Sarfaraz's LinkedIn profile

I worked for nine years in practice and Internal Audit in my home country of Bangladesh and became an ACCA member in 2021. I love practice and working with businesses in different sectors and always planned to start my own practice.

After arriving in the UK three years ago, I looked into getting my ACCA practicing certificate. That required research to get past the misconceptions out there about who is eligible and what experience is eligible, and since obtaining my own practising certificate I have supported other members to obtain their practising certificates. Getting my practising certificate gave me the confidence to establish my own firm - Swindon Chartered Certified Accountants - which is now a year old.

Getting clients initially was a challenge but I've always been passionate about entrepreneurship and motivated 15 entrepreneurs to start their own businesses and they became clients. Some have already started employing staff and boosting the economy. My firm has a vision to help 200 entrepreneurs start their own businesses over the next five years.

My clients are from different sectors – hospitality, recruitment consultancy, education and retail so far. Having this variety is part of my learning – I research each sector thoroughly to ensure that I give clients the advice they need.

The biggest challenge for my practice right now is unqualified accountants that undercut qualified accountants. Some members of the public do not understand the difference between unqualified accountants and Chartered Certified accountants.

In the present economy, businesses are struggling to raise capital. I have partnerships with different banks and financial institutions, so I can support my clients with finance for their businesses.

I have expanded my service lines by becoming ATOL registered and I am also a practitioner member of the Institute of Internal Auditors. The ACCA syllabus covers so much that you have extensive knowledge by the time you are qualified and acquiring these additional qualifications only requires a small amount of extra learning.

I loved my time in Internal Audit – internal auditors have access to every department in an organisation and insight into every business process, so you develop huge amounts of experience. Many businesses now outsource or co-source their internal audit function so this will be a growth area for my practice. My future plan is for my practice to grow into a multi-partner practice.

Work-life balance is very important, and I believe it makes you more efficient and productive when you work if you have made time to relax your mind. I like to spend quality time with my wife be it shopping or seeing a movie – even if it is only a couple of hours, it makes me happy, increases my confidence and makes me more efficient.