How Brearley & Co has expanded its presence in South Yorkshire

Tell me the history of Brearley and Co.

The firm was founded in 1984 by Giles Brearley, around the time of the miners strike which was prominent in this area. Giles originally worked as an accountant for the coal board, and decided there wasn’t much of a future working for them, which is why he decided to start  Brearley and Co. He retired in 2015, during that time, myself and a few others became shareholders throughout the years. 

Since 2015, the company has doubled in size, turnover and the people we employ. We’ve gone from one office to three offices. We are very grateful for the foundation that Giles has set, which we have been able to develop collectively. 

In 2015, we bought our second office in Dinnington, in 2018 we bought another practice in the area which we merged, and in 2021 we bought an office in Dodworth. We now have 50 staff, and have ballooned in offerings since Giles left. He left us a great culture, and firm foundations to achieve this. 

What led to this significant period of growth? 

The reason behind the growth is our own ambitions to expand the business. The shareholders wanted to grow the company safely and steadily, but what we have is one culture. We all work to similar goals, we meet twice a year to address strengths and areas of improvement, and look to offer our clients more diverse services. 

We have expanded our tax department, it’s not simply just a compliance department but is now also more advisory. We have two chartered tax advisors and we offer more services that allow our clients to purchase and sell businesses. We have been able to move forward under one culture, and that is getting involved with clients throughout the year, offering management and tax planning on a regular basis. 

All accountants have the same tools, but what we can influence is service, and what we try to do is improve that constantly. We want to add value to our clients’ businesses and commit proactive time to them. 

What challenges have the company faced?

The challenges have been going from one office to three and how to integrate and maintain the teams. Covid-19 has been a great challenge for us but we never closed, we followed all the rules because we felt that businesses needed us and we needed to be as accessible as possible. We not only assisted our own clients but businesses in the area that couldn’t reach their accountants, helping them get grants, loans, cashflow. We helped for many weeks free of charge when people needed us most. We do payroll for over 250 businesses a month and people needed that to make their claims from the government, we were there for them and we are very proud of that. 

Has the company expanded its offerings over the years? 

We have a dedicated payroll team who are very professional, and we now have a dedicated tax advisory department for subjects such as inheritance tax, tax investigation which is growing all the time. We are also helping people to buy and sell businesses now, preparing their businesses for sale, and equally people who want to buy, going through what they can expect and all the essential information they need. 

Are there any geographical strategies for the future?

We want to get more coverage across South Yorkshire and its bordering counties in the future. We are actively looking for opportunities all the time. We are working with some third parties to ensure this when we are looking for acquisitions, and we are about to become patrons of Barnsley and Rotherham chamber of commerce which will increase our presence in the local area and help us gain more clients organically. 

We are also going to be launching a new website and be more strategic around the use of social media. The growth of the business in the last seven years has been two thirds organic growth and one third acquisition, which helps us expand to new territories. 

What other areas does the firm want to focus on in the future? 

We are QuickBooks providers and we would like to continue to grow and provide more online services. We are also looking at the possibility of bringing corporate finance inhouse. We want to work with more clients throughout the year and not just towards the financial year. 

There are five directors and nine shareholders who are planning for the future. We have brought in heavily skilled people who have grown with the business. This shows all the other staff that there is a continuation and that we offer a career path. Staffing is a big challenge, we are always looking for the right people which is  why we have partnered with a recruitment agency to strategically hire and solve that problem.