Advisory To Compliance: A Smarter Way To Tax With Anuja

✨ Hello, I’m Fran, Your NLP & Business Coach. I’m exploring a wide range of business ideas and money-making paths, with practical takeaways you can apply.

Meet Anuja Shukla, a Peterborough-based dually qualified chartered accountant.  She helps small and medium-sized businesses save on taxes with smart, legitimate planning. 

Her firm offers end-to-end tax strategy, from advisory to compliance, so clients can focus on growing their business while she handles the numbers.

You can connect to Anuja in the following ways⬇️
https://applegrow-finadvisors.co.uk/
https://www.instagram.com/applegrowfin_advisors/

Find me @ www.melancholymentor.com

As a coach, I listen without judgment, understanding that others views may differ from my own.

#nlpcoach #nlpcoaching #creativity #inspiration #transformation #businesssuccess

Transcript

Inspiration And Qualifications

Fran 0:26

Hello and welcome to Melancholy Coaching Podcast, the show that highlights different business owners and ideas. I'm Fran, your NLP and Business Coach, and I'm pleased to introduce a motivational guest. Anuja is a duly qualified chartered accountant who runs a firm in Peterborough. She helps small and medium businesses plan their taxes and advises on the most efficient, legitimate ways to save taxes. Her firm offers an end-to-end tax planning approach covering everything from advisory to compliance so her clients can focus on their business while she and her team handle their financial affairs. Anita, welcome to the show.

Anuja 1:08

Thanks very much for having me here, Fran.

Fran 1:11

You're very welcome. I've got a couple of pre-planned questions to ask you because I like to be prepared and we'll have a chat around those if that's okay with you. Absolutely. So the first thing I'm curious about is what inspired you to start your business.

Anuja 1:28

Okay, so I would go give a little bit of background. So I'm from a business family, and from a very young age, I saw my father helping others, and probably that instinct was there in me somewhere. Fortunately, I did my degree and uh I did my chartered accountancy degree from India, so I am duly qualified and uh did my chartered accountancy from UK as well. And what happened is after that, spontaneously I started getting clients. So I would say it's a mix of both my upbringing as well as my educational qualification that actually inspired me and gave me the opportunity to help others. So yeah, that would be I love that.

What Makes The Firm Different

Fran 2:15

Thank you for sharing. Um the next thing that I'm curious about is what differentiates your firm from other tax advisory services in the area?

CFO Services And Cash Flow Focus

Anuja 2:27

Yeah, so the answer to this question would be the key differentiating factor would be the in the value proposition that we offer. So basically having a sense of the feeling of a client and you know understanding their problem, tailoring the solution to what they actually want. So for example, somebody would come, someone might just come and you know they just want to file their taxes, meet the deadline, and you know, just want a compliance, uh, they just want a compliance service. So we do offer that, but then there is another client who wants more structure, they want planning, and they want more, they are into the tax planning of it. So we do provide tax advisory to them. Then if the client is able to actually, you know, if they have the willingness and the appetite, we do provide an advanced service, which is actually called the CFO service. So, what do we do is we do end-to-end financial consulting for them. So we will actually look at, you know, the cash flow of the system of the business. Because what happens is the profitability is one part, but the cash flow is another, and which is what every business must know. And that's where we would help our client understand the business better. So, what happens is we would not just look at the profits, we will help them tailor their cash flows, we will help them understand more opportunities on the cash reserves that they have got, probably investing them better. We would not just stop there, but also look at, you know, end-to-end, we will look at all aspects of the business that will help their profitability and growth. So I would say we do not have an automated front door where you know someone just inputs something and we are just giving a plug-and-play solution. It would be more into a tailored solution. Every client will be catered to their specific needs, what they want, how they want, you know, and whether they want an understanding, there might be another client who would just not want that information. And we are happy with that. We'll provide them the compliance service. The second thing I would say is the ethical point of view, which is also very important. Because until and unless you are ethically sound and you are able to tailor to the needs by being legitimate, that is what's important. And the third point would be empathy. So, what empathy means is putting yourself into the clients' shoes, actually, because until unless you understand their business from and their problem, from their point of view, we we cannot be as proactive to solve their solution. So I would say that's that would be something that would differentiate, definitely differentiate our firm from others.

Serving Local And Remote Clients

Ethics And Empathy As Pillars

Tailored Over Automated Solutions

Fran 5:43

And that also leans into your business values. So you've you you know, especially the empathy. Yeah. Just out of interest, you're based in Peterborough. Yeah. So is it mostly in person that you would see people, or do you do any work online at all just for anybody out of the Peterborough area?

Anuja 6:03

Yeah, absolutely. So we do have our office, but then we also cater to the needs of remote clients. So we have got a mix of both. We do cater to the need because you know, right now the industry is all remote. You have got clients from everywhere, to be honest. So uh we do cater to both. We are offline as well as online. So whatever thank you. Yeah, thank you for that clarification. Cater to the needs of the clients.

When To Add Advisory

Fran 6:31

I've got another question that I'm curious about. And this is at what stage of business growth do you recommend moving from basic bookkeeping to formal accounting and advisory?

Case Study On Upgrading Services

Anuja 6:47

Okay. So on that question, I have a slightly different point of view. So I do believe that bookkeeping and tax advisory is actually integrated into each other. To be honest, if a business person is actually looking at growth, is looking at stability, and is looking at the long-term prospects of the business, they should be knowing what is going on in the business right from the business from the beginning. So just bookkeeping wouldn't be, you know, helping the business be at the stage where they should be, and a blended approach of bookkeeping along with tax advisory, is what would be my advice. Because the reason I I say that is because you would be missing on a lot of things because there's there might be a point in the business where it's growing very, very fast. If you're just into the bookkeeping and you're looking at a staggered approach, that after I reach a point, that is when I will switch to tax advisory, you might be missing a point where the business actually needs a structure, a different structure, probably you know, a holding structure, holding subsidiary kind of a structure or something like that. I'm just giving an example. So I do feel that it is both blended into each other. And if you really want to see your business grow and want to know more about your own business, it would be best if you are able to engage with somebody who is advising both tax advisory as well as bookkeeping. So that uh is something that's my point of view on that.

Fran 8:38

So, what I'm also understanding from that is that there's no stage that's too early to approach you with an with an inquiry.

Anuja 8:47

Yeah, absolutely. We do cater to all kinds of needs, we help businesses understand. You know, I'll give an example. So one of my clients actually had come with uh a compliance uh, you know, uh uh just to meet their deadlines. But then when we went through their accounts, we could actually see that although the profits are showing something, there is also a problem with the cash flow. Because that's another problem of a business, and for that you need to plan your finances in a in a different way. So that's when we actually help the business grow. They we switched to another tier of uh service that they they were on originally, but then yeah, absolutely. Any any business at any stage of endpoint is welcome to approach us.

Fran 9:40

Thank you. Thank you for making that clear as well. Just out of interest, what's what's next for you? You know, what would you like to be doing next with your with your business and your clientele?

Anuja 9:53

So, right now, what I'm looking at is uh basically maybe once I have reached a point where I am like looking at no more clients, that's when probably I might look at other countries' tax advisory, accountancy as well, because we can you know start with a degree and cater to the needs of other countries' taxes and compliance as well. So that might be stage two for me. But yeah, and probably another branch somewhere else that would be the next stage. Yeah, but yeah, yeah, Mason, thank you.

How To Connect And Closing

Fran 10:37

Right. All I would like to say now is thank you. So thank you for sharing your insights and your practical guidance with us today. Accountancy is not something that I actually know a lot about, so I find this quite interesting, and I'm sure that a lot of the listeners will as well. And if they would like to find out more about you, then you've got a website which is Apple Grow Financial Advisors, and you've also got a Facebook group, haven't you? And that's accountancy and financial advice for small businesses in the UK.

Anuja 11:10

Yeah, that's right.

Fran 11:12

Yeah. Are they the two main ways that people can reach you?

Anuja 11:15

We do have like a phone number that would give another on the website, they can find that. Yes, the website has got that. We do we are on Instagram, LinkedIn as well. So yeah.

Fran 11:29

You're doing more than me. I'm not on LinkedIn.

Anuja 11:32

Okay, I will provide the links on that.

Fran 11:34

Sorry. Thank you. That's okay, that's okay. If you're interested in more content like this, be sure to visit www.melancolymentor.com and that's me, and you can follow us for the latest updates. The podcast editions are linked on there as well. And until next time, stay curious, keep igniting your creative potential, and go and find Anuja and learn more about taxes.

Anuja 12:00

Thank you.

Fran 12:02

You're very welcome. Thank you for being here.

Anuja 12:04

Thank you, Fran.

Fran 12:07

Thank you for listening. I'd love you to subscribe and visit www.melancolymentor.com for the latest update. Till next time, stay curious and keep excited for creative architecture.