Save content
Have you found this content useful? Use the button above to save it to your profile.
Women in business
istock_womeninbusiness_alvarez

What 20 years in accountancy has taught me

by

As she approaches her 20-year milestone, director of Wynne & Co Sarah Wynne examines how the profession has changed and how she’d like to see it develop in the future.

29th Jun 2021
Save content
Have you found this content useful? Use the button above to save it to your profile.

In a couple of months, I’ll have worked in accountancy for 20 years. This seems a good opportunity to look at how the profession has changed in the past two decades, and how I’d like to see it evolve in the next two decades. Much of this relates to the role of women.

When I started out working for an accountancy firm, all the senior roles in that firm were held by men, and they all fitted the historical stereotype of the grey suited, briefcase-carrying accountant.

My own boss in the branch I worked for was quite progressive, because almost all of his employees were women. Even before I was qualified, he was keen to send me on CPD training courses, where I remember being massively outnumbered by men. Not only would there be hardly any women in the room, but I was probably 15 to 20 years younger than most of the other people. I remember feeling quite self-conscious and out of place.

Over the years, though, the balance has shifted to the point that now, my juniors tell me that women outweigh men on their courses. In the same period, the services involved in the profession have changed enormously.

In particular, there's been a shift from compliance work towards a more advisory role. There is now much more of an emphasis on building a relationship with the client, and maybe this has made the job more appealing for women.

There’s also a lot more multitasking. Whether women are truly better at this is a moot point, but there’s no doubt that as more processes are automated, accountants can handle more tasks simultaneously. We no longer have to spend two weeks working on one set of accounts.

Another result of all the new technology is that it facilitates flexible working, meaning we no longer need to work 9-5 in an office. This shift has been hugely accelerated by Covid. In February 2020 I would have told you it is not possible for our firm to be paperless. Then, because we had no choice, we did it, and we did it in record time. Now I want to strip out everything in all the offices and make the whole place paperless.

I’m also committed to keeping home working as an option for my team. Some people have asked me how I know my staff are doing the job, saying they personally would find it difficult to trust their team. In practice though, it’s easy to measure, because we have time sheets and you can see your team’s productivity. We set an expectation to get a certain number of things completed every month, and beyond that, you just trust your staff to do it. This type of culture is perfect for parents, male and female, who want to work flexible hours so they can fulfil family commitments.

I suspect that increased flexibility may be part of why the number of female accountants is on the rise – but when it comes to ownership of firms, women are still massively outnumbered by men. This is not unique to accountancy; I also see a disappointing proportion of female owners in the smaller businesses that we work with.

I think some of this is a confidence issue – and in accountancy, perhaps women are not attracted to the level of compliance needed to run your own firm. This is definitely the worst part of the job – and those regulatory changes continue to happen while you’re away on maternity leave. You can't just switch off and forget about it. 

The fact that chartered firms are more highly regulated leads to a lot of debate about what benefit we get from being chartered accountants – but I take pride in it and the fact that I can tell people we are highly regulated, highly trained, and insured. Clients don't necessarily see the benefit of that at first; they only see our higher fees, but I’ve seen plenty of people realise the value when they use non-regulated accountants and something goes wrong. 

It’s true that the need to stay abreast of regulations may make it harder to deal with maternity leave, but I don’t think that should put women off – and in an ideal world, their partners should be sharing the parenting responsibilities. It’s true that time out may set your career back for a while, but when a woman has the same level of qualifications and experience as a man, I would like to see her have equally broad horizons. And I won’t be satisfied until 50% of accountancy firms are owned by women. 

We need male business owners to help women progress to the point where they can take these positions. They should be eager to promote their female staff, give them the same opportunities as men and not penalise them if they want to take six months or a year off for maternity leave. Instead, they should help them return and catch up. I’d also like to see female business owners being committed to helping other women get up the ladder, and I’d like to see young female accountants being ambitious about their future careers.

Creating a supportive environment for women creates plenty of advantages for a firm. Loyalty is a big factor; recent studies have found that employees are less likely to move for money, and more likely to stay for things such as work life balance and flexi work.

This doesn’t just apply to women; men also want to do school runs, go to school plays and go to sports day. If you can create a firm that allows for your staff to do those things, your staff retention should improve, along with morale and productivity. That’s the type of atmosphere I strive to create at Wynne & Co, and I hope it will become the norm in all accounting firms in the future.

Replies (9)

Please login or register to join the discussion.

avatar
By Paul Crowley
30th Jun 2021 13:37

You chose to stick multitasking in.
I comment not

Thanks (0)
avatar
By petestar1969
30th Jun 2021 16:03

I've done just over 30 years in accountancy. Its nothing like it was when I started and certainly not better.

Thanks (0)
Replying to petestar1969:
By jon_griffey
30th Jun 2021 17:01

petestar1969 wrote:

I've done just over 30 years in accountancy. Its nothing like it was when I started and certainly not better.

Not everything was better in the good old days.

I do not miss: -

Ticking off and casting cashbooks
Simplex D
Kalamazoo
Bound ledgers
Calling and checking
Extended trial balances
Typing pools
Sending accounts and tax returns to Companies House/HMRC by mail
Estimated assessments
P11 cards
Dot matrix printers

Anyone got any others?

Thanks (2)
Replying to jon_griffey:
avatar
By thomas34
01st Jul 2021 10:19

Yes, delivering by hand paper tax returns to the tax office on deadline day and in my case finding a queue out to the door so walking to the front of the queue, dropping the return on to the desk and retreating very quickly!

Can't agree with the extended trial balances though. They're the best way to see all of the p & l and balance sheet items on one or two pages - I do get raised eyebrows from other accountants though.

Thanks (3)
Replying to jon_griffey:
avatar
By Ian Bee
01st Jul 2021 12:30

Agreed on estimated assessments, to which I would add, the whole rigmarole of appealing the assessments and postponing the tax assessed. All done by post, not fogetting the office procedures to ensure that the appeal was made within 30 days.

Thanks (1)
Replying to jon_griffey:
avatar
By Jimess
02nd Jul 2021 12:04

I started in accountancy in 1976 and one of my first jobs was writing up the nominal ledgers from the ETB. It taught me a lot about double entry and what belonged where, how the balances were brought forward and I took great satisfaction in balancing the opening TB when it was all done. I loved it. These days the bookkeeping and double entry knowledge is sadly lacking with the increased use of computer software, and often when things go wrong in the clients records you need to go back to basics to sort it out properly. I have a few clients that still use manual cash books and Simplex D, or a variant thereof - it gets them into the habit of balancing the cash and bank on a regular basis which in my eyes is a good habit to develop. They are simple tools for basic record keeping and fantastic for smaller businesses who do not have the means to employ a dedicated bookkeeper. In these days of computerised accounting the basic checks and balances often fall by the wayside as something only t0 be done at the quarter end or year end. The early days were not all good - I remember spending days checking adds, vouching and checking postings on larger clients, masses of analysis and the nightmare of non balancing bank reconciliations, but it all taught me a lot about how the clients accounting systems worked and the quirks and anomalies of different businesses - and I won't mention manual timesheets - Friday afternoon's nightmare. Wouldn't have changed it for the world though.

Thanks (2)
Replying to jon_griffey:
By Silver Birch Accts
02nd Jul 2021 13:33

Olivetti adding machines.

Thanks (0)
avatar
By Geoff56
30th Jun 2021 16:55

I qualified more than 40 years ago. I used to enjoy it. We used to know the people in the local tax office and could build relationships with them, not to mention the local bank and building society managers. Now the work is a conveyor belt of deadlines, stress, penalties, stress, technology, stress, and a faceless juggernaut called HMRC which won't stop and steamrollers you if you pause for breath. I look forward to being able to call it a day.

Thanks (6)
Chris M
By mr. mischief
30th Jun 2021 22:36

I qualified in 1991. For me everything is better except the UK tax service. In 1991 it had integrity, professionalism, lots of people with massive knowledge of the tax code, honesty, dedication.

Now it has none of those. Yet it claims it has improved massively in those 30 years. Just like Bozo Jo claims he sacked Matt Handycock. Yeah right!

Thanks (4)