Academies and VAT
In this article, Richard Collier – VAT Director at Wilson Wright, part of BKL since April 2024 – gives…
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Having worked in larger and smaller firms, I was interested in the challenges and opportunities of a medium sized accountancy firm with an excellent personal tax team, where I could build on my experience of dealing with different types of clients. BKL ticks all these boxes.
I was challenged, but also supported, from the start. A few months after I joined BKL, my manager took extended leave for health reasons and I took on his work, alongside my work and responsibility for trainees in my team.
The partners and managers came to together to support me, not just with my workload but with my wellbeing, asking me daily how I was getting on and how they could help. It really impressed me how none of them let their seniority get in the way of being supportive colleagues.
I’ve always enjoyed helping and encouraging different colleagues myself, and BKL has given me the opportunity to enhance these skills by managing a team within the tax department. I’ve been able to go on management training courses, like all the managers here. Being a review manager to junior colleagues in my team, and helping them to flourish in their roles, is really rewarding. I also support colleagues more widely as a member of BKL’s staff forum.
I like having the flexibility to work from home when I need to, but it’s great to be at BKL too. You can definitely be your own person here. There are so many different opportunities to make contributions that aren’t related to tax work. It’s refreshing, stimulating and helps us to interact as one big team.
While my role is fulfilling, I’m also looking ahead. BKL help you to understand what you need to do to progress, but also recognise your personal merits and encourage us not to lose them.
BKL don’t just want you to excel professionally. They also want you to embrace BKL life and what it has to offer. You get the scope to learn, be yourself and have fun in a challenging way.
When I finished secondary school, I knew I wanted to be an accountant in the future. I chose the apprenticeship route over university so I could gain practical experience in the accounting industry whilst studying.
After completing AAT Level 2, I joined BKL through the Leadership Through Sports & Business (LTSB) programme. LTSB helps young people get apprenticeships in accounting firms. BKL and LTSB have worked together for several years, so I knew they would understand how to help me to make the most of the opportunity.
Winning LTSB’s North London Apprentice of the Year Award in 2019, after working hard, is something I’m really proud of.
Everyone at BKL is part of a calm yet productive work environment which makes it a great place to work. The study leave available to apprentices means I can focus on preparing properly for my exams. The managers are also very supportive of my development, giving the trainees a variety of different jobs to challenge us and build up our experience.
Coming from secondary school was a challenge in itself, because it hadn’t really prepared me for working life and how to deal with a nine to five job. However, BKL has made the transition from full-time education to full-time employment very smooth and now the world of work is not as daunting as it was before.
The biggest challenge I faced when I started at BKL was getting used to software I’d never used before. Thanks to plenty of training and patience from colleagues, I was able to learn from my mistakes and keep improving.
It’s rewarding to be a trainee and employee at the same time. Sometimes I’m putting knowledge from my studies to practical use. Other times I’m learning things which take me ahead of my studies, like dealing with HMRC and client interaction.
It’s also rewarding to know that my hard work is truly appreciated and that I have opportunities to work towards promotions and develop my career.
At the same time, BKL encourages people to look beyond our work and stay healthy. I enjoy organising regular football training.
Although I’m at an early stage on my path to becoming a chartered accountant and manager, I already feel like I have matured as a person thanks to BKL. I have become more confident in my role and I know how it positively contributes to BKL as a whole.
Bilshan also features in our LTSB stories video from 2023:
In the runup to leaving university, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life: “The world’s your lobster” as the saying on Only Fools and Horses goes. I knew I enjoyed working with numbers and was interested in how companies worked, so doing the ACA qualification and working in assurance seemed to be a logical start to a career.
Whilst doing the ACA I realised that I enjoyed the world of tax. Before I knew it the ACA qualification was finished and I’d signed up for another year of study and five more exams. This fired the starting gun for a change in career path.
The transition into the tax team started in 2019. I started to get involved in first reviews of assurance team tax computations before they were reviewed by the tax consultancy team and also helped draft tax reports for clients.
I’m a strong believer that if you want to achieve something, then you’ve got to put yourself out there to make it known and also put in the hard work to get there. I realised quickly at BKL that those who work hard would be rewarded.
During my time with the assurance team, the atmosphere was a supportive one: there was no such thing as a stupid question and everyone wanted to help you learn. The challenge of juggling work and study helped me learn how I deal with pressure and stress: something which will stay with me throughout my whole career.
The transition to the tax consultancy team between 2019 and 2021 was tough. Picking up additional tax work where I could meant that working hours grew longer whilst I was fitting in study in the evenings and at weekends. The work become more varied and interesting and the steep learning curve began to get less steep.
With no set path to move into the tax consultancy team, I adopted a “roll your sleeves up and just get involved” type attitude. I tried not to pass up any opportunities to learn something new or get involved in a new project. Much of the first few months was spent reviewing tax computations, undertaking tax due diligence work and drafting clearances to HMRC (for reorganisations).
The team were very welcoming, forgiving and supportive. They made the time to explain technical points so I understood them and to show me where I had gone wrong in analysis.
Over time, my confidence and technical knowledge grew. The biggest risk in tax consultancy is the unknown unknown: a piece of tax legislation you have no idea exists coming back to bite you further down the line! I’m now taking client meetings, planning structured tax advice and writing reports giving the advice to clients.
In May 2022 I won Rising Star at the Tolley’s Taxation Awards. I see this as the beginning of my career in the tax world – there’s no point being a rising star if you don’t eventually light up the sky, right?!
I decided to leave school at 18 despite being offered places at university. I had made the decision I wanted to become an accountant and found out about the AAT Fast Track route as it was called at the time, which suited me better as I could learn practically whilst on the job alongside the theory. I started studying the first level myself before I had found employment.
After qualifying in AAT and then ACA, I continued to gain audit experience, including the majority of BKL’s largest clients. Understanding the issues that businesses face, and the importance of supporting their people through these challenges, gave me skills and instincts I needed to progess in my career: when I became a BKL partner at the age of 29, I was ready.
But it was never about ‘making it’ to partner level and then sitting back. I’m continuing my professional growth: my most recent qualification was the Diploma in Company Direction in 2018. I’m also developing my interest in, and work with, entrepreneurs in blockchain and other fintech areas.
Like a lot of trainees who end up choosing BKL, I had initially applied to larger firms in the City of London. After talking to some of their existing trainees during the recruitment process, I felt a medium sized firm would be better for me, allowing greater exposure to more experienced senior colleagues as well as clients at an early stage. So I looked to BKL, knowing that what I really craved was responsibility as early in my career as possible.
At the BKL assessment day, I got to meet range of people in the firm, including existing trainees like Myfanwy Neville, now also a partner here. Everyone was extremely friendly and genuine, which gave me confidence that I’d be joining a team where honesty and learning opportunities were priorities.
BKL’s people, as well as motivating me to join, have motivated me to stay. Even now as a senior colleague, I still have the opportunity to continue learning, developing and growing as a professional. It has also led to me being responsible for the progress and development of colleagues which is challenging but extremely rewarding.
What makes BKL such a good place to work is how I’ve been supported not just professionally but personally. It’s helped me appreciate the importance of being open, honest and genuine with people. The key to making a firm work effectively is all based on trust, being comfortable in both giving constructive feedback and also receiving feedback about yourself. I’m especially proud of the importance given to wellbeing here: supporting people who aren’t feeling their best and making sure we face challenges together.
And even though some days are more challenging than others, I always find a reason to smile. It’s great being able to guide a client through a problem and help them reach a solution or take advantage of an opportunity. It is also rewarding watching colleagues grow and moving to different levels of thinking as they progress through their careers: knowing, from my own experience, the rewarding journeys ahead of them.
I studied Spanish and Arabic at university and had absolutely no finance knowledge or business knowledge before joining BKL. I don’t think I had even touched a calculator since school!
I started with a lot to learn, but there is a lot of support in terms of study and work. You just have to be open to the learning process by asking lots of questions, being keen and ready to help and before you know it you’re coaching a new trainee!
People tend to have a negative stereotype of accountants being dull and the work duller, but I have found the complete opposite. Accountancy is an umbrella term for a lot of different roles and the variety of tasks we perform means the job is rarely the same day to day.
It is also much more people focused than I had imagined. This has enabled me to use an essential skill from my language studies: the ability to communicate with different people. Not all clients have a background in finance and they appreciate having advisers who can explain things to them in a way that they will easily understand, during audits and other jobs.