Jon Gaunt - Best Friend in Finance

Who are you and what do you do?

I’m Jon Gaunt, a Chartered Management Accountant who has spent the majority of my career in the corporate world – I've used my qualifications and experience to work in some amazing places including the Middle East and the Far East

I've walked away from the big corporates and set up FD Works (now a Xero award winning practice!), this has enabled me to follow my passion of supporting ambitious small businesses with all aspects of their finances.  This is what I did with big businesses but now it's scaled down and made affordable.

What hardware do you use?

I'm an Apple man through and through.  For me it works every time, its beautiful to touch and aesthetically pleasing…plus it impresses the creative clients when the finance man pulls out his Mac. I use an iMac 27", a MacBook Pro 15" (with a solid state hard drive and extra RAM) on the road and an iPhone 4 (I'm an accountant, so I'll upgrade it when it breaks!). Whilst I'd love to walk away from Windows, I still have to use it. ( I run Parallels to emulate Windows.)

Whilst I have a car my preference is for two wheels – I'm currently riding a Giant TCR Advanced.

What software?

I love cloud computing and my favourite piece of software has to be Xero, enhanced with Practice Ignition for clients engagement and on boarding, WorkflowMax for job scheduling and a Receipt Bank and Tripcatcher combo for personal expense management and for logging business mileage.  I've even had a few clients buy things just for the joy of using Receipt Bank.

I've still got a place in my heart for Excel 2013 (nothing comes close for business planning) and Access 2013 – its the only place that Windows triumphs over a Mac.

What is your favourite business trip?

Bristol to Malmesbury on the B4040 - the countryside is quiet, away from the hustle and bustle and beats the M4.

What is your dream setup?

Why is it when I ring my bank that I have to tell the automatic voice handling system my sort code, account number, payee details and then I get asked the same question 2 minutes later by the human? My dream setup is never having to key in the same data twice – I get excited by Xero's roadmap that payments can be pushed direct from Xero to internet banking.