Meet The Team – Bob Beaumont

Your name and job title

Bob Beaumont – Assistant Manager

Did you enter the profession as a school leaver, graduate, or through another route?

Another route – rather circuitous in fact. I had worked in a medical factory for about 5 years after university before retraining as an accountant on an ACA program with another firm on the island.

What career did you imagine for yourself when you were younger?

I wanted to be an engineer actually. I guess there are some parallels – but not that many.

What qualifications/training do you need for your role?

Some form of accountancy qualification granting Chartered status – ACCA and ACA (ICAEW) being the most common but there are others with equal standing – ICAS for instance.

What do you enjoy most about working at CM Partners?

Working for a firm that has so many local clients – who will often visit the office personally. You really get to see the impact of your work.

The variety of work is also great, every day is different. This is largely a result of the way the firm is structured and as a result I don’t think there are many other firms that can offer the same variety.

What are the most important qualities you need in your role?

Client handling is a bit of an art, for which quality of communication is a key component. In particular you often need to be able to explain something a bit complex or unfamiliar to someone in lay terms.

For the internal work you need attention to detail as you might expect but it should also be tempered with a healthy dose of common sense.

What advice would you give to someone who is considering a career in accountancy?

You’ll most likely need to get a training firm to sponsor you, so pick wisely because you’ll likely be there for the next three to five years if all goes well. You should consider the kind of work you’ll be exposed to and what kind of internal training is offered, the level of support they provide for your course and the firm’s culture and working practices.

I trained with an audit firm which suited me very well because I had a science background and there are commonalities between the two disciplines. It was quite intense with the pace of exams and the work itself but I was ready for it at that time – some people would need a gentler introduction for sure. I learnt a lot there and really enjoyed it overall.

At the end of it though, I was curious about preparing and maintaining accounts instead of auditing them but I didn’t particularly fancy doing similar tasks on repeating monthly and annual schedules as you might in the accounting function of a large company, so I looked into corporate service providers and joined CM, which I’ve found to be a great fit.

I’d also say that no-one should be put off from taking up accounting because the work they’ve done before is unrelated. An outside perspective often turns out to be an advantage.

What makes CM Partners stand out as a place to work?

The fact that we’re built on teams that provide almost all services to a group of clients rather than departmentalised by function means that we get the chance to build much deeper relationships with our clients and makes the whole experience more pleasant for everyone, and also means that we as employees get exposed to a much greater variety of tasks.

Outside of the that, the culture of the firm is a strong point. It’s a genuinely supportive environment where we help each other out to get things done.

What’s a typical day like in your role?

Part of the charm of the job is that every day is different because of how varied the work is and how priorities shift when records are received or some urgent request comes in.

In general though I would expect to spend some time reviewing work prepared by junior staff and giving them feedback, perhaps planning a set of accounts for a company or trust, certainly handling correspondence, calls and/or meetings with our clients and with the other professionals who serve them.

What do you enjoy doing outside of work?

I play the piano, and sometimes I play in some of the pubs in Douglas and Peel. Occasionally I’ve been paid to play in some other places. In others they might have been willing to pay me to play somewhere else.

I’ve been involved in martial arts for many years now, especially Wing Chun for which I still attend courses in the UK, but I’ve also been trying to learn ATP Arnis for the past two years which I’m finding fascinating and I’ve just recently been pleased to find a good local Tai Chi instructor as well.

What’s one myth about accountancy you’d like to bust?

I wouldn’t want to challenge too many of the stereotypes – there is some truth in them and they have their benefits – like cheaper insurance quotes! However I think people usually aren’t aware of how broad a discipline it is and tend to assume you can advise them on any of it. A good management accountant can forecast the cash flows of a large company with sufficient accuracy to plan for funding requirements and make capital investment decisions. However I wouldn’t ask them to provide audit services, and I wouldn’t ask an audit specialist to prepare my tax return!