Darren Austin

To plan your business journey, you’ve got to know where you are, where you want to get to and how you get there – mapping your journey along the way, taking some detours if needed and if things go wrong, the sat nav guides you back on track. It’s the exact approach we want to take with our business clients. Of course, we’ll still do their end of year accounts if that’s just what they want, but we want to be on that journey with them throughout the year, helping them keep on track.

The ‘Where You Are’ is the management information; that could be monthly or quarterly reports where your management accounts tell you how you are doing, what’s driving your profit, and whatever else is key to your business performance. Your management information is there so you can make better business decisions, pick up things that are working and correct things that are not.

There’s a variety of ways of looking at ‘Where You Want to Be’ normally we help businesses build models on what they want their businesses to look like with forecasts. We build in monthly targets and play ‘What If’ scenarios etc. What if I take on that new service line? Do I need to take on new employees or new premises to make something work? We build all these things in and create a set of targets, so when they look at their management accounts, they can see what’s working and what isn’t. It’s the Sat Nav guiding the client to where they want their business to be.

Then the important bit is to review; sit back, work out what’s worked and what hasn’t, was the plan too ambitious or was it spot on.

If you just got in a car and started driving, you are going to end up somewhere, but it’s probably not going to be where you wanted to be – it’s the same for a business, if you are head down every day you may be missing opportunities that could be navigating you and your business in the right direction.”

Darren Austin and Matt Allen January 2022
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“I left school at 16, not knowing what I wanted to do, and was offered a job in accountancy. I thought I’d stick with it until something else came along and that was 1981! I realised that I quite liked the job and was good at it, so I did the training and ended up as a Chartered Accountant. I then worked for some larger practices in the City before moving to Tunbridge Wells to open an office with someone I had met whilst studying. I moved on and became a director of another firm, before one of my colleagues and I had similar ideas and decided to go our own way.

So, 11 years ago, we bought our client base from that company and set up Synergee. It’s been great and we’ve not looked back. What I love about it is it puts me in the same position as a lot of my clients, because when I’m sitting down with them talking about their issues, I understand what they are going through as I have been through similar. The technical side of what I do means I can bring better solutions because I’ve sat where they are, I know what it means to have to raise finance, present to the bank, to find out how a business works, how it functions and how to market it. Running my business has given me a great insight into how a business operates, it’s a fast-changing world at the moment and that change is accelerating. Both my colleague Matt and I love looking at ways we can do things differently, it’s all about trying to get the best for our clients, using the latest technology available. Scarily, I get excited about that!”