M G Associates
The venerable firm of David J Beeny & Co, a 26 year old Chartered Accountancy practice based in Dartmouth, has recently been acquired by MG Associates (MGA), an Accountancy firm based in Torquay but with other offices in Paignton and Cawsand in Cornwall.
Michael Ghersie set up MGA in 2003 and the acquisition of David J Beeny is the company’s third to date. The enlarged practice now numbers12 people, including 2 Chartered Accountants, 6 Accountants, 3 support staff and its own fully qualified IFA. Given the reputation and client profile of David J Beeny, this latest expansion at MGA will greatly assist Michael and his team in building the practice to become one of the most progressive and innovative Business Services Firms in the region.
As well as traditional accountancy and tax compliance work, MGA specialises in business development and turnrounds, mentoring for owner managers and advanced tax planning. The firm will continue to use its experience of managing and turning round businesses to help its clients develop and expand their businesses, as well as bringing a better balance to their business and life-style objectives.
With the David J Beeny acquisition, MGA has more than 800 clients ranging from personal clients to sole traders and many small and medium sized enterprises from less than £100k turnover up to nearly £20m.
Michael is himself a qualified chartered accountant but unusually, boasts a long and varied career in industry, investment banking, marketing and corporate finance. In addition to his accountancy qualifications, he holds an MBA, has extensive overseas marketing expertise with Phillip Morris and has bought and sold many companies in the leisure and manufacturing industries.
It is this varied and practical business background that importantly offers local companies more added value than is normal in the traditional accountant/client relationship. Of course, MGA will happily manage your day-to-day accounting requirements including year end accounts, tax returns and computations and VAT returns as well as handling the personal tax submissions for their business and private clients. MGA also has a dedicated Business Bureau which handles bookkeeping, payroll and management accounts for clients using both Sage and Quick Books accounting packages.
MGA is part of a nationwide network of accountants under the AVN banner. AVN (www.avn.co.uk) is an association of 400 independent accountants, all of which have access to AVN’s shared resources and business tools and software solutions.
Member companies can call upon proven tax and business strategies developed by AVN allowing local companies and individuals to take advantage of resources that would not normally be available from a local accountant.
For example, if you potentially qualify for Tax Credits, MGA can, through its Tax Credit Bureau, provide you with a FREE Tax Credit health check, manage your tax credits from start to finish, ensure you get the award you are entitled to, do all the form filling for you and deal with HM Revenue & Customs on your behalf. No other firm in the South Devon area offers this service.
For business owners, MGA’s expertise and experience and the resources of AVN combine to offer a highly valuable Business Advisory Service that can help solve the usual business problems and ensure your business performance is fulfilling its potential.
The MGA team have over 50 years experience of running their own businesses outside finance and accountancy. They have access to the latest management tools and systems to help you get what you want from your business and, importantly, they are on your ‘side of the fence’ – they’ve been there!
This business advisory service can offer businesses the following:
• Virtual Finance Director – MGA meets its clients each month or quarter and hold a mini Board Meeting to review business performance and plan the way forward.
• Anti Recession planning – Research shows 82% of business owners want more support from their accountant to help beat the recession.
• Simple checklists and action plans you should expect from your accountant in a recession, to improve your profits and to improve the cashflow of any business.
• Benchmarking – Compare how your business is doing with others in your sector and see where you can improve.
• Boardview – Quarterly board meetings to see how you have done and improve in the future.
• One Page Plans – Your Business Plan on just one page to set out your life and business goals and how to achieve them.
• Business Process Coaching – Identify your key Business Drivers, measure and monitor them. Funded by Business Link.
• A 24 hour action plan – Getting you where you want to go and creating the time to get there.
It is this proactive checklist of simple tasks and strategies that can really enhance your business performance or ensure your company is doing its best to weather the current recession.
Often business problems are not unique and MGA is able to call upon simple solutions that have been proven to work for other businesses in the same industry. They’ve done work with local hotels, restaurants and many other consumer focused businesses and have identified the actions and checklists necessary to make a real difference to business survival and success.
Through AVN and its database of 1/2m clients across the UK in many similar industries, they are able to benchmark your business against a wide list of business drivers to spot where your business performance is strong or weak.
MGA will then work with you to identify a checklist of simple actions to bring your performance on to a par with the best. The cost of this service starts from just £3,000 p.a.
MGA offers everything that you would expect from an accountant whether you are a business owner or private individual including their own in house IFA who is rated in the top 2% in the country. But it’s the extra services and support that very few other firms provide that marks out MGA as different from the rest.
Whether it’s advanced tax planning and wealth management strategies or practical business action plans, MGA is helping its business and private clients not only prosper but remain fulfilled and healthy.
Contact MGA on 01803 297 591 or 01803 832 362 or visit their website www.mgassoc.co.uk
First Published February 2011 By The Dart
