Accountancy Annie and the lost Financial Controller

One day O’Byrne and Kennedy were on their way to market when they came across a rather glum faced old friend sitting by the side of the road.

“Hello Accountancy Annie,” they chortled.

“Oh hi,” she said, looking up from the ground, rather forlornly.

“What’s the matter Annie?” they asked, “you look like you’ve found a penny and lost a pound.”

“Oh, it’s worse than that,” said Annie, “much worse – I’ve lost my Financial Controller!”

“Lost your Financial Controller?” they exclaimed, “how on earth did you lose your Financial Controller?”

“I got to work this morning and there was a note on my desk saying he had decided to leave his troubles on my door step and was heading west up the sunny side of the street!”

“Oh dear!” they exclaimed, sitting themselves down either side of her and patting her on the back.

They knew how hard Annie had been working on her business this year because they had been helping her out quite a lot.

“And now I’ve got so much work to do and not enough time to do it I’m probably going to miss our big end of year party and everything!” she sobbed.

“Don’t worry Annie,” said O’Byrne and Kennedy, exchanging a knowing look, “leave it with us, I’m sure we can help.”

“But how?” said Annie.

“Come over to ours this afternoon for tea,” they said, “we’ll show you.”

O’Byrne and Kennedy ran back to their office and immediately got to work. They knew Annie’s business well so they decided that the first thing to do come up with a solution and show it to Accountancy Annie later that afternoon.

Firstly they documented Annie’s accounting systems so they could present her with a fixed priced proposal for the work.

They decided that the proposed solution should involve a partial redesign of her accounting system, even though she should retain her accounting software.

The proposal included the preparation of monthly accounts for each of her divisions, dealing with the company’s auditors, business modelling and forecasting and monthly variance analysis. This involved comparing the forecast to the actual results on a monthly basis. It also included a detailed timetable of deadlines and scheduled monthly financial review meetings.

“Wow thanks guys!” exclaimed Annie whilst nibbling on a digestive biscuit later that afternoon, “I can really see the merits of this. Some roles within the organisation will need to be modified but it will improve the quality of the Finance Controller role, giving me more than I ever had before and quicker too. It will even save me money! “

“No problem,” said O’Byrne and Kennedy, filling the tea pot with more hot water, “We knew we could help. Two brains are always better than one!”

As Annie’s business grew O’Byrne and Kennedy were able to flex their resources to provide additional support whenever she needed it. This gave Annie much more resilience than before as O’Byrne and Kennedy could step in during holidays and sickness.

They were even able to knit other services into the Finance Controller role too, including personal and corporate tax planning.

They now share afternoon tea with Annie once a month to review and analyse her numbers.

“You know,” said Annie, dancing with O’Byrne and Kennedy at the big band at the end of year celebration party, “you should provide other businesses with this service.”

“Oh yes,” they said, “cloud based accounting software facilitates distributed accounts processing perfectly. It’s really fuelling this trend towards the outsourcing of this role.

“You could even supervise their internal accounting staff and provide them with the training they need,” she said.

“Don’t worry,” said O’Byrne and Kennedy, exchanging a knowing look, “we already are!”