Founder Wendy Haigh started the business from a modular building on the family farm in rural Womersley, North Yorkshire, in 1985, assisted by a single member of staff. The firm of certified accountants still numbers many agricultural businesses among its clients, but now serves a broad base of clients, typically with up to £10 million turnover. The firm has grown chiefly through referrals and today has two partners and 13 members of staff.
On the front foot
Haigh & Co has been a long-time user of the CCH Central suite, having used software from Wolters Kluwer for nearly twenty years. The team uses the full compliance suite for tax {link} and accounts {link}. Software such as CCH Document Management {link} and CCH Practice Management {link} has been added over the years to support business growth, while CCH GDPR Compliance {link} now helps to meet legislative change on data protection.
The firm was an early adopter of CCH OneClick for Making Tax Digital {link} for VAT (MTDfV), installing the software in 2018 in the lead up to this latest compliance challenge. Partner Mark Fox comments,
“We didn’t want to be caught out, so rather than holding back, we submitted the first wave of returns early under the pilot using CCH OneClick – over six months before mandation for some clients. We felt this would give us time to iron out any wrinkles.”
Monitoring all VAT clients from one place
Mark says,
“It’s our strategy to encourage as many clients as possible to move over to this digital way of working, because of the obvious advantages.” He highlights the way CCH OneClick maintains a record of transactions with HMRC as a major benefit of the software. Whoever files the VAT submissions – accountant or client – intelligent dashboards give a clear picture of when clients’ VAT returns are due or overdue, and of completed submissions.
He also points out, “We no longer have to check with the client or with HMRC if a payment has been made or a refund given. We have greater visibility as the information is all there, recorded in CCH OneClick. This is proving a great time-saver.”
CCH OneClick enables a number of different routes to ultimately submitting the return, with a greater or lesser proportion of the work being done by the client. At Haigh & Co, the majority of the work is performed by the team, leaving clients to focus on what they do best: running their business.
Mark regards the introduction of MTDfV and likely future developments under Making Tax Digital with equanimity. Indeed, he views such initiatives as an opportunity, rather than a problem. In helping clients to embrace digitalisation, there is scope to increase fee income by doing more work for them.
He values the help received from Wolters Kluwer in adopting CCH OneClick for MTDfV,
“From online help and tutorials to roadshows, the support has been there to guide us in making the most of this change as an opportunity for the business. As a result, we’re happy with the way it’s all going.”
Key benefits for Haigh & Co
- Enables the team to efficiently do more for clients
- Monitoring of clients’ VAT returns gives a clear picture of returns completed/due/overdue, as well as payments and refunds
- Support from Wolters Kluwer to get to grips with this major compliance initiative
