Whitehead and Howarth is a chartered accountancy practice based in Lytham St Annes. Over 100 years old, the practice provides a wide range of services to both businesses and individuals. These services include bookkeeping, tax planning, audit and assurance, payroll, and financial advisory services.
The practice prides itself on delivering clients peace of mind. Clients enjoy a single point of contact and a highly experienced team providing additional backup support. Upfront quotes, fixed price services and payment terms over 12 months mean all clients enjoy value for money without hidden surprises.
In this interview, we sit down with Gareth Maddock, a partner at Whitehead and Howarth. Gareth shares what drew him to accountancy in the first place, the challenges and rewards of modern accounting, and how he adds value by guiding clients through complex tax procedures and embracing new technologies.
Why did you become an accountant?
I studied Accountancy at college and – at the time – it seemed really interesting! It was something that I could actually get my teeth into, and I could see the use of it. Although I enjoyed studying other subjects, like history, I couldn’t see how I was going to make a career out of that.
Double-entry bookkeeping all of a sudden sounded like it was a solution to everything, and every business was going to need an accountant. It’s the old adage: if you have a good teacher, the guy made it interesting. I mean, he was a magician. That’s all I can say.
It is a good career at the end of the day. Obviously, things have moved on significantly since when I was studying. The use of technology has massively changed because everything I learnt was manual double-entry bookkeeping, writing it down on analysis pads.
But it’s a good profession, and I wouldn’t talk anybody out of it who wanted to become an accountant now, I suppose.
What do you enjoy most about modern accounting?
The bit that I do enjoy is that you’re never quite sure what you’re going to be doing that day. You have planned appointments and meetings with clients. But being in general practice like I am, it’s not that I’m auditing day in, day out, which would be tedious if you were doing audit work every day – I wouldn’t enjoy that.
I do audit work, and I don’t mind it. But I’m also a general practitioner. I’m advising people on personal taxes. People come to us with problems, and we’ve got to try and find a solution for them. That’s what I enjoy, and it’s the variety of the workload at the end of the day.
What are your clients’ biggest challenges?
I suppose problems that recur time and time again include interacting with HMRC and trying our best to hold clients’ hands and walk them through some of the difficult procedures that they’ve got to follow.
HMRC procedures can be complex, but we’re here to simplify the process and make it as straightforward as possible for our clients. The increasing role of technology can be a challenge for some of our older clients, but we see it as an opportunity to guide them through it, ensuring they feel confident and supported.
Following some of those procedures can be really difficult. But it’s rewarding when a client thanks you at the end of the day for helping them through because they couldn’t have done it without you. So I suppose that’s one of them.
The other one is educating clients to avoid the way they’ve always done things and getting them to embrace and use the technology. We encourage them to start using some of these cloud-based accounting packages, which are very good and will free up time and make life easier for them.
It’s important that clients fully embrace these new tools, and we’re committed to helping them make the most of the technology available.
It can be intimidating, can’t it?
Yes, I’ve got elderly clients who, to me, the tax return is quite a simple procedure, but to them, it’s rocket science. Some people see a page full of numbers, and they’re obviously dyslexic or whatever, and they just cannot understand them.
And these are very educated people at times, but numbers are not their thing. So yeah, if we can help them through that, they really do appreciate it. It’s rewarding when you get that sort of feedback from them and the thanks you get from them.
How do you create the most value for your clients?
There are multiple ways of creating value for clients. I suppose because we’ve got a broad client base acting for individuals and businesses, there are different ways for different sectors.
But yes, definitely helping them embrace technology, making life simpler, and taking their fears and stresses away is definitely one of the big assists that we can give them.