Congratulations to Robin Johnson from TaxAssist Norwich: our Clarity Member of the Month for December 2020! TaxAssist Norwich focus on Making Life Simple – and what better way to do so than with the platform that helps accountants make business advisory simple…
#TeamClarity caught up with Robin to find out exactly what’s been working so well for him with Clarity and his practice over the last few months. Robin and team have really thrown themselves into launching Clarity and accessible advisory services for their small business clients. By simplifying what advisory means for them, client engagement has improved dramatically and TaxAssist have been able to deliver simple, strategic, value added services across the board. We’re really proud of the work they’ve been putting in – keep up the good work and shoot for the stars!
Clarity Member of the Month
Tell us a bit about Robin Johnson – what motivates you, what’s your ‘why’, what do you enjoy outside of your accounting firm?
I have owned the franchise for 8½ years and we have a wonderful client base. We enjoy helping people grow their business, understanding what they want and we really want them to achieve their goals with us. Outside of work it is really at the moment full on family life, I have two daughters and they take all of mine and my wife’s time, it is great though! Hobby wise, I love aviation and pretty much any sport. My eldest daughter and I also have a geeky love of astronomy (especially SpaceX)
Tell us a bit about TaxAssist Norwich – what’s the goal, what makes you different?
The goal is to become an advisory based practice, we are very much in the early stages of this but we are slowly transitioning to this with real time bookkeeping and much more engagement with clients. There aren’t many practices that do this at the moment and it is something that I believe adds so much value to a business (at a reasonable cost compared to a full time management accountant)
You’re a big fan of technology and using it to provide a better service. What are your favourite apps right now?
Favourite Apps, Clarity and Fathom to help people understand and develop their business. Chaser is brilliant for invoice collection, the new Practice Ignition update is brilliant and a great evolution and we have recently started using Xavier which I love!
What progress or changes have you made in your firm over the last month?
Real time bookkeeping has really come on leaps and bounds. I have a great team and they have embraced it wholeheartedly and are really delivering some great results. In turn the quality of information leads to better conversations and we are in the process of pushing this to as many of our bookkeeping clients as possible.
What advice do you have for any firm thinking about signing up to Clarity?
Have a chat with the team and talk it through. I first spoke with Steve, didn’t do too much as I didn’t commit the time, but then picked it up again with Sam. We are starting to take action and speak to people about their businesses, see where they seem them going and then actively help them to start to make progress towards their goals and ideas.
It’s really good that we are having more of these conversations and being able to demonstrate how we can help.
How has Clarity made a difference to your firm and to your clients?
Clarity sets out what advisory is and where you can steer and mentor a business. Advisory was a term bandied around so much but people didn’t understand what it actually was and how you deliver it.
Clarity allows us to challenge clients, show them how they can grow, improve cashflow, bottom line and, used properly, it can help us to really engage with a clients business and drive it on to where they want it to get to.
