From calamity to clarity – How Beyond the Numbers got back on track


In a nutshell

Based in Edinburgh, Beyond the Numbers is an accountancy and business consultancy Practice. Made up of a small but longstanding team of five, including owner Val Wishart, the company helps small businesses with their financial performance.

The close knit team place a great deal of importance on building strong client relationships and focusing on how they can add value to their businesses. They are all proud of their industry and the work they do, and their passion for accountancy is what sets them apart from other firms.

But it wasn’t always like this. A few years ago, owner Val was feeling the pressure and was ready to give up and walk away from the business.

 

Life before AVN

As owner of Beyond the Numbers, Val was under extreme pressure to deliver results to her clients, keep her team happy and make the business profitable. With so much on her plate, she ended up working long days, sometimes late into the evening and during weekends. Despite all of this, the business wasn’t making enough money.

What’s more, with no real plan in place and unsure how she could get more from her team, Val was bearing the brunt of the growing workload and “over-servicing some clients to the detriment of others”. With a lot on her mind, work became all-consuming and Val was unable to enjoy her work or her personal life. 

“I thought what on earth have I done? I wasn’t happy with the fact that Id set up my own business, I thought Id made a mistake and I actually thought about giving up.”  

Aware that she was not utilising her team to the best of its abilities and at breaking point, Val knew that something had to change.

 

This is how they did it… 

Having been inspired by seeing Steve Pipe speaking at a conference, Val wanted to know more about the company. She decided to join the AVN Masterclass and realised she was not alone in the problems she was facing. She walked away that day feeling excited to make a change to her business.

“I came across AVN at just the right time through seeing Steve Pipe speaking at a conference. He really struck me because he was talking about how we as accountants help to change other people’s lives.”

 

Achieving instant results

After the Masterclass, Val made some immediate changes to the business. The team let go of a number of clients so they could focus their energy on those they really wanted to work with. They immediately saw results and were no longer losing money on unwanted accounts. 

What’s more, using the AVN pricing software the team were quoting higher fees to prospective clients with no objection – thus already making the business more profitable.

 

Putting a plan in place 

But after taking so many ideas from the Masterclass, Val was still feeling overwhelmed about how she could actually implement these in her business. That’s where the roadmaps came in!

“Once I started on the roadmaps it felt like the plan was laid out for me and I could just work my way through in chunks and it gave me more clarity.”

Using the tools and support from AVN, Val was able to get her team on the same page and begin building their brand and really helping their clients. It was at that point she decided to attend the value event. 

After this, the team really began to focus on not only on the value they could add to their clients businesses, but they also began feeling extremely proud of the work they were doing.

They began taking on new clients who said that they chose Beyond the Numbers because they believe they are more passionate, and can add more value than any accountant they had worked with before. This became somewhat of a USP for the business.

 

What’s next for Beyond the Numbers?

Val is no longer working every hour under the sun to keep her business afloat. The next steps are to get the team more involved with the resources from AVN and giving them more responsibility.

“It’s really working for me and it’s working for the team. They seem empowered by the fact that they’re getting more responsibility and they’re much more interested in what they’re doing now.

With her new found time and freedom from the business, Val is actually training to become a yoga teacher!