Ellis Bennett ACCA

Have you given up on managing accountancy & taxes for your business?

Setting up a business is no walk in the park, let alone managing the financial aspect of it.

It requires intense efforts to make sure you’re on the right track.

Miss one tax deadline, and you might end up paying double in penalty.

I know it’s overwhelming as a founder.

Now imagine you have an expert who takes care of all your accountancy and tax situation.

You don’t have to worry about taxes.
You don’t have to panic while planning your budget.
You know where you stand in terms of profits and losses.
You have someone you can rely on to manage the financials.

Amazing, isn’t it?

That’s what getting an expert feels like.

I’m Ellis, an ACCA Chartered Accountant, Director at EA Accountancy, and Author of The Solopreneur Start-Up Bible.

I help, advise, and guide start-ups, businesses, and young entrepreneurs through the whirlwind of accountancy and taxes.

I’ve served over 300+ satisfied clients, and I’m all in to help you!

Now, I’m not the accountant who speaks to you once a year in a robotic tone.

I’m more like your business partner.

I help you every step of the way (even acting like a therapist if you need one).

My services include:

• VAT
• Accounts
• Payroll
• Pensions
• Tax Advice
• Tax Planning
• Personal Tax
• Bookkeeping
• Accounting Software
• Company Incorporations
• Registered Office Address
• Capital Gains Tax Disclosures
• Business Planning And Advice

I also offer consultation for new business owners or people looking to hire an accountant so you have clarity for your next steps.

If you think I can help you with any of the above or would like to connect over a Discovery Call, feel free to drop me a DM.

Chartered Accountant

If your accountant is a family friend…

You probably don’t have an accountant.

You have a favour.

One of the biggest red flags on a sales call:

“Yeah, he’s just a family friend. It’s easier.”

Easier.

So is skipping leg day.

Doesn’t build anything worth having.

Here’s what “family friend accountant” usually means for a £200k–£1m agency:

– You speak once a year
– No proper monthly numbers
– No margin analysis
– No forecasting
– No tax planning before year end
– No one challenging what you’re taking out

It’s comfortable.

And comfort is expensive.

When you’re trying to scale:

– 3 staff to 8
– £300k to £1m
– Chaos to structure

You don’t need “easy”.

You need:

– Weekly bookkeeping
– Monthly reports
– Cash flow forecasts
– Proper tax planning
– Someone who’ll say, “Why are your margins that low?”
– Someone who isn’t scared to challenge your drawings

Most family friends won’t challenge you.

Because they don’t want to make Christmas awkward.

But business isn’t Christmas dinner.

It’s war.

If your accountant feels “safe” and “easy”…

Ask yourself whether they’re helping you grow.

Or just helping you file.

Big difference.

Ellis Bennett FCCA

Simplifying Accountancy and maximising Tax Efficiency for Business Owners | Director - EA Accountancy 👨🏼‍💻 💸

Expert

The word gets thrown around like confetti.

Same way everyone who runs a half marathon and lifts a few weights suddenly calls themselves a hybrid athlete.

I’ve just completed another two HYROX events.
I’m training for a sub-3 marathon.
I can bench 120kg (1rep😂)
And I still wouldn’t call myself a hybrid athlete.

Put some respect on the word athlete.
I’m miles off it.

Because I understand how high the bar actually is.
That’s the difference.

Standards.

Business is no different.

Agency owners are constantly sold by “experts” who:
• Scaled one client
• Had one big quarter
• Went viral a few times
• Filed a handful of tax returns

That’s not expertise.
That’s exposure.

Expertise is repetition.
Pressure.
Edge cases.

Fixing things when they’re messy, not when they’re trending.
In my world that looks like:
• £200k agencies making nothing and not knowing why
• £500k agencies with “record months” but no cash
• £1m agencies drifting into VAT disasters
• Directors overdrawn by £100k
• Businesses growing themselves into the ground

That’s where depth is built.

In uncomfortable conversations.
In messy clean-ups.
In fixing pricing, margins and systems before they snap.
Same in training.

Anyone can complete one tough event.

Very few:
Track the numbers.
Fix weaknesses.
Respect the process.
Turn up again.
And again.
And again.

That’s the gap between participation and mastery.

Agencies don’t need hype.
They need operators who’ve seen what breaks at £300k, £500k and £1m and know how to fix it before it happens.

Standards matter.

If you want to be taken seriously,
Raise yours.

Every Founder wants a team that grows as fast as the business does.

I help them build that.

I’ve spent the last 10 years inside scaling organisations, fixing performance issues, seeing early signs when people aren’t on the same page, and turning HR from ‘another thing on your desk’ to something that accelerates growth.


Not corporate HR.
Not policy-first HR.

Experience-led, performance-driven HR.

The kind that keeps great people working for you.
The kind that accelerates growth, not slows it.

Most founders come to me because:

- The business is scaling faster than the people systems
- Progression, performance and expectations aren’t clear or consistent
- Culture is slipping quietly as headcount rises
- Managers avoid hard conversations or don’t know how to lead
- HR is sat on their plate, taking time from strategy, sales + growth

So I built a framework that stops that happening.

My People Experience Model strengthens a company from the inside out:

Diagnose the employee journey end-to-end
Build onboarding & progression that speed up high performance
Turn managers into leaders (confident, clear, consistent)
Create accountability without killing culture
Give founders back time, clarity + control

Just structure → performance → retention → growth.

It’s the approach that has:

📌 Doubled headcount without culture slipping
📌 Freed founders from HR so they could land Dyson, Armani, Primark, Coconut Lane + more
📌 Scaled a business to £1.5M in 9 months by giving leadership time back
📌 Built onboarding that reduced ramp time from 65 → 40 days
📌 Created ownership-led teams, not founder-dependent ones

Because when your people feel connected, they don’t just work harder, they work smarter, stay longer, and deliver more.

If you want HR off your plate, but still driving performance + profit, you’ll want to explore what we do next.

DM me "HR" for more info on how I can help :)

---

📩 Georgia@accesshrltd.com
🌐 www.accesshrltd.com
🎤 Speaker: HR Is Dead, Stop Managing Generations Start Managing People & Modern HR

Georgia Dixon 🍬 MCIPD

2018: I studied HR. Learnt the tradition.
2019: I asked to do HR differently. Was told "it's always been that way."
2020: I asked what's next for HR. Was told "it is what it is."

So I stopped asking. And started doing it my way.

Here's what I learnt:

HR doesn't have to be about policies.
Yes, they're a fallback. But they're not the point.

✨ The point is making work, work. And how you do this: is by talking about results, growth and impact.

But first,

→ Get to the root cause, not just the symptoms
→ Ask better questions before jumping to solutions
→ Understand finance language so you're in the room, not outside it
→ Strip it back to what actually moves the business forward

Business first. People first. Policy last.

That's how I see HR.

I work with agencies. Fast-paced businesses. Founders who don't have time for fluff.

They don't need a 90-page handbook.
They need clarity, efficiency, and someone who gets it.

HR isn't about doing things the way they've always been done.
It's about doing what actually works.

How do you think HR needs to change?

Georgia  Dixon

Aligning teams so founders can scale ✨ | People Strategy • Performance Systems | Award-Winning HR Consultant |

When someone tells me "we've got a culture issue" I don't really believe them.

Because 9 times out of 10, what they're calling a culture problem is actually an accountability problem.

Here's what it looks like:

→ A leader who doesn't give feedback but is well-liked, so everyone works around it
→ Standards on paper that no one enforces because enforcing feels uncomfortable
→ People getting away with things because the conversation feels too hard

Over time, the people who do hold the line start wondering why they work so hard when others get to slide.

Instead, you've created a two-tier system:

1. People you're protecting
2. Everyone else picking up the slack

That breeds resentment. Then your best people leave.

Accountability is actionable. And it's on you as a leader.

The lack of it is exhausting your team.

What's one accountability gap you've seen disguised as a culture problem?

Georgia Dixon

I just hired my latest team member. Here's what I did before they started:

✨ Capacity tracker → mapped where time was actually going
✨ Skills & Performance matrix → identified real gaps, not just gut feel
✨ Role and Impact framework → defined what this role exists to deliver
✨ Task audit → matched responsibilities to skills required
✨ Role snapshot → clear success markers at 30, 60, 90 days
✨ First 2 weeks roadmapped → no guessing what comes next
✨ Employee-owned onboarding → accountability sits with them, not just me

Is it a lot? Yes. That's intentional. 
Unclear hiring is expensive.

Expensive in:
→ Starting all over again
→ Your reputation
→ Your team's morale and hope

What's one thing you'd do differently before your next hire?

♻️ Repost this for someone who's hiring right now.
📌 Save it for when you're ready to make your next hire.

#Founder #Leadership

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When the wrong person gets promoted.

The right people leave.

I've seen this play out too many times. And yes, I've lived it.

Someone loud. Visible. Good at managing up.

They got the promotion.

The people actually holding the team together? Overlooked.

Here's what most leaders miss:

Promotions aren't just career moves.
They're culture statements.

Every promotion tells your team:
→ What behaviours get rewarded
→ Who you trust with more responsibility
→ What you actually value when it matters

Promote the wrong person and you don't just make a bad hire into a bad manager.

You lose the people who were watching.
The ones who thought hard work and integrity would be enough.
The ones who now know it isn't.

✨ The real cost of a bad promotion = your best people quietly updating their CVs

If you want to keep your best people:

→ Reward integrity, not just visibility
→ Promote competence, not confidence
→ See the ones quietly holding everything together

Because when your best people leave, it's rarely sudden.

It started the day they realised what you actually reward.

What's a promotion decision that changed how you saw a company?

A client lost their top candidate last month. Not to salary. To speed 

They'd found the perfect hire. Ticked every box.

But between scattered emails, delayed feedback, and three people asking "who's replying to this?" the candidate accepted another offer.

Here's what was actually happening:
→ Emails buried in inboxes, replies taking 48+ hours 
→ Hiring manager and founder both thought the other was responding 
→ Being ghosted at interview after hours of work

The real cost:
Time to hire reset to zero
Team still stretched, goals slipping
Founder back on job boards instead of running the business
Morale dip from "we almost had someone"

💥 Total cost of slow hiring = missed growth targets and months of delay
So we fixed the system, not the effort.

Three changes: 
→ SMS for candidate comms (reduced no-shows by 60–70%) 
→ One centralized workspace (pulling every candidate conversation) 
→ A shared conversation view (everyone sees who replied, what they said, and when)

Saving hundreds of hours with zero wait time and without chasing down candidate answers

Candidates don't slow down your hiring.
Your process does.

What's the one thing slowing down your hiring right now?

If you want to see what we used, comment "TOOL" and I’ll send it over.

Human connection is the currency of work.

Not perks. Not pay rises. Not pizza Fridays.

🔌 Connection. Connection in the moments that matter:

→ Passing probation
→ Returning from family leave
→ Getting married
→ Hitting a work anniversary
→ Gaining a qualification

These aren't admin moments. They're human moments.
And most companies miss them completely.

The companies that retain their best people aren't the ones with the biggest budgets.

They're the ones that make people feel seen.

What moment at work made you feel truly seen?

#Leadership #Culture #EmployeeExperience

At 22 I was a first-time leader to a team of 180.

I was felt out of my depth.

Here are 10 things I WISH I knew:

1. People leave because of poor leaders.
2. Don't rush decisions. Sleep on it. 
3. Building trust is important. Prioritise it. 
4. Your way isn't the only way. Be a facilitator. 
5. Strike the balance between transparency and oversharing.
6. A leadership book isn't the answer. Exposure is. 
7. Ask questions. Refrain from opinions. 
8. Data is your best friend. It's boring, but use it.
9. Professional boundaries are real. Set the tone. 
10. Challenge unacceptable behaviours head-on. Don't leave them.

What have I missed? 

11. ..........................................


#agency #tech #Founder #leadership

When someone tells me “we have an appraisal process” but they’re not seeing any real impact… I’m usually not surprised.

Because most appraisals are copy + paste frameworks.

Built for corporate.
Not for a busy, growing business.

You see it all the time:
→ Tick-box exercises that mean nothing
→ Once-a-year conversations that come far too late
→ Forms that get filled in… then forgotten

The intention is good.
Leaders want to recognise people.
Develop people.
Improve performance.

But the structure around it kills the impact.
Instead of helping people grow, the process becomes something everyone just… gets through.

Which is why performance frameworks matter.

Not the corporate kind. The kind that actually supports how your business works:

→ Define what “great” looks like here
→ Regular, honest conversations instead of annual surprises
→ Managers trained to coach and enable, not just assess
→ Clear expectations without the corporate fluff

Because here’s the truth:
→ People don’t want to be rated. They want to be seen.
→ They don’t want feedback once a year. They want connection throughout the year.
→ They don’t want a form. They want a conversation.

Human connection is the new currency at work.

How are you making performance conversations more human in your business?

False promises make the right people leave.

"You'll be promoted by Q2." Q2 came and went. Silence.
"We're building out the team, you'll lead it." The team grew. Someone else led it.
"Just give it six more months." Six months passed. New excuse.

Your best people remember everything you said.

They remember:
→ Turning down other offers because they believed you
→ Staying late because they thought it would count
→ Defending the company to friends who told them to leave
→ Waiting patiently while others got what they were promised

And they remember the moment they realised your words meant nothing.

That's when the job search starts. Quietly.

If you want to keep your best people:

→ Only promise what you can control
→ If things change, say so early
→ Don't let them find out by waiting

Because when someone resigns, it's not sudden.

It started the day your words stopped matching your actions.

What's a promise that changed how you saw a company?

Your team isn't slow. They're confused.

I see this all the time with founders scaling towards £250K months.

Everyone's busy.
Slack is pinging.
Meetings are happening.
Tasks are getting ticked off.

But the needle? It's not moving.

So the founder thinks: "I need better people." Wrong...

Here's what's actually happening:

→ Your team doesn't know what winning looks like this week
→ They're guessing which tasks actually matter
→ They're working hard on the wrong things
→ They're waiting for you to tell them what's next

The fix isn't hiring. It's alignment.

When your team knows:

Where you're going (the outcome)
Why it matters (the mission)
What their role is in getting there (ownership)
They stop waiting. They start moving.

Busy teams stay stuck.
Aligned teams scale.

If your team is working hard but you're not seeing results, the problem probably isn't them.

What's one thing your team is "busy" with that isn't actually moving the business forward?

♻️ Repost if this hit home.

📩 I write about building teams that scale every week in my newsletter. Link in the comments to subscribe: https://lnkd.in/e_TwSjCY

Most companies don’t break when they’re small.
They break somewhere between 15–30 employees.

At that stage, momentum has carried the business.

Everyone knows everything.
Decisions are quick.
The founder still has visibility across most things.

But then something shifts.

More people join.
Different teams start forming.
Roles become more defined.

And somewhere around 20 employees, a new pressure appears.

Not in revenue.
Not in demand.
In consistency.

This is usually the moment when HR becomes reactive instead of preventative.

Because without clear expectations, the business starts asking questions like:

→ Do managers consistently handle performance issues, or do they escalate everything?
→ Are manager expectations explicit, or assumed?
→ Are similar problems handled differently depending on the manager involved?
→ Is accountability something the business talks about… or something that’s consistently reinforced?

None of these problems appear overnight.
They emerge quietly as organisations grow.

Which is why the businesses that scale well do one thing earlier than most:

They set standards for leadership and management before the cracks appear.

Not because the team is doing something wrong.
But because growth amplifies inconsistency.

And what once worked at 12 employees rarely works at 30.

🗞️ If you’re interested in topics like this, I write a weekly newsletter where I share:
• What actually happens as businesses scale
• How HR becomes a growth enabler, not just a support function
• Real examples of practices businesses are using that you can take inspiration from

You can subscribe here: https://lnkd.in/ePbZdS5v

Your team isn't underperforming. You just never told them what "good" looks like.

It's natural in a small business to let things slide.

You're busy. They seem fine. You'll address it later.

Then later becomes months. And months become resentment.

By the time it pisses you off, they've been working to their own standards for ages.

That's not their fault. It's yours.

Here's what I see with founders all the time:

→ No clear definition of what high performance actually means
→ No accountability because expectations were never set
→ Wrong people in roles because no one assessed the fit
→ Ways of working that evolved by accident, not design

Then they wonder why the team "just doesn't get it."

They can't get it if you never told them.

What's actually needed:

→ Clear definition of what success looks like in each role
→ Realigned expectations across the team
→ Honest assessment of whether you have the right people in the right seats
→ A reset of performance standards and ways of working

This isn't about being harsh. It's about being clear.

Your team wants to know where the bar is.

Set it. Communicate it. Hold it.

What's one expectation you wish you'd set earlier?

HR For Growing Founders ✨ | People • Progression • Performance | Experience-First Approach | Award-Winning HR Consultant |

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The Battle

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