I spent the day at Accountex Manchester recently and came home, as I usually do, with a notebook full of ideas and my brain going in about twelve different directions at once.
But once I’d had a chance to think about it properly, my biggest takeaway wasn’t that we need to rip everything up and start again. It was actually quite reassuring. A lot of the things we’re already working on at CBC are exactly the things the profession is talking about, and it made me feel like we’re heading in the right direction.
So, rather than a rundown of every talk I went to, here are the five things that have stuck with me most.
1. AI is exciting, but it isn’t the starting point
Unsurprisingly, AI was everywhere. I’m genuinely excited about it and I already use Copilot a lot, but one thing really stood out to me: there’s no point automating something if you haven’t worked out how you actually want it to work first.
That has made me feel even more strongly about the work we’re doing at CBC around our processes, SOPs and what we call The CBC Way. Get the process right, make ownership clear, document it properly and then look at where technology can help. Otherwise, you’re really just automating the chaos!
2. Good processes shouldn’t make a business less personal
This follows on from the first point, because systems and processes can sometimes sound horribly corporate, especially when you run a small business where relationships matter.
But I actually think the opposite is true. The better our processes are behind the scenes, the more time our team has to spend on the things that need a human being. It also means we’re not relying on one person knowing how everything works or keeping a huge to-do list in their head. And yes, historically that person at CBC has quite often been me. 😂
For me, the goal isn’t to systemise every bit of personality out of the business. It’s to systemise the repetitive bits so that we have more time for the people.
3. Clients need confidence, not more accountancy jargon
This was probably less of a new lesson and more a reminder of why I feel so strongly about what we’re building for our clients.
Yes, we prepare accounts and tax returns. Of course we do. But I don’t want somebody to receive a set of accounts from us, look at them and think, I have absolutely no idea what any of this means, but Caroline says it’s fine.
I want our clients to understand their numbers well enough to ask questions, make decisions and feel confident about what’s happening in their business. That’s a big part of why we’re putting more focus into client education next year. Our approach at CBC is deliberately about helping clients understand why something matters, keeping things jargon-free and building confidence rather than trying to turn everyone into an accountant.
4. Bigger doesn’t automatically mean better
There’s always a lot of talk at business events about growth and scale, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to build a bigger business. But it reminded me that success doesn’t have to look the same for everybody.
For one person, success might be building a £1m business. For someone else, it might be earning enough to leave their employed job, having Fridays off, doing the school run, or simply running a business they enjoy without it taking over their life.
I think we can sometimes get so caught up in sales, growth and the next milestone that we forget to ask the most obvious question: what do you actually want your business to give you and are you still getting that?
That’s the version of growth I’m interested in, both for CBC and for our clients.
5. However much technology changes, client experience still comes back to people
This was probably the biggest thing I came away thinking about. We can have brilliant software, slick processes, clever automations and AI doing more and more of the repetitive work, but clients still want to know there’s a person at the other end who knows them and cares about what happens to them.
And actually, I think that’s where all of the other points come together. Technology and processes shouldn’t replace relationships. They should give us more space for them.
For CBC, that means using the clever stuff behind the scenes while keeping the bit our clients actually experience warm, straightforward and human.
So yes, I came back from Accountex with lots of ideas brewing, which was pretty much the message I sent the team afterwards. But I also came back feeling reassured.
We don’t need to jump on every new thing or completely reinvent what we’re doing. We just need to keep improving, keep testing and learning and keep focusing on the things that genuinely make a difference to our clients.
And I think that’s a pretty good place to be.
