeting with an owner of an amazing IT consultancy company. You can read more about these review meetings here. Essentially, these meetings are an opportunity for us to catch up on the last few months, review the financials, and discuss any changes that need to be made to the business's operations. I take my call downstairs in the boardroom for a bit of privacy.
I’ve been working with this business for years, so I’ve developed a solid understanding of their financial model and I always try to bring a few discussion points from the quarterly accounts into these calls. It took a while to get used to the fact that I could offer valuable insights to experienced and successful business owners, but I think that as accountants, we need to embrace that reality and be quicker to offer our perspectives.
We’re on the call for 60 minutes and then I spend the next 20 writing up some notes on our CRM and following up with a few action points.
Management accounts.
I head back upstairs to my desk. As I don’t fancy the music that’s on in the office I put my headset on under the guise of needing to concentrate on my next task: a complex set of quarterly accounts.
Our clients use various bits of software to manage the finances of their business, but the one thing that they all have in common is that they are cloud-based. This means that when I come to prepare their management accounts, I can log into their till system, Shopify store, expense management portal and Xero account, and pull data from all those sources. There’s never any need to request an old shoebox of receipts or bank statements.
This particular set of management accounts is for a hospitality business, so in addition to the usual P&L and Balance Sheet, I use their till data to report against the average order value and the number of orders. Last quarter, we agreed that there would need to be a price increase on some food items, and it’s great to see the positive impact on profitability this quarter. Before sending the management accounts pack to the client, I record a quick Loom video to talk them through the key points. I found it odd at the start recording myself, but now it’s something that I do every day as it gets such great feedback from clients.
Catching up with emails and year-end statutory accounts.
In the afternoon, I have time to catch up with the emails that have built up from the morning. The business owners that I work with know that they can get in touch at any time, so often I get queries or requests between our scheduled catch-ups. These range from a simple bookkeeping query to questions around raising finance.
I then wrap up my day by reviewing a number of year-end statutory accounts before they’re sent out to the client for signing. Before heading home, I review my diary for the rest of the week and fill in the gaps with a few jobs from my ‘work to be done’ list.
We’re hiring.
We're on the lookout for a Senior Accountant to join the Ashton McGill team. You'll be working with ambitious, forward-thinking business owners who value growth and act as a key partner in helping them reach their business goals.
Sound like you?