Case studies
Stanford Industrial Concrete Flooring
"A tremendous journey": that’s how Barbara Stanford describes the story of Stanford Industrial Concrete Flooring. When their business began life back in 1978, husband Cliff was kept busy as a sub-contractor laying concrete floors while Barbara held the fort at the office – then their home in Coseley.
Their hard work, and success in landing some key contracts, has seen the business develop to a point where it now has its own purpose-built offices and warehouse in West Bromwich, a staff of around 60 and some of Britain’s biggest household names as end clients.
Since 1999, ags and director Steve Aston have played an important role in helping Stanford’s to continue moving forward. Barbara explains: "As your business develops, you need an accountant that can do more than merely audit your accounts at the year end, you need someone that can help you move forward and grow. We knew for these reasons that we had outgrown our existing accountant.
"We were introduced to ags by our financial adviser and after meeting Steve for the first time we felt there was a real spark about him and what’s more he could see the big picture, where we were at and where we wanted to get to.
"We were comfortable discussing the company and our in-house accounts procedures with him, he was able to give us an objective view of the company and point out things we should essentially do that would make a tremendous difference to us running a company that was by now getting to be quite a big baby to handle."
That early positive impression has been borne out over the years since, as Steve has provided ongoing advice and service on issues including audit, payroll administration, tax planning, revenue compliance, sourcing grant funding and options for making the best use of profits.
Barbara says: "I continue to hold the purse strings on a day to day basis but over time things have become easier because of the way that Steve has helped us put systems and checks in place. For example, seven years ago we employed a company accountant on Steve’s advice, he produces management accounts monthly that Steve periodically looks at.
"In the early days Steve was able to advise us about changes to the management accounts that would give us the information we needed without being overcomplicated".
This proactive approach to the company’s accounts means that any potential problems are highlighted at an early stage and dealt with which in turn results in a quicker and smoother running audit.
With a managing director and production director now in place at Stanford’s, Cliff is in the office just one day a week and as Barbara seeks to reduce her three-day week to one by outsourcing additional financial matters to ags, it’s reassuring for her to know she can rely on Steve’s support and expertise. As she says "He is always there for us".