A WEEK IN THE LIFE...

Ian Little, a chartered accountant, is the financial director of Access Accounting. He moved from KPMG in 1997 where he was a manager in the corporate recovery division. He took up the FD role at Access Accounting in May, before which he was business development manager responsible for value added resellers

Monday

Start the week of with a review of management accounts with company accountant.

This leads to preparation of the board finance pack. Some interesting trends come to light – plus discussions on future strategy.

Tuesday

Spent the day with one of our newer resellers helping them to review their business plan for the coming year. The objective of this it to aid them in integrating a new Access Accounts division into their business. I use my experience of our channel to help them to plan based on models that have worked for other companies

and avoid the dangers of making costly mistakes. I’ll keep an eye on how they progress over the coming months.

Wednesday

Complete a price comparison exercise with our major competitors and email round a summary of the report – it is always interesting to do comparisons with our competitors. Later I do some preparation work for another dealer visit I’ll be attending next week – review their accounts and funding proposal. Then I have to preview the new interface of our on-line ordering system. Later it’s home to pick my eldest son up from cub scouts.

Thursday

My meetings day. First thing, a catch up with the MD – always a joy. Then review an application from a company in UAE that is keen to become an overseas partner. Another meeting, with a potential integration partner with a vertical market solution product, has been OK’d – but can we agree on the commercial aspects of a deal? End the day following a meeting with our key supplier.

Friday

Credit control review with the accounts and sales staff. Also take a look at the turnover of reseller – again it’s a case of looking at volume and value by product. Later in the day an annual staff appraisal session with a successful team member rounds the week off nicely and I’m off home for the weekend to family and a different kind of business.