2019 is coming to an end and it seems a fitting time to round up the year but don’t worry we’re not signing off just yet.  We’ll still furnish you with helpful hints and tax tips this festive season.

It has been a year since we rebranded and launched ourselves into a brave new world as Linford Grey Associates and the feedback and results have been almost nothing but positive. When you commit to growth and the achievement of your goals even the setbacks are opportunities to learn and improve and at Linford Grey, we have made the most of every day.

When we rebranded, our vision was to create a practice that was advisory-led. We knew we had the experience, the technical capability and the communication skills to really deliver value to clients that transcended a set of statutory accounts, a tax return and the regular facets of traditional accountancy.

We eagerly set to work overhauling our internal infrastructure and meticulously picking partners in the community that we wanted to work with to provide scalable and sustainable solutions that would deliver the right information at the right time for clients. We feel strongly that as machine learning improves and its role expands, the human connection, far from becoming less relevant will be ever more important. Our role will become that of an interpreter, creative, communicator and perhaps as we have succinctly hit upon, an intelligent friend and a trusted advisor.

As a result of the changes we have made and the journey we have committed to, Linford Grey has more than doubled in size, in more ways than one over the last 12 months. Although we are still on that journey, 2020 looks very promising and we will remain stoic in our determination to grow, build our brand, improve our service levels and dominate the UK market.

Our partnerships with Practice Ignition, Hubdoc, Zapier and Futrli have all added real value to our business and the everyday lives of the people we work with. Our biggest badge of honour was not just becoming a Xero Gold Partner but being nominated for a highly coveted Xero Award. A real testament to the work we have put in over the last 12 months.

So what is next?

Back in September we added to our small but growing team and welcomed the arrival of our Head of Media and Marketing, Sophie Redman. This growth will continue in the new year with the recruitment of a new Associate Advisor, who will no doubt be a critical hire for us as we scale the delivery of our services without compromising on quality.

We have plans to improve our advisory offering by partnering with new and different platforms in the space and perhaps most importantly we have decided to galvanise the positive feedback we have been receiving and introduce The Linford Grey PMC, a Private Members Club for Linford Grey advocates. (Keep your eyes firmly peeled for more on the Linford Grey PMC in the new year and how you might benefit.)

But enough about us, after our visit to Xerocon this year we are more than happy to give you our top three Xero developments of 2020.

1. Payments with TransferWise

From early 2020 Xero will introduce ‘Payments with TransferWise.’ This represents additional functionality in Xero that will allow users to make payments from within the Xero platform. No more logging into the bank and processing individual payments or downloading and uploading batch payments files. Payments with TransferWise will allow you to line up a payment run, approve and pay suppliers all within a couple of clicks.

2. Xero Tax

This represents a significant development for accountants and something we have been waiting on for a couple of years now. Earlier in 2019 Xero acquired ‘Instafile’ and now Xero Partners will be able to prepare and file statutory accounts and corporation tax returns, using cloud software that connects to Xero accounting software and transfers data both ways.

3. Xero Verify

The Construction Industry Scheme is in practice impractical with HMRC rarely tying it up neatly or accurately, but Xero Verify builds on fairly recent additional CIS functionality in Xero and will allow you to verify subcontractors from within the Xero platform.

Finally…Thank you!

It has been a hard-fought, incredibly satisfying, victorious and humbling year. We are grateful for your continued support, we are grateful for your feedback and we make one lasting promise to you.

We will make you proud to be with Linford Grey. Your intelligent friend. Your trusted advisor.