Why a manifesto?
There is a slight change of direction with our blog from this week.
We have recently finalised the Comerford Foley manifesto. This is not a collection of future promises so that you will become our client much like a political party will promise you the sun, moon and stars so that you give them your vote. It is more of an information document about why we do what we do and why we enjoy doing it so much. There is a bit in there about what we do but not too much.
So you may ask why put a manifesto together for an Accountancy firm and what purpose does it serve?
Perception v Reality
Let’s be honest the perception of accountants ( bean counters as my friend calls us) is that we are not the most dynamic exciting people in the world and that if you tell someone that you are an accountant then cue the yawning and the smelling salts! However the reality for us in here is somewhat different. We love what we do, we enjoy coming to work in the morning. We enjoy having good conversations with our clients so that we can understand their businesses better. Basically we enjoy helping our clients to achieve what they want to achieve and I think, by and large, our clients enjoy working with us and find it a very beneficial relationship. So, in fact, we can hold very engaging conversations and conversations that have a purpose and, in most cases, have a very positive result.
What we stand for
In a nutshell this is our branding. When I say we I mean we, as our branding is a reflection of all the people that work here. Everyone was involved in coming up with the values that we work towards and that we expect, not only from ourselves but from the clients that we work with. We are not messers as we want to do the right things and give the correct advice to our clients. We do this because we are honest and we want to protect our clients and that is why we advise them to do the right thing. In our view, this will be the most cost effective option and also the least stressful option. In truth we want to work with clients who are like us as you will find that you get on better with people who are like you. With honesty and good advice we build trust with our clients and that is good for business. We are not perfect and we make mistakes, but if we do make them we will hold our hands up and admit it. We believe honesty is good for business so that if our service does fall down at some stage then the client will stick with us as they will have developed a loyalty to us, and us to them, over the years of working together
Our People
Currently we are six females and three males. Of the nine there are seven Irish, one Polish and one from Moldova, so we are a mixed bag. They even allowed two from Kilkenny in there!! We all have different backgrounds and experiences. Five of the team have quite a bit of industry experience in retail, sales, HR, education and financial controller roles. These different backgrounds and experience is a help to our clients as we are skilled at different things. For example, Cathy has huge experience in getting finance and has been able to use that experience for the benefit of our clients who are looking to raise funds for expansion. The objective for all our staff is that they are fully qualified and a great success for us this year was Ludmila qualifying as a Tax consultant, which is all the more noteworthy given that English isn’t her first language. The key to the growth of our business is having happy motivated staff who enjoy helping our clients. Our clients all have a dedicated person who is responsible for looking after their needs so it is vital that they have full trust and confidence in the person that is looking after them.
We are like you
We are a small family business like so many other businesses around the country. We have many of the same headaches that a lot of other family businesses have like paying taxes, getting paid in full and on time, sales, improving systems and processes, using new technologies and many others. We have learned quite a bit in the last few years with a view to growing and improving. We have invested time and money to grow and improve for the future so that we can give our clients the type of services that they need. We do this so that our clients can improve and grow so as they advance along their journey we are there with them all the way. We are far from the finished article but are trying our best to get better and we are more than willing to share our experience with you to see if that can help.
Family for us is so important. It is the main priority of this business. If there is an issue with any family member of anyone here that takes focus above anything else to include client work.
Why we love what we do
We take pride in the work we do and we are very conscious of the quality of the work that we deliver. We hope that our work makes a difference to our staff and clients and in many instances that is the case. Some recent examples of this include;
Ewelina passed her exams in 2019 and will be doing her finals in 2020
Jane came back to work with us in October 2019 after having her first daughter
A second generation business was passed on to the third generation in 2019
We negotiated a successful MBO in 2019 so happy purchasers and sellers
Our largest client was sold to a multinational in 2019
Our client has just purchased and will move into her first family home before Christmas
A new client who was really stressed about getting her taxes in order got looked after
A new client is really happy knowing that everything is up to date and paid
We get to meet new and interesting people and are involved in doing new and interesting work which keeps us motivated.
If you would like to find out a bit more about us, our people, our office and our values then please download our manifesto which is on our site. As always, if you have any queries please contact Deirdre, our practice manager, or any of the team here.
