With the turn of Valentine’s Day, we decided to interview Sylvia and Neil Bourhill of Another Answer Books and Accounts to discuss what is it that makes this couple so good at running a bookkeeping practice together. You may have heard of Another Answer Books and Accounts as it won the Luca Award for Small Practice of the year in 2015 and then went on to win Large Practice of the Year in 2019! Sylvia and Neil have been married for more than 21 years but have only been working together for three. After retiring from working in Business Systems Consultancy, Neil joined the business as a director.
So, are you looking to get your partner involved with your bookkeeping practice? For Sylvia and Neil, it has proved to be very successful. They are growing their business in an economy where a significant number of organisations are just aiming to survive. Throughout the interview, Neil and Sylvia were extremely supportive of one-another and talked admirably of their business, relationship and their Christian faith. Read on to discover more…
How are you two coping with the third lockdown?
Neil: Lockdown is not amazingly different to where we were before because we were doing a lot of working from home before lockdown.
Sylvia: Neil’s always worked from home since before he retired, I work in an office in our village. Normally I have six people in the office and it’s nice and lively, but at the moment, I am working from home. I used to work at home many years ago, but now my home has been repurposed as my office! Neil is used to having the place on to himself with the dog. I’ve enjoyed being at home and working with Neil rather than not knowing what he’s doing!
‘’I used to work at home many years ago, but now my home has been repurposed as my office!’’
How did you two meet?
Neil: Some time ago, we both ended up going to a group called FootLoose. It has a few chapters around the country, and it’s mainly for single Christians. Sylvia came back from overseas and found that all her friends had got married! And there she was, the only single there. So that was a handy place to meet up.
Sylvia: There were lots of exciting things like canal trips and balls. I do miss the balls, I have to say, that’s where we started dancing! It was at the annual FootLoose ball.
How long have you been married?
Sylvia: 21 and a half years. Before I met Neil, I’ve been working in Africa for a mission organisation in an admin role, like writing up fundraising projects for various external funding sources.
That’s fantastic. When did you two start working together?
Sylvia: Neil retired four years ago, and I co-opted him. He’s always been director of the company. When we were first married and I had a small child, I did just little bookkeeping. I just answered little ads for people who wanted someone to come in a couple of hours a week. Neil was doing some freelance business computer type things, and so we set up the company. And then when Neil went back to a full time job, I took over the company and used it to run my bookkeeping business.
‘’When Neil went back to a full time job, I took over the company and used it to run my bookkeeping business’’
Sylvia: So, full time, Neil has been in the business for…
Neil: Three years
Sylvia: I still don’t pay him a full-time salary, but let’s keep quiet about that!
Neil: She thinks that because I’ve got a pension, then that should be enough!
Sylvia: It’s been quite interesting because it was very much my business, and so having Neil come and properly work in the business – I struggled with that.
‘’The strategic direction of the business has very much been a joint effort. My head doesn’t think strategically, whereas Neil’s does, so we complement each other with that’’
Neil: You did make it quite clear that it was your business, and I took the hint!
Sylvia: But, working from home for the past year has been much better for the dynamics of the business and I rely on Neil for a lot of the strategic and marketing side of the business.
Neil: I’ve always tended to fill in. So, for example, the fact that we have three screens working down here (Sylvia’s home office) is down to me.
Sylvia: The strategic direction of the business has very much been a joint effort. My head doesn’t think strategically, whereas Neil’s does, so we complement each other with that.
How do you share the workload?
Sylvia: The side of the business that we’ve been working up is the advisory side of things, so Neil has been working with clients who have been wanting more detailed, more in-depth management reporting, forecasting, things like that. I’ve always been on the bookkeeping/accounting side. When we get new clients, it’s always been my role to sign up new clients and talking to them.
‘’We are trying to be a bit more strategic about the company and how the company is working, which is not a direction I ever thought we were going to go in’’
I’m assuming that’s a position you have had to work quite hard to attain
Sylvia: Yes, it is. It’s not my natural habitat, let’s put it that way. I put some things off because I’d much rather be doing somebody’s tax return.
Neil: We need to see reports to show that things are happening rather than just doing it on a sort of personal ‘how are you getting on?’ way.
Sylvia: We are trying to be a bit more strategic about the company and how the company is working, which is not a direction I ever thought we were going to go in. You know, I did a bit of bookkeeping on the dining room table when I had a baby and then it grew from there! The involvement with ICB in the advisory council and being a branch chair and stuff like that helped.
Do you talk about work all the time or do you have strategies for maintaining a good work-life balance?
Sylvia: I don’t think we have a particular strategy for work life balance. We do talk about work a lot. We do watch a lot of TV - a lot of detective things.
Neil: We do switch off. After the evening meal, we very rarely talk about work. It just works that way, it’s not a formal thing.
Sylvia: We do things together! We are both very much involved with the church. In the days where we could go to church, we were both very involved in different church things. We recently started on a New Testament studies course.
Neil: Yes, because we weren’t busy enough!
Sylvia: It’s been quite interesting to do together because it gives us something else to talk about. When we are allowed to travel, we have an apartment in the mountains in Bulgaria – for skiing in the winter and hiking in the summer.
Have you been sharing your learning throughout your marriage? Or is it more recent with Neil joining the business?
‘’We do switch off. After the evening meal, we very rarely talk about work. It just works that way, it’s not a formal thing’’
Neil: I always claim that I’ve used QuickBooks before Sylvia because she was using Quicken.
Sylvia: Neil worked in business solutions mainly for many years.
Neil: I was part of a small company and we did our bookkeeping on QuickBooks and I got myself accredited and went out selling my time and getting people to use QuickBooks.
Sylvia: I do QuickBooks a lot nowadays. QuickBooks Online has been very good for us as a practice.
What have you learnt from each other?
Neil: How to live together?
Sylvia: How to be a little more objective in things and to be less subjective in my instant reactions! We learnt how to live with somebody else because I was 40 when we got married, Neil was 52, and we’d both done our own thing for many years. We have also learnt how to live with a teenager in the house! Also having more confidence that I can do stuff. Neil’s very good at encouraging me at that.
Neil: Well, you can!
You do own your own business, after all.
Sylvia: Well, yes. I don’t know if I could have done that without Neil in the background, to be honest.
What shared values do you two have?
Sylvia: I would say that’s very much centred around our Christian faith, which was part of the attraction to start with.
Neil: I think it gives you a good basis with so much to share. What else do you need?
Sylvia: I think, honesty and compromise are very important because you do have to compromise when you are living together. Integrity in business as well as in life is important too. Tolerance as well, not just for one another but for others too.
Have you set any exciting business goals for this year and what are the long term plans for your business?
Sylvia: We have a 5-year plan. We’ve been working with ActionCoach for a couple of years now and we’ve finally got to a point where we know what we want to achieve.
Neil: We haven’t yet settled on this, but I think the priority is to get ourselves in an organised state where taking on an extra accountant or two is going to work, because we need the extra staff to support the volume of business we would like to do.
‘’Integrity in business as well as in life is important. Tolerance as well! Not just for one another but for others too’’
It’s great to hear that you are looking to grow the business
Sylvia: That’s always been the idea Until Philip (their son) was out of primary school, it was just a case that I was doing the work because it was there, and I had clients. So, it’s changed a lot.
Finally, how was Valentine’s Day?
Sylvia: One of my members of staff lives down in Devon and lives on a farm, and they periodically sell beef, so we bought a whole bunch of beef and had some very nice sirloin steaks on Saturday night, and then a very nice roast beef on Sunday. That was our Valentine’s Day this year. And some nice flowers. And Neil remembered a card which I didn’t. I’m not very good at remembering those things!
If you are looking to start running your own practice (with or without your partner), head to our Running a Practice page. If you aren’t a member yet, head to our Membership page.
