Member Article

Big 2014 beckons for North East accountants

A North East accountancy firm has seen rapid recent growth, resulting in the appointment of two new staff and the purchase of a bigger office.

Graeme Tennick & Co. Accountants, of Cramlington, Northumberland, has grown client numbers rapidly and substantially since its inception in April 2012, and has recruited Sam Oliver and Laura Johnson to the team to cope with the surging demand.

Partner Graeme Tennick, 31, of Cramlington, who founded the practice from his bedroom, is also in the process of buying a new office at the Apex Business Centre in his hometown.

Sam is looking to commence his Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) exams whilst Laura joins from Homes for Northumberland and is an ACCA member.

Client growth has been exponential in the past year, as Graeme explains: “I started off working from home initially to keep costs down and with a relatively modest number of clients this worked well.

“I soon started attracting more clients and larger clients so I felt I really needed more space. My client numbers continued to grow rapidly and this is what has led me to recruiting two new staff - one starts in December and the other in January.”

Currently at the United Business Centre in Cramlington, Graeme says the serviced office there helped his practice evolve. “I needed some support for when I was in meetings or out and about with clients but unfortunately could not afford a secretary,” he explains.

“With a fully serviced office I could take advantage of a full time secretary being present to greet clients and take calls when necessary. It also gave me the professional office which I required but that I could not afford to buy outright”.

Now, Graeme is able to do so, and expects to relocate to Apex in the new year.

Graeme has business in his blood; his father ran his own business - A1 Industrial Trucks - before selling to Northern Bear plc, and, in his youth, Graeme took a keen interest.

Despite initially thinking law would be his vocation, Graeme eventually did an accountancy degree before taking his ACCA exams at a small accountancy practice.

After a stint at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Graeme then moved on to a senior finance role at Northumberland County Council, managing a gross budget of £130 million.

But, throughout this time, Graeme yearned to go solo, and shake up the profession. He said: “The desire remained to have my own business and, with my first job in private practice being the one I enjoyed the most, after about 12-18 months of initial thoughts to planning, I set up my own practice on a part time basis.

“My thought was that the accounting profession generally needed a bit of a shakeup so that people seen qualified accountants for more than we are often portrayed, in terms of being very backward looking, not particularly proactive and very focused on fees. I instead wanted clients to see that I am interested in them and their businesses and wanted to be seen to be accountable for what I was charging”.

Graeme left the Council in October last year to concentrate full time on his business, and was quickly presented with a series of opportunities to showcase his practice.

He ran a series of workshops for Business Northumberland and ran some presentations for Barclays, mentoring and providing consultancy.

Graeme is ebullient about the future, saying “the two new staff members and I collectively will be a great mix to push us on for hopefully a fantastic 2014.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Graham Vincent .