When accounting is more than just punching the numbers
16th November, 2015
The country life isn’t for everyone. But for Brendan Drummond, a partner of SHB Business & Wealth Advisors, growing up in Warrnambool was too good to leave – he returned to the coastal town after three years in Melbourne.
“I loved Melbourne for a few years because it was different,” he says. But the community aspect around Warrnambool drew Brendan and his wife back.
“We came back here to settle about 10 or 11 years ago and I’ve been here ever since.”
SHB Business & Wealth Advisors is an accountancy and advisory service firm that helps owners and entrepreneurs in Warrnambool and the surrounding area. It’s a firm with a local flavour – many of the staff are from Warrnambool and grew up there.
The company started 25 years ago with just a single practitioner. Today it has 22 employees and offers accounting, tax, financial planning and loans. But Brendan says there’s more to the company than numbers.
“I think that’s part of our success. We know the area, we know the clients, and we know the region,” he says.
Not content to simply help businesses with their finance, Brendan says SHB has adopted a higher purpose – to act as an advisory firm and actually assist founders from conception to implementation.
For Brendan, this is a personal mission. Helping businesses succeed means feeding back into the community.
“Some accountants might just be interested in punching the numbers, but at the end of the day there’s only so much enjoyment you can get out of that,” he says.
“All of our business clients got into their industry because they’re passionate about what they do – not because they wanted to do bookkeeping and bank reconciliations and tax returns.”
This all feeds into SHB’s philosophy, says Brendan, which is about finding ways to help entrepreneurs today, so they can make tomorrow better.
“We try to help them achieve financial reward and lifestyle reward so they can spend more time on their business, with their family, or whatever they are passionate about.”
Find out how Brendan’s business advice helped the Blakes solve their cash flow problem.