Nisar Ahmed

BUSINESS : Director, Ridgell & Guildway Chartered Management Accountants

WEBSITE : rg.accountants

Q Can you tell us a little bit about the history of your company?

A The practise has been trading since 2004, servicing the needs of local businesses and individuals. In 2020 I and my wife joined, developing our client base, and updating o ce systems to cloud-based – which certainly came to our aid during lockdown. In 2022 we merged with another firm based in Thaxted and rebranded as Ridgell & Guildway Chartered Management Accountants. We now have two Essex based o ces and a satellite in Southampton.

Q What area of accountancy do you specialise in?

A We provide services from compliance to value added. The compliance services are bookkeeping, payroll, annual accounts, self-employment, personal and corporate tax compliance, and planning. These are the core elements that keep a business functioning, preventing penalties and fines. The latter covers tactical and strategic services, designed to help businesses monitor, investigate, measure, and evaluate both short and longer term aims and objectives, resulting with actionable plans.

Q Is there a case study that highlights what you do as a company?

A One of our clients owns several businesses in the hospitality industry. After developing a 5-year business plan we are now working with them to provide guidance and advice with regular meetings to keep on top of a changing and challenging sector. The business environment has been under stress over recent years, not least the hospitality industry.

Q What makes you the best in this area?

A I feel we have a great team - our two newest members came from a practice that was managed very di erently than ours and they have adapted well. How do we judge this? By the quality of work and the happiness of our team members – it pays to have a happy team that is willing to support each other and have great rapport with our clients. Obviously, any change to a client’s accountant can be of concern and we’ve had a busy year reaching out to reassure. However, I feel that if our team are happy, that will feed through and probably give more reassurance than our words could.