Amy's LinkedIn profile

When I was at school, I liked maths and my dad said that I should be an accountant because accountants always have a job. When I went to college, I did an accountancy A-level and I had a great tutor who said that if I didn’t want to go to university then I could do an accountancy qualification from A-level. I wrote to all the local businesses and found myself a job in an accountancy practice and started my ACCA qualification at 18.

It was quite a small practice but at the time we still did audits, so I did very varied work there and really enjoyed it. I qualified at 22 and then moved into industry. I worked for a plc as a management accountant and because it was a big company I had to follow all the SARs rules and get involved in the audits. I took a break to do some travelling before taking an FP&A role which was a bit different but a lead on from doing management accounts. 

By then I had a young family and no longer wanted to travel for work. My husband had set up a recruitment business and I took care of the finances and brought big business finance to a small business. It was a very well managed and successful business until Covid. Covid didn’t kill the business completely, but it dropped off a lot and we decided not to re-build it after Covid. That was my introduction to the recruitment industry. After Covid I took a role as Head of Management Accounts for a big recruitment plc but eventually the work-life balance wasn’t what I wanted so I set up my own practice specialising in recruitment businesses.

Running your own business is very different to working in a business – you have to put on a lot of different hats. You are no longer just an accountant – you’re a sales manager, debt collector, staff manager, etc. It’s been a real eye-opener how many things I have to get involved in, and how to do them the right way and try to build the client base. There are five of us now and we’ve moved into a small office. We’re growing well and focussing on our niche. We’re building our brand through marketing predominantly on LinkedIn – our Tuesday Tax Tips posts have gone down very well, and we’ve had good engagement. I also do networking within the industry and word of mouth is bringing in new clients.

It's very common in the recruitment industry to have factored debt if recruitment businesses have contractors on their books. We’re very experienced on that front and have good relationships with banks to support them. There’s also a lot of employment legislation such as IR35 and intermediary reporting that is specific to the recruitment industry that we need to be on top of. Generally it’s having the industry knowledge and because we talk to so many recruitment businesses, we know where the market is at. We know which markets are doing well and which aren’t within an industry as well as across the board. That knowledge – as well as having run a recruitment business - allows me to really add value to my clients.

Within the market, jobs are being held open to save money. So companies will hold a job open for three months rather than filling it straight away in order to save some money because their costs have gone up as a result of the payroll tax. Minimum wage went up at the same time as national insurance increased so it’s been a big increase which is having a detrimental effect on how businesses hire. A concern for recruitment across the UK is how many people are outsourcing work to other countries rather than hiring in the UK because the costs are so much lower elsewhere.

Away from work, I like going to the gym and I enjoy running. My daughter plays football for the Southampton Academy, so I spend a lot of time driving her around for football. My son is a swimmer, so we have a lot of kids’ sports going on but going on holiday is my favourite thing!