Triple the client base, no extra staff: Murat Kurt of Accountancy Assist

In March of last year, Murat Kurt had 50 clients, operating as a sole practitioner with his firm Accountancy Assist.

In April, he became a Receipt Bank Partner. Now, about a year later, he has almost tripled his client base – all without having to take on any staff! Here’s how he did it in his own words:

“I have a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and am also an AAT Member. I’m currently studying completing my Chartered Tax Adviser qualification with the Chartered Institute of Taxation.

At my practice, Accountancy Assist, I mainly work with city professionals, but I’d like to expand my portfolio. I only use cloud software, mainly Sage Accountant Cloud and Receipt Bank. As I study to become a Chartered Tax Adviser, I’ve been focusing on tax issues and ensuring that I give all my clients up-to-date information. I also make sure that I respond to clients’ enquiries on the same day that they’re sent.

I used to use Excel for bookkeeping, but I rarely do now because of Receipt Bank – and in doing so, save a huge amount of time. All invoices and receipts from my clients come through Receipt Bank, and it’s so easy to publish them through to Sage under the right nominal code. That’s why I’m still able to work alone.

I worked for various small and medium sized practices before I started working for myself. Recording invoices one by one manually in a spreadsheet or directly in an accounting software takes a lot of time – and time means money! In addition, with such a busy work life, it wasn’t always possible to meet clients fact-to-face, and chasing them to post or email in their documents was time-consuming. That’s why I started looking for an expense data solution.

On 1st March 2017, I moved to a new office in Kings Cross, London, and in April, I attended the Sage Summit and saw the Receipt Bank stall there. I had a chat to Aoife at the stand, and then Freddie over the phone after that, before deciding to become a Receipt Bank partner.

When I started using Receipt Bank, I saw that it was so easy to use – the software is amazing and all the functions are great. At the beginning, I had questions of course, but I got quick responses to my enquiries – the customer service is fantastic!

When I became a Receipt Bank Partner in late April 2017, I had around 50 clients. A year later I’m still working alone and I have around 140 clients – way more than I expected to be able to take on in a year! I couldn’t do it without Receipt Bank to be honest, the admin would just take up so much time.

I have one supermarket client based in Newcastle and as you would imagine, supermarkets have so many invoices. Without Receipt Bank, it would be really difficult for me to do their VAT return every quarter, I don’t even want to imagine processing each invoice one-by-one – I just couldn’t do it!

I think now I could even manage 200 or 250 clients by myself. I think getting my CTA will help with this, and potentially taking on a business partner in the near future to aid with growing my client base and taking on larger clients.”