The Company
Cole Wilkinson is a partner at Pitcher Partners Brisbane, a mid-tier accounting firm with offices Australia wide. As a leader in the Business Advisory firm, Cole works with a range of SMEs and large companies, with the focus on startups and technology companies. He helps these growth businesses right from incorporation through to capital raisings and exits. Cole’s clients are not limited to Brisbane, with clients located across Australia and globally.
Pitcher Partners are a partner with SBO under the SBO Accountants partnership program.
‘Russian Roulette’ when referring work to bookkeepers
Like every trusted advisor, Cole partners with service providers to assist his clients in a range of disciplines outside of taxation compliance and advisory. It’s important to know his referral partners are solid and can deliver on client expectations. Bookkeeping is no exception.
“We had a number of bookkeepers that we had worked with more often than not. A lot of cases … they’re very good … but it was an area that made us a bit nervous sometimes, because for us if we were to refer a bookkeeper to a client, we want to make sure they can deliver. We don’t want them to reflect badly on us.
If the quality of their work is not at a standard, it also makes us look bad. Not just from a reputational perspective, it also cost us money. Clients don’t really see the value in us spending a lot of time and money just to correct mistakes that they’ve hired a bookkeeper for. So it’s often an area where it’s been challenging for us to find those sort of rare bookkeepers that can service the client well.”
Trust with using SBO
Cole has worked with SBO for over 2 years now and has not looked back.
“We have a lot of mutual clients together over the last couple of years, and I can be confident that the work they’re doing is up to standard. I know my clients are being looked after and their needs are being met. I have full confidence that if there’s any issues that they’re concerned about, they contact us quickly – the communication is open. Ultimately, that makes the work we do easier, because I know that the client’s accounting file is going to be clean and fully-reconciled. All of the cross checks and balances are done, which allows us to focus more on advisory work, tax consulting, and other areas within the business, rather than just reconciling the balance sheet. It makes us look better, really. ”
The SBO Difference
Cole Wilkinson – Pitcher Partners Brisbane
SBO has the ability to scale. Traditional bookkeepers, particularly the really good ones, are usually sole traders and can only handle a handful of clients. I know that SBO can scale with us, much more rapidly. They also bring the skills and capabilities to handle more complex requirements from businesses. It really feels like I’m dealing with highly qualified accountants, in most cases, rather than bookkeepers. The most important thing is that they’re big on innovation and are dedicated to what they do. They spend a lot of time, effort and resources developing processes, applications, and all procedures that make things a lot more streamlined for the client. They bring a better and more diverse capability compared to a bookkeeper that hasn’t invested in those processes and systems.”
Summary of SBO services
- Chart of accounts refinement
- Weekly bookkeeping, reconciliations and inter-entity transaction management across multinational business units
- Employee expense claim management
- Unlimited email and phone support
- KPI establishment
- Cash flow trend analysis
