A focus on: The people behind Business Advice and Services

At Monahans, we pride ourselves in having a workforce full of people with a variety of backgrounds, experiences and skillsets, who are passionate about helping their clients. As part of this series, we want to focus on the people behind each department, this time we speak with Partner, Clare Bowen.

How did you get into the field of business advice and services?
I studied Maths at university but wasn’t sure what I wanted to do next. No one in my family had a profession like accounting, so I felt a bit lost. I started working in hospitality, following a management program, I enjoyed the social aspect of the work, but it didn’t allow for a good work-life balance. To get more structure to my week, I joined a finance team of a big company working my way around the departments gaining experience before taking several years out of work to have children.

During this time, I took on voluntary financial work for local organisations, which eventually led to taking a bookkeeping course after my last child was born. Then due to personal circumstances, I needed to find a way back into full time work. A friend recommended accountancy, so I decided to go back to University and complete a second degree in accounting while working part time in industry.

Working in industry first rather than going directly into practice provided me with invaluable, hands-on experience across a group of companies, completing tasks such as bookkeeping, Payroll and VAT. At that point I realised that I wanted to learn and progress to the next step, so I joined an accountancy practice as a client portfolio manager. It was soon clear how much I enjoyed the business consultancy part of the work, which lead to me joining Monahans’ business services team.

What do you find rewarding/challenging about your role?

Helping smaller businesses
I really enjoy interacting with clients and helping owners to better understand, and be in control of, their business’ finances. I deal predominantly with owner-managed businesses which are often smaller organisations where the people who work in the business are also those who benefit from it succeeding.

Some of these businesses may not be able to afford an in-house accountant or a bookkeeper, so we must provide the type of support that will allow them to take control of those areas themselves. This often requires a very different style of support than we might provide to a large corporate entity that has an accounting team.

It's my job to ensure that these smaller businesses are not at a disadvantage and are given all the tools and advice they need to operate as efficiently as possible. We also encourage them to ask themselves sometimes difficult questions to force them to dig deeper when thinking about their business. For example: ‘How can we improve cashflow, Are you spending the right amount X?’ or ’Do you think you could be investing more in X?.’ It’s important that we are there to ask the important challenging questions that others may not.

Shouldering some of the weight
Ultimately, we aim to ensure that our clients don't lie awake at night worrying about things, instead they know they can talk to us at any time. We also want to enable them to continue to do what they do best - they may be a highly skilled self-employed tradesperson for example but that doesn’t mean that they necessarily understand finances, and why would they; after all I can’t plaster a wall or build a kitchen! So, we are there to provide them with that knowledge.

This is also why our job can be really challenging. You are often spinning numerous plates and sometimes tens of enquiries, so it requires constant multitasking and prioritisation. But the rewards are incredible because of those human connections that you make and because of the variety of work – no two days are the same.

Supporting junior employees
As my role has developed, I’ve also had the opportunity to support others coming up through the career ladder such as teaching trainees and assistant client portfolio managers what I know to help them to expand their knowledge. I find it really rewarding to share the lessons that I’ve learned along the way and to help them to make the decisions that I had really struggled with earlier in my career.

What advice would you give for someone considering a career in accountancy/business advice?
There are numerous different paths into a role in accountancy, and there are many people who will already have skillsets well suited to a career in finance and shouldn’t be discouraged from coming into it at a later date. In fact, the experiences gained from different roles and having a varied background can be beneficial to a finance role.

I became a client portfolio manager about ten years after my peers, but I had abilities gained from other real-life experiences that I was able to bring into the role. For example, working in hospitality had honed my customer service skills as well as enhancing my ability to work under pressure. Working in industry also gave me insight into the stresses and strains involved with running an individual business which now helps me to better empathise and put myself in that person’s shoes.

What skills are important for a career in accountancy/business advice?
Although technical and IT abilities are important, such as being proficient in Excel, this isn’t enough on its own. Accountants and business advisers need to be comfortable in speaking to new people and regularly engaging with clients. This means being able to explain sometimes complex scenarios in a jargon-free manner, so that business owners can clearly understand what you are saying and how it relates to their business.

It also requires being confident in asking sometimes challenging questions and supporting those clients who may be going through a really stressful time. Which requires a patient, empathetic and firm approach.

I find it helps to be genuinely interested in people and in finding out about their businesses and what they do. And it’s also why I think those with a customer service background will already have many of the skills necessary to communicate well, even under pressure.

Whilst accountancy does require candidates to pass certain exams, there is still a misconception that the job is only about the numbers when, in fact, it is far more about communication and the picture that you paint with a set of accounts, than being amazing at Maths. Much of the work we do focuses on the movement of numbers, the correlation between them and the interpretation of what this means in real-life terms – in other words explaining it in a way that everyone can understand. I believe many people might be deterred from the numerical element of finance, but with the right training, would make extremely successful business advisors and accountants.

If you’re looking for a role where you can help people to run their businesses more efficiently and take some of the weight off their shoulders, get in touch today. We would love to hear from you.

Clare Bowen