Counting the same numbers twenty-two years in a row.
CFD Accountancy Limited is a small, careful firm based in Shipley, just upstream of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Saltaire. Since the early 2000s we've specialised in the construction trades and owner-run small businesses, the firms turning over up to around £1m. We've stayed small on purpose.
How we work, in three movements.
There's nothing mysterious about good accountancy. There is, though, a particular order things have to be done in if they're going to mean anything.
Bookkeeping done monthly, not annually. VAT, payroll, accounts filed on time, every time. The compliance work isn't the headline, but it's the foundation, and we take it seriously.
Once the numbers are clean, they start to speak. Cashflow, margin trends, customer concentration, hidden tax exposure, we surface what's actually going on and translate it out of the jargon.
The interesting work happens around a table. What to invest in, what to wind down, when to incorporate, how to price the next contract. We're a sounding board with a calculator behind us.
Six people. All answer the phone.
Started CFD in 2002 after a decade in industry. Likes a clean trial balance and a long walk up to Hirst Wood.
Leads on limited company work and tax planning. Has yet to lose a Companies House late-filing battle.
CIS, self-assessment and MTD, the technical detail. The one who explains it patiently.
Cloud bookkeeping specialist. Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent, whichever you're on, she's set it up before.
Runs the rhythm work, weekly, monthly, quarterly. Never missed an RTI submission.
The first voice on the phone, the last email of the day. Holds the whole place together.
A small firm, on purpose.
CFD started in a converted mill office in Shipley in 2002, with two clients and a fax machine. Twenty-two years on we have several hundred clients, the fax is gone, and the office is bigger, but the philosophy is the same: a senior person answers your email, the work is done by people who know you, and nobody is ever passed to a junior they've never spoken to.
We don't want to be a hundred-person firm. We want to be the firm a subcontractor can call from the van on a Tuesday afternoon, and a £900k turnover limited company can trust with its year-end. That has constraints, and we like them. It keeps the work honest.
Two minutes from Shipley station.
Walk-ins welcome on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The kettle is always on. Bring whatever's in the shoebox, or the back of the van.