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LOVEWELL BLAKE “We recommend the Mercia Group to our contacts as we feel that the audit manual they provide is extremely comprehensive whilst being easy to follow” Richard Morris Partner, Lovewell Blake |
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Lovewell Blake employs over 225 staff at 7 offices in order to manage a portfolio of clients that range from small businesses and tax clients to large companies. Richard Morris is technical partner at the firm, and is jointly responsible for the quality control of audits. He chooses the Mercia Group audit manual as part of the practice audit procedures, together with their file peer review service.
The firms handles between 350 and 400 audits each year which means that Richard has to ensure that tight procedures are in place within the audit departments. He explains: “We have been involved with Mercia Group for some time and chose to use their audit manual after evaluating other products on the market. Our findings during evaluation showed that the Mercia audit manual was easily the most comprehensive available. We have now also been invited to work with Jane Everingham at Mercia Group, who chairs the audit manual committee, to help both update and enhance the audit manual product as we use it extensively. We make the manual available to all of our staff who handle audits and of course, send our staff on the Mercia Group audit update courses. It’s very beneficial to have the team using the manual that’s referred to on these courses as you are able to get an instant handle on any changes or updates”. Richard uses the audit manual as the practice audit procedure manual and has been able to add the firm’s own letters and style to the manual. Says Richard “because of the size of our firm it has been important for us to be able to get one to one consulting with the audit manual product”. Asked about the possible raising of the audit threshold and the impact this would have on the firm; Richard felt that whilst they potentially could reduce their audits down to 200 per annum if the threshold was raised to £4.8 million, many businesses would still choose to have an audit. “Many companies that we deal with need to raise finance and report back to shareholders and other group companies. Having an audit prepared independently is, therefore important to them regardless of whether they have a statutory requirement for one. Many business owners and board members want peace of mind and an audit provides that to them”. Richard readily recommends both Mercia Group’s audit manual and their training courses to the Moores Rowland International Network and has found the team at Mercia to be professional and efficient. “We recommend the Mercia Group to our contacts as we feel that the audit manual they provide is extremely comprehensive whilst being easy to follow. We know that the manual is accurate as it is constantly updated, which gives our practice total peace of mind. The thrust of the Mercia development plan is based on enhancing the electronic version which provides for on-screen documentation completion. This innovative approach is one we enjoy working with”. |
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KEITH ROBINSON & CO “We find the training services available from Mercia really help us to develop our own firm and don’t believe that they can be beaten by anyone else in the marketplace. They provide excellent value for money combined with a personal and professional approach” Terry Truran Partner, Keith Robinson & Co |
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| Keith Robinson & Co are a two partner firm based in Middlesbrough. Their client base ranges from start-up businesses through to large companies, many requiring audits. With fees exceeding half a million pounds the firm has to attract and keep experienced team members. In addition, over a third of fees are based on value added work such as business development and management consultancy. This means that the practice needs to stay abreast of the latest business information and tools as well as keeping up to date with compliance legislation. To help them achieve this, Keith Robinson & Co choose Mercia Group Ltd as their preferred training provider. Terry Truran, a partner at the firm, explains their training requirements, in more detail. “We have two partners, three experienced, qualified managers, three qualified seniors and two graduates in addition to secretarial and administration staff. Whilst we have many established clients we also havemany first generation entrepreneurs who are looking to grow and develop their businesses quickly. This means that we need to be able to provide our team with the skills that enable them to deliver a pro-active and “commercially aware” service. Using Mercia, as our training provider, enables us to harness and develop these skills whilst keeping abreast of the latest technical knowledge through their comprehensive update programme”. Mercia’s annual training programme provides Introductory, Intermediate and Advanced courses which helps Terry and his team plan their training days well in advance. Says Terry “the comprehensive programme available from Mercia allows us to route the appropriate staff through courses at the right level. Mercia also make it very easy to plan ahead by delivering their courses schedules well in advance and in a format which allows us to make decisions on our training requirements very quickly. In addition we enjoy a friendly but professional service from the Mercia team at all times, when we are choosing and booking courses.” The practice spends a minimum of 5% of fee income on training and says Terry “training is the lynch pin to the success of the team development at the firm and we place extremely high importance on it. We find that Mercia know their customers well and seek to find appropriate and professional speakers in their respective fields when offering their courses. We have absolute peace of mind knowing that the course content will be up to date, accurate and interesting, and also that course notes will be easy to follow and course administration will be impeccable”. Of course time is always the biggest problem for any practice which wants to embrace training and personal development and this also applies to Keith Robinson & Co. “We try to make as much time available for training as possible and whenever feasible, send as many people to one course at a time. Mercia also recognise the impact that time out of the office has and are helping us to balance off-site courses with other options such as Internet training using their new web based training courses, courses on CDROM and video conferencing. This is still new, but we believe has real possibilities for the future and demonstrates that Mercia are ahead of the game looking at new technologies that help alleviate the time burden and improve the flexibility of training.” In addition to using Mercia’s documentation for corporate and specialist industry accounting and auditing assignments, Terry also uses Mercia to produce budget summaries and tax cards and buy into many of their standard letters, which fulfil a wide range of client communication requirements. Says Terry, “as well as courses and tools we also attend the Mercia partners’ conference each year which really helps to focus the mind on value added opportunities and business development issues. All in all, we find the services available from Mercia really help us to develop our own firm and believe that they cannot be beaten by anyone else in the marketplace. They provide excellent value for money combined with a personal and professional approach. We are more than happy to recommend Mercia to other accountancy firms.” |
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THOMAS MAY & CO “We find the training services available from Mercia really help us to develop our own firm and don’t believe that they can be beaten by anyone else in the marketplace. They provide excellent value for money combined with a personal and professional approach” Brian Carruthers FCA Partner, Thomas May & Co |
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| Thomas May & Co are an established accountancy firm based in the East Midlands, with offices across Leicester, Peterborough and Syston. The practice has over 80 staff who look after a whole range of clients from large unquoted companies through to owner managed businesses both large and small. The firm also specialises in a number of niche markets such as Charities, Solicitors and Clubs. In order to constantly keep their staff skill base up to date and to capitalise upon their specialist skills, Thomas May & Co choose to use Mercia as their training and marketing support provider. Brian Carruthers is a partner at the practice and explains firstly how Mercia help them with their marketing needs. “Mercia provides a range of marketing support tools which help us to achieve the three key marketing objectives we have. One is client retention, the second is winning new business and the third is to capitalise upon the specialist skills we have in certain industries. We use their quarterly newsletter service to help keep our clients informed about what we are doing as well as providing an update on a wide range of business topics. The unique thing about Mercia is that they offer a choice to our firm about what goes into the newsletter and are able to design the look and feel of the document to suit our own style. We have recently merged with another firm, and have used the newsletter as a tool to introduce ourselves to the new clients and as a way of letting our existing clients know that we are growing”. Brian also uses Mercia to provide legislative updates, which if handled in house would take up valuable resources. “We choose to buy in the Mercia prepared budget summaries and tax cards. We could do our own but this would take away fee earning time from the tax team. In addition we regularly purchase letters and ad-hoc client bulletins which are constantly added to and updated by Mercia. All in all, when you weigh up the cost of buying in and doing it yourself, Mercia’s rates are always very favourable.” Brian has been impressed with the quality of materials supplied by Mercia and has always been able to receive tools such as the newsletters and bulletins in a timely fashion. Says Brian “we want to create name awareness in our catchment area and promote our services both to clients and potential clients. The best way of doing this is to capitalise on the good relationships you already have and generate client referrals. Ensuring that we keep our clients and intermediaries aware of our services and our name using the Mercia marketing tools means that we achieve these objectives very successfully by continually adding value to our work”. Brian also uses Mercia to provide the majority of training requirements for the firm both for senior staff with CPE courses and non-qualifieds, with introductory and intermediate courses. And says Brian “we spend approximately 5% of fees on training per annum and find that Mercia provide good value for money in their courses. The course content and materials are very good and most importantly the speakers are of a very high calibre. This means that our team benefit from quality content every time they attend a course. In addition Mercia can bring in specialists when they need to, which helps us to stay abreast of the changes in the more complex legislation that surrounds some of the niche markets, such as Solicitors.” For the future, Brian has very clear ideas about the direction Thomas May & Co are taking “we want to market more services and specialist skills to our client base by constantly identifying and adapting to their needs. One area we have recently focused on is running client seminars, whereby we have helped our clients to make better use of their IT. Again, Mercia were able to support us with this course and provided an excellent course leader to handle this for us. We are very happy with the marketing support services and training provided to our firm by Mercia. We receive good quality client communication tools and can tap into a good range of back –up services designed especially for practising accountants. Mercia constantly recognise and adapt to the changes in the market place with their services and have certainly helped us to develop and promote our own practice.” |
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