Rivington Accounts

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a brand growth agency. We do brand development, design work, marketing campaigns, and web technologies for organizations in the UK. My role is the chief strategist, which means I’m involved in the planning and strategic execution of the work we do. Because we’re a small business, I also have another hat which is being the managing director. My role on the operational side is making sure we’re compliant in our financial relationships and staying on top of governance.

What challenge were you trying to address with Rivington Accounts?

Rivington looks after all our day-to-day stuff, working with our internal bookkeeper to keep the books up to date and handling payroll.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Alongside the day-to-day workings, they do preparation of monthly management accounts. It’s more top-level, looking at areas of the business where our spend is increasing or decreasing, where we’re seeing higher or lower profitability, projects for particular clients, or where we’re exposed. We don’t want too large a part of our income to come from one particular space. They act a bit like a floating financial director who works outside the business. They also provide us with software, including Xero and Receipt Bank. Rivington has a reseller agreement with those providers that allows us access to more support.

What is the team composition?

We deal with Martin (Owner), who handles things from the top level. He handles my concerns about changes in the business. We’re also dealing with Jeff, who looks after our management accounts. Again, on a day-to-day basis, we have an accountant look over that side. We occasionally speak to someone on their tax team as well. Daily, we speak with around three people.

How did you come to work with Rivington Accounts?

We were dissatisfied with the accountants we had because they didn’t demonstrate an understanding of our business or the space we operated in. Martin was active on Twitter and was recommended to us. I thought that, if he’s an accountant that’s embracing the digital space he probably has a similar mindset to me. I reached on Twitter and the rest is history.

How much have you invested with them?

Combing our monthly retainer with the bits and bites we’ve put through over the years we’ve spent around £5,000 ($6,600 USD) annually. Their costs are very reasonable.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since January 2014.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Rivington has had a great understanding of what we need in a relationship with our accountant. I’m quite a figures-oriented person, and, in the past, when we worked with other accounting firms, they wanted to just hand the finished books back to us rather than helping me figure out how to use them to make improvements to the business. I want things that are actionable. The more accurate the day-to-day books are the better we can make business decisions.

For example, we noticed that we had a rolling surplus of outstanding debt a few years ago. It wasn’t impinging cashflow but it was delaying it. After investing in automation software they helped us reconfigure our workflow for how we chase outstanding money. We managed to get it down to a good level. The data helped us make this decision.

How did Rivington Accounts perform from a project management standpoint?

I prefer a light touch from an account management point of view. If I have a need I’ll reach out and they’ll come back to me. Martin has been very receptive during the pandemic where working hours are skewed and there’s a lot of worry and uncertainty. They’ve adjusted their normal practice to ensure we’re being looked after during the pandemic. I’m very pleased.

What did you find most impressive about them?

One of the things I’ve been particularly impressed with, and one of the reasons we keep on with them, is their mindset as problem-solvers. If they don’t know how to solve something they’ll go away and then come back with a plan and recommendation. For example, I consulted with him when I changed our pricing model because I wanted his take on the possible impacts. Martin’s been willing to look at stuff that’s within the financial consulting space but perhaps is a little over the book from what you get from a standard accounting relationship.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Overall, we’re very pleased. In the past, I’ve had to adjust my expectations a little bit. We come from a highly communicative world, and Martin is good, but my speed of response expectations may be a bit unfair. This is more a time when I could have been more reasonable. We’re all happy.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

For me, it comes out of the reporting side of things. There’s a lot of accountants with the basics: payroll, bookkeeping, tax returns, and there’s a lot of efficiencies they can bring in like saving money. But their true value is in preparing good financial reports that you can use to make evidence-based business decisions. Rivington has proven invaluable in doing that for us.