For this month’s cover interview, unLTD’s Joseph Food sits down with the directors and co-founders of Gravitate Accounting – a forward-thinking, fast-growing digital accounting firm who by embracing game-changing tech and employing an honest, people-first approach are redefining traditional stereotypes about accountants.
After being invited down to their Kelham Island-based office, our editor spoke to co-founders Sam Newton and Mike Crocker, as well as accounting director/co-owner Jonathan Carr, Head of HR and Operations Claire Conley and Martin Dean, director of their recently launched corporate finance department. Over a wide-ranging interview, they delved into the driving factors behind the company’s impressive growth, their focus on staff development and the array of new services they now offer to businesses in South Yorkshire.
Could you tell us a bit about the Gravitate story and how we’ve come to reach this part of the journey?
SN: We started Gravitate in 2019. I don’t think we really had a masterplan, but we knew all of the problems in the accountancy industry. Things like being dictated by timesheets or getting billed every time you wanted to speak to your accountant were issues for a lot of people. We wanted to set up a business which righted a lot of wrongs within the industry and changed the stereotypes and perceptions around accountants.
Could you give us an example of how you did that?
SN: Pricing is a big one. A lot of companies don’t know what size bill they’ll receive from their accountants until they get the invoice, but we clearly state our monthly prices on our website. That’s just one example of how to change a perception about how we work, and it’s a direction we’ve continued to head in, trying to better the experience both from a client and staff point of view. In terms of staff, there’s generally quite a high turnover in the accountancy industry, but we take a lot of time to make sure we’ve got the package right for them here.
On that note, could you talk a bit about your recruitment strategy here at Gravitate?
JC: It’s about finding the right people with the right personality and mindset, but also making sure we’re at our best to keep them. We clearly show our staff the progression routes and what they can get for themselves here. We always say that we can train someone to be a good accountant, but we can’t train them to be a good person. So getting good personalities in, prioritising openness and helping them get to where they want to be helps us to keep the right staff.
CC: I think it’s easy to talk about work benefits and talk about looking after your staff properly, but a lot of firms can also get away with not doing it. We’re very conscious about backing up what we say we’re going to do.
It’s probably a good point now to bring in one of Gravitate’s most recent appointments. Martin, you’ve come in to lead the company’s new corporate finance department. What appealed to you about joining the Gravitate on this journey?
MD: I previously worked at another accountancy firm in Sheffield called Shorts Accountants, where I’d been for 11 years. I knew and kept in touch with Mike and Sam and they offered me the chance to come here and do my own thing. Being able to implement my own ideas along with the opportunity of joining a growing firm was the ultimate lure for me. Sam had explained that they felt there was a bit of a hole in the messaging and having a corporate finance department to fill in some of those holes would really add to the overall service at Gravitate.
SN: Yes, I think a key thing for us is down to the fact that we’re working with some of the best companies in Sheffield now. If they wanted to sell in however many years, we didn’t want them to think that Gravitate couldn’t facilitate that and take their businesses to a national firm. It means we can work with start-ups and scale-ups through to the exit process where Martin and his team can take over. We can work with a client through the whole life cycle of their business.
What other services are covered by the new corporate finance department here at Gravitate?
MD: We cover a range of services including business valuations, extremely detailed forecast modelling, setting up an Employee Ownership Trust or any type of ownership transaction – whether you’re buying/selling a business or helping businesses grow through
acquisitions. It’s quite a specialist offering so we’ve been trying to reach out and partner with other accountants who don’t have that service so we can help in that respect. There’s a genuinely collaborative approach at Gravitate, I think we’ve managed to establish a sense of trust in how we work and ultimately, the end goal is to help local businesses.
SN: I think we’ve built up the brand awareness online and have always been honest and open with anyone from the industry who we’ve engaged with; we post about the good stuff and we post about the bad stuff. I think the trust factor is there and now with Martin, we have the ability to support other accountants with their corporate finance work.
What tends to be the most common issues you find that clients are coming up against in the current business landscape?
MD: I think when it comes to changes in ownership, it’s such a big once-in-a-lifetime decision and you need advisors that can guide you through it and genuinely care about meeting your objectives. As every client is different, these objectives are often going to be different. Whether it’s getting as much money out of it or protecting legacy, I want to be the type of strategic advisor who hones in on understanding what the client wants out of it and guiding them through the process so they can look back on and be proud of what came from it. I think sometimes it can be too much of a transactional process when it comes to working with advisors on these processes, and that’s where we want to approach it differently.
Another problem is that really good smaller businesses can often be priced out of the specialist advice we provide. That’s something we want to change.
SN: It’s important to realise that while going through the sale process, clients need to continue running their business as well. It could take anything between three to twelve months and they need to keep things moving in the meantime, so having someone like Martin to run the sale process for them is hugely valuable.
“The unLTD Awards felt special because it was celebrating businesses in South Yorkshire, and we’re really proud of where we’re from. To then take it up a level three months later and win at the Yorkshire Awards was again just amazing, particularly the Team of the Year award – that was a big one for us.”
You’ve enjoyed impressive growth over the last couple of years and have been adding to the ranks considerably in recent months. Could you talk us through that process?
JC: It’s been quite significant. I started three years ago and there were five of us, a year later there were twelve, and a year after that there were twenty-four. I expect we’ll finish this year with at least 30 people.
And has that growth been driven purely by demand?
JC: Yep, it’s been driven by the leads coming through the door and we’ve been delivering a service that has been attracting more and more clients.
MC: It’s also important to point out that we’re working with clients who are growing themselves, so as they’re growing we’ll offer more services that they could be interested in.
What areas have you been focusing on in terms of recruitment?
JC: It’s mainly been accounts at all levels. We’re passionate about bringing apprentices in and training them from the start, and that’s because we are doing things differently in terms of a much more digital approach and working with our clients to make sure things are right from the start, so when they get to the point of wanting to sell, they’ve got years of history of doing things correctly.
So, bringing in apprentices from the start is quite key as it allows us to teach the Gravitate way and our way of approaching the job. Thirteen out of twenty-four of our team members are on some form of training contract to become a qualified accountant – and we’ve had about six qualify while being with us – and that’s a huge thing for us, helping to get people that professional qualification.
SN: We’ve got a team who do genuinely love working here, and we now have a policy that if a member of staff successfully recruits someone, they receive a £1,000 payment. We’ve gone from three people saying it’s a good place to twenty-plus saying the same thing. We’re seeing a lot of accountancy firms move into offshoring and outsourcing work, but we’re so proud to take on local apprentices, train them up, and help the city of Sheffield.
MC: Rather than make more money by offshoring, we’d much rather make an impact in the local area.
Martin, as a newcomer to Gravitate, did anything really stand out about how things are done differently here?
MD: For me, it’s the no timesheet policy. It’s pretty much a standard in the industry. But it’s very refreshing to have that trust; people know they need to get the work done but it doesn’t feel dictated by the timesheet.
MC: I think the timesheet thing is more of a Big Brother-style mindset of ‘we’re watching you’. We operate more on a trust-first basis and have found that if you treat people like adults, that respect will be reciprocated.
MD: Another thing that was a big shock to me was seeing the amount of people in the office each day. We do offer hybrid working, so they don’t have to be here, but the fact that people want to come in and be part of the workplace speaks volumes.
MC: We know the importance of being able to collaborate with your peers. It’s the best way to learn. So, it almost feels like a duty to create an environment where people want to come into the office. It’s almost like creating a bit of FOMO for staff if they’re not in the office!
You spoke about how important it is to get the right sort of personalities in. With that in mind, what sort of questions are you asking potential recruits?
JC: When doing the interviews, a big thing for me is just getting to know the person. You can easily see with already qualified accountants who have the skills and experiences to do the job, but then it’s a case of how they might come across to a client, how they engage with others and also what makes them tick away from the job itself. We want people that enjoy and are passionate about their work but are also able to build relationships with clients and in the workplace.
MC: We’ll also be looking for that natural alignment in company values. Are they frustrated with being an accountant and only seeing their client once a year? That’s a key reason of why we set this business up and sharing those common frustrations is a big one.
Let’s talk about some recent successes. You won Finance & Accountancy Company of the Year and Best Small Business at our very own unLTD Awards in November before heading to the Yorkshire Accountancy Awards in February and winning Team of the Year and Independent Firm of the Year. It must be nice for the hard work to be recognised?
SN: Absolutely. We’ve put ourselves out there from day one really, receiving nominations for a number of national awards and just missing out. There’s been some pain involved! But yes, to win and get the recognition for the team is really important to us. The unLTD Awards felt special because it was celebrating businesses in South Yorkshire, and we’re really proud of where we’re from. To then take it up a level three months later and win at the Yorkshire Awards was again just amazing, particularly the Team of the Year award – that was a big one for us.
What do you think has helped you to stand out from the competition for these awards?
MC: I think we realised that perhaps we weren’t naturally great at promoting ourselves, as sometimes you can be your own worst critic. We brought in one of our advisors to help us write the applications for the awards, using another perspective to help draw the information out. I think there was a sense of honesty to the applications – not bragging but honesty showing what the business is like – and I think that may have helped us.
How are you planning to build on the recent growth and success?
SN: We started off the interview by saying that we never really had a masterplan, but bringing Martin in has allowed us to review our business from a corporate finance perspective and plan for the future. We want to scale the business and continue to grow. As a shareholder group we had to create internal roles for ourselves to manage the business effectively and bringing Martin will help spread the workload and ensure our longer-term strategic goals can be achieved. It’s something we tell our clients to do so it’s something we’ll now be focussing on even more.
