This episode focuses on Tim Seymour’s journey from compliance-based accounting into a more advisory-led way of working.

Tim shares how his career began at sixteen in international banking, and how those early years shaped his understanding of financial management, discipline, and responsibility. From there, we explore the key moments that led him into accountancy and eventually to building his own practice.

Throughout the conversation, Tim reflects on the different environments he worked in and the lessons that came from them. From hands-on, manual accounting in smaller businesses through to more complex corporate settings, each stage added to his experience and shaped how he works today.

We also talk about the shift from traditional accounting methods to more modern, computerised systems, and why having strong foundations still matters, even with advanced software.

A key part of this episode is the move away from a compliance-only model. Tim shares why building a business that operates independently of the owner is so important, and how stronger client relationships and more tailored advisory work play a central role in that.

This is a reflection on a long career, but more than that, it highlights the skills and thinking needed to move from traditional accounting into a more advisory role.

Takeaways:

• The difference between compliance and advisory in practice

• How early career experience shapes your approach to financial management

• Why understanding the fundamentals still matters in a digital world

• The importance of building a business that doesn’t rely on the owner

• How advisory work strengthens client relationships and supports better outcomes

Welcome to Advisory Conversations with Tim Seymour and Deb Halliday.

This podcast is for accounting professionals and financial coaches who are ready to step beyond compliance and into advisory.

Because real advisory isn't about doing more yourself.

It's about building something that works without you being the bottleneck.

Hey Deb, how are you today?

I'm great, thanks, Tim.

How are you?

I'm pretty good, Pretty good.

So what we're going to talk about today.

Well, today I thought we would like to listen to your story, Tim, about your early career, where everything started.

Yeah, I find it fascinating.

So.

Yeah, love to hear that, please.

Oh, wow.

Okay, no pressure then.

So, okay, so where do you want to start?

From the beginning.

Let's go from the beginning.

It's like a slight reading a book, isn't it?

Okay.

Okay.

So.

Okay, well, so I'm just.

We'll go for business journey.

This was.

If you, if you.

Anyone's wondering my age, they can probably work it out from that.

And I started work on the following Monday, which was the first Monday in July.

So it's interesting because couple of the teachers in my school report that came after that day kind of said I needed to be a bit more serious and, and I might not actually get on too well in, in the, in the world of business and careers and stuff.

And yet I was the only one that had a job when we left school.

So it's interesting, isn't it, how different perceptions of people can have versus children.

So I started work on the Monday and I worked for NatWest International bank in Bristol.

So that's about 12 miles from, from home.

So age 16 had to go and get on the bus, you know, didn't really, really know where it was going apart from I had to get into the centre of Bristol and the bus journey was probably about an hour and 40 minutes.

So not much fun because it went all the way around the houses, picking up everyone at the bus stops.

So a new world to me kind of.

And you just had to get on with it in those days.

And I, and I think that's kind of what we did.

So I worked in NatWest International to start off with.

Fantastic place to start a career.

The world of international banking introduced me to money, introduced me to all the, the foreign money that, that was used in those days way before the euro.

You know, France still had francs, that kind of thing.

You know, Germany still had Deutsche Marks, you know, could probably go through you could probably ask countries and I probably remember the currencies for a lot of the countries and, and yeah, I, I found it a really interesting place to work.

And there was, I think about 30 of us started at the same time which helped but we all got spread around the building into different departments so only one or two of us went into the department I started in.

And it just, yeah, it just gave you an introduction to the, to the world and what goes on when you're working for someone.

The rules, the rules to follow.

And the bank were quite strict with how you handled your own money.

So I learned, you know, pretty quickly that going overdrawn was not a good thing to do.

If you worked for the bank and you had your knuckles wrapped, if you did even had your checkbook taken off you and you start to go to the office to ask permission to write a check to get some cash out from the, from the counter in the, in the, in the building that I worked in.

So yeah, interesting start to life.

I think I was there three, three and a half years and I kind of wanted to diversify into, into accounting.

I don't really know why if I'm honest with you, but it was just something that that's, that sat there in my mind.

My, my dad was an accountant so.

And he worked for a family hoardish company for year, for 35 plus years.

So maybe there was an element of following in his footsteps.

And so I, I left the bank and I started working in a, a small sort of food machinery manufacturing business.

So they saw, well, they didn't actually manufacture machines but they bought them in for, from Italy and sold them to the meat manufacturing, you know, the abattoirs and all the places that cut up the meat to then go out to the butchers and to the, and to the retail pubs etc.

So it was really interesting.

It was manual accounting.

So we were laughing and checking about t accounts the other day and yeah, manual accounting, handwriting, the sales day book and sticking in the customer's card underneath it all duplicated through.

So then you'd write up the cash book as well when the money came in it and then writing out manual journals.

It was, yeah, it was eye opening but what a way to learn how to put together a set of accounts.

And to me it was actually a work of art to do it in that way.

And I moved on through two or three different companies over the next 10 years probably.

And I ended up working for a large family bakery firm called Mount Stevens which if you're in the west country, you probably, and your assimilation.

You would remember Mount Stevens.

He had about 90 to 100 shops around this area.

And I worked in the, where the factory was in the finance department department.

And I worked for a guy called Barney who was a finance director.

Amazing personality, amazing guy, didn't suffer fools.

He was, he was sandy haired and he used to go bright red in the face if he was angry about something.

And you'd hear his footsteps marching through as you, you kept your head down.

But, but when it came to producing the accounts, he was on the button with everything he knew.

Every pound, where every pound should be and where it should be accounted for for.

And if something the margins didn't look right, he would make you go back to the stop take and go and find out because you'd missed a palette of flower or something.

And, and do you know what?

I don't think he was ever wrong.

He was always right.

You'd go back and you'd go, go back to the store, man.

And you do say, I think we, apparently we've missed something.

And you go, oh yeah, yeah, there's one over there.

I forgot about that one.

Yeah, Barney was always right and I learned so much from him.

But we used to hand write the profit and loss out, you know, and, and we had it all in line so all the numbers were in line and you could, you could add it through if you needed to.

And we used the, the added machines with the little printouts that used to get.

I think you spoke about those as well in a previous conversation.

But I don't think I would have the knowledge of how to put accounts together without working in these places.

Because then when, when, when computer software became more common and a lot of companies introduced bespoke accounting packages in, it worked for their business because that was the thing originally, wasn't it?

We can make it bespoke to you and your business.

And everyone thought that was amazing.

But actually it was probably the worst thing that can happen because imagine being the chartered accountants in those days.

You had all these different computer softwares to have to deal with.

Whereas now with, with Xero, QuickBooks and free agent and all the other ones that we know and we use commonly, everything's fairly standardized, isn't it for us.

So it's, it's quite easy for, for us as accountants and bookkeepers these days to produce accounts in a standardized format.

But yeah, what, what I did find, going off on a tangent probably Deb like I do, but what I did find doing the manual accounting, having to Handwrite it, you understood double entry.

So when you went into the world of computerized software and, and software accounts being produced in Sage etc, when something went wrong you could look at the trial balance and think well the trial balance doesn't balance, how can that be in the socket in the software system?

But it used to happen and the only way you could unravel that was by understanding where the other side of the entry was missing.

So you had to find the particular entry that had been put into the system where the other side hadn't fed through for whatever reason and you could only find that if you had the knowledge of the manual accounting side.

So, so yeah, so that, that was ahead of an experience I would say working for companies like that sort of small medium sized businesses, being the management accountant, then becoming the financial controller, then in time becoming a finance manager of businesses and having a team beneath me, you know, that did the, did the purchase edge of the sales ledger, all the, all the usual accounting functions, the credit control, you know and yeah, I, I, I, I think some of that experience has been invaluable to me.

More valuable than, than sitting your accounting qualifications in the background whilst all that's going on and having young children trying to do it at home whilst working a 9 to 5 job that was quite often 8 or 6 or you know, 7 till 7 at times.

In, in the world that we lived in, work had to be done and you know, with the bosses in back, those, back in those days if the work weren't done, you weren't going home, the work had to be done full stop and you didn't necessarily get overtime if you worked in the office either.

So it was a, it could be a tough environment sometimes but one that I think it molds you into who you are later on in life and, and you learn perhaps how to communicate with people, how to look after your team in a, in a different way to the old school way that we were probably brought up in, in the world of business.

So yeah, so that's, that's kind of where I, my first steps into the accounting world happened and then, and then I, I moved from, so I worked for quite a lot of small medium sized business.

I kind of changed around every probably three or four years because I was climbing the ladder each time.

I was always looking to get to the next level and because they were smallish businesses perhaps there wasn't, it wasn't an environment for me to move up within those companies.

So I, I tended to keep looking, to keep, keep moving forward and to keep trying to climb that ladder and get as high as I could be more responsible.

And I ended up, in the end, I ended up going to some very large corporations, which again was a massive eye opener to how the world is, is ran from a big corporations perspective, so different to a small business perspective.

And I couldn't get my head around it at the beginning because in the small business you're involved in everything.

You're just involved, you know, if, if there's a delivery, you go and sign for it.

If, if something has to be delivered, someone, there's no one to take it.

You're asked to just jump in the car and go and deliver that to that customer because they're waiting for it.

You and you just do it.

You just do anything you need to do.

You make the tea, you do, you know, of course, you just do anything.

I have been known to sweep up the floor in the past, you know, change the light bulbs, all those kind of things, because it needed doing.

Whereas you go to the big corporation and you are such a small cog and you've only got this little area to work in.

And yeah, you, you wouldn't know what the light bulb's gone.

Oh, you know, you reaching ring up maintenance, they come and do that.

You're like, well can't we just change it?

No, no, you'll have to wait for maintenance to come.

So things like that I couldn't get my head around.

But what I did learn is how to manage massive budgets.

I worked on a particular project that was £1.9 billion in value.

And it sounds ridiculous, doesn't it?

You know, and, but then you think a number's a number at the end of the day, a budget's a budget, you know, so you've got, you've got your actual spend, you've got your budget and you put the two together and you say, well, hang on, you're overspending in this area.

You need, we need to sort this out or yeah, okay, great, we've made a save in there.

But why is that?

Have we not bought some of the goods that we should have bought?

You know, is there something missing?

And this was a massive, massive manufacturing project as well.

So yeah, being responsible for that was quite frightening but also really educational when I look back and I'm quite proud of the project that I worked on.

It's quite well known, I'm not sure I can share what it is, so I probably just, best not to, just to be safe.

But it was working for BAE Systems, which is British Aerospace.

And then I went on to work to Airbus, for Airbus, and at Airbus I was working in the wing assembly department, which again, I found really interesting.

It was when they've made the first parts of the wing for the A380, you know, the massive A380 airplane.

So I was involved very slightly in that process.

From an accounting perspective, it was just one part of the wing, but it was really interesting to be involved in it and to see the manufacturing aspect of it and then have to account for what's going on, all the costs of, the cost of materials, the cost of the labor.

It was real management accounting, real proper, getting deep into the numbers.

And then every Monday we always had a team meeting for that wing assembly team.

And I had to deliver the financial performance for the, for the, you know, the update for the week, you know, what had been spent, what happened spent, which department was overspending, which one wasn't.

And I always remember the, the guys, the supervisors, they always appreciated that I was able to deliver the financial information information to them in a way that they could understand it.

So in simple terms, and I think that's a skill that I'd learned along the way, and it's a skill that put me in good stead for when I set up my own accountancy practice because we don't work, we don't serve clients who are necessarily numerical or have massive amounts of financial acumen or even understand how to read accounting reports.

So being able to explain it in simple terms, I think has always been really important, a really important skill to have.

And that kind of then leads you into the world that if you've got those types of skills, they can be developed and honed.

And also maybe for, for people that work for you, they can be trained into an area to deliver advisory later on down the line, which I know where we can come to it at some point later on.

But yeah, I just thought it's worth adding that and making that point because it's.

While I'm talking, it's quite apparent, you know, but by talking through your story, you actually realize you've done quite a lot in your career.

And I'd actually urge everyone, anyone listening to this to actually think about that, think about, talk, talk to someone about everything you've worked through, and all these things will come back into your head about what you have achieved, who you have worked for, what you did do, and if it's been running your own business all that time, well, what, what an even greater achievement, you know, to have kept A business going all these years and to be able to share the success that your clients have had.

I think it's an important aspect that we don't do enough of and some pure reflection on, you know, what you've, what you've done and who you've helped along the way.

Yes, it's not perfect.

There's been mistakes, of course, I've made some mistakes, but it's how you deal with that, when that happens and, and what you do moving forward from that point and how you learn and how you face up to it as well.

You know, if you've done something wrong and you've done something wrong on, on the client's behalf, you have to just face up to it.

Go and talk to them, tell them.

And people prefer honesty, don't they?

Oh, absolutely, yeah.

Yeah.

So, yeah, so that's, that's that.

I guess after, after I was at Airbus, I, I, I just know there was something in me always where I didn't settle.

You know, like I said, I moved around every sort of three or four years because I wanted something else.

And I guess I didn't know what that something else was until the thoughts started going in my mind about running my own accountancy business.

Now when you've worked in business to then go and set up an accountancy practice, it's, it's completely different world and an interesting world, of course, and, and it's for anyone who's done it and as many people that have this, it's a brave step to make and I think we should all congratulate ourselves for making that step in the first place because it's easy to, it's easy to be employed and to receive your salary every month, have security in the job.

It's very hard to take that step out of that secure environment to suddenly running your own business and thinking the only way money is coming into this business so I can get paid is if I earn it and also if I can find customers.

So I have to now go and find customers and you suddenly realize that actually being an accountant isn't enough, it's just not enough.

It's like, what does that mean?

Great.

I can produce accounts for people, I can do their tax returns, I can produce their statutory accounts, I can submit their corporation tax, their V, you know, I can run their PAYE payroll systems, etc, etc, I can do all these things.

Fantastic.

All these skills.

I've got no customers, so what do I do?

And, and that is when you suddenly realize what you've done and it's make or break time, isn't it?

It's right.

Okay, well, I've got to find people fast.

Fortunately for me, I was able to work with a local estate agency franchise company that had three or four different offices at the time.

And they wanted me to get involved and work around about two and a half days a week.

So I was able to work for them and build the other clients up around it.

So I had, I had half an income coming in, I suppose you could say.

But again, you know, there's other costs involved, isn't there, when you run a business so suddenly that money is not actually all yours and there's also tax to think about.

Sounds stupid saying this out loud when you're an accountant, but it's things you don't perhaps factor in when you're trying to set up on your own.

And if we feel like that, what on earth do people that just run their own businesses that aren't accountants and bookkeepers, how do they feel when they suddenly get to the end of the year and they've got a bit of a shock when it comes to the, comes to the accounts and where they're at and whether they paid themselves too much and, you know, who knew about directors loan accounts at that point in time as well.

So, yeah, there's a lot of things you learn when you start your own business.

And I, I built a business up on a lot of clients paying low fees, if I'm honest with you, because I just didn't have the confidence in price and I didn't really understand the, the, the relevance of getting the pricing right, of how that affects everything, how it affects how much money you can earn, but also how it affects how much time, you know, you, you have to put into the business to be able to get the level of income into the business to be able to cover the costs and pay yourself what you want to pay yourself.

And then, of course, then you want to bring a team or you want to employ a couple of people.

You know, I never had a massive team.

I had a couple of people work for me.

But then there's a responsibility there, isn't there?

You know, you're, you've, you've then got an employee or two employees and got to bring the money in to be able to cover what they're paying.

And I, I guess I got the accountant I got on board with me, Laura.

She was really good.

She was a very good accountant, very good compliance accountant.

And that's all what I thought I needed.

And so we had this Compliance practice that served a lot of people.

I think we had about 250, 250 clients at one point.

All a mixture of monthly and, and annual or quarterly because I did do quarterly work with people as well because of the VAT quarters and it was hard work.

I was working long hours and yeah, I started to struggle with it because I became exhausted and, well, I was probably burnt out if, if I'm honest about it.

And I know, I know I've shared this with you before that, but I, I do reflect back to one night when I was, you know, sat in my office with my, you know, face planted on my desk and thinking, what on earth have I created here?

You know, I looked out the office and I can see it now, my car was the only car in a car park.

All the other business owners on the, on the unit had gone home.

And I just thought, there's, there's something not right here.

I'm not running this business in the right way.

And so I wanted to, to, to find a way to serve my customers and to find some better customers.

And, and so I, I entered the world of advisory and, and you know, when you start to, when you start to offer advice to people and advice to business owners about how they can take ownership of decisions in their business, how they can understand what's happening with the finances in their business rather than just issue them a monthly management account report and expect them to understand it.

Because that's what I was doing before.

It was a tick in the box exercise.

Yeah, there's your monthly management account.

There you go, I've served you for the month.

That's it.

Tick in the box invoice done.

Boom.

You know, now why aren't they paying me?

You know, it was, it was kind of that.

Whereas when I started to talk to people on a one to one basis, when I got them to come, because a lot of my, my, I had people all over the uk, but my bigger customers were local, so I was able, I had a, I had a sofa, I had an armchair, I had a coffee table in the office because it was quite a big office for, for the small, small sort of business that we were.

But I was able to bring people in, making a cup of coffee, sit down with them on the sofa, you know, go through the numbers that we were seeing, talk about the patterns that were developing, understand what they were trying to achieve, what their objectives were and then be able to deliver them with more advice from, from a perspective that you understood what they were looking to achieve.

And where they were coming from as opposed to when you just look at a set of accounts on a, on a computer system or you print off a P and L on the balance sheet and make assumptions.

This was actually a different level of conversation because it's an open dialogue where both of you were getting information from each other, you're asking lots of questions and then you're receiving information from them.

So, so I found that was really worthwhile and I really enjoyed that and my energy was really high.

Starting to work in that area.

I had to do a lot of it for, for nothing originally because how do you, how do you put together an advisory offer?

We, we didn't know it that we didn't know then there was, you know, was anyone really helping people in that area?

Maybe there was a few, but not really, not really doing it for me.

Not really kind of like grabbing my attention.

So I was kind of feeling my way through how I do this myself.

But as I built up some success with a handful of clients, I was able to then start to think how could I turn this into an offer?

How do I monetize this?

And that was when I started going down the, the traditional value pricing methodology where you know, you had the classic is the bronze, silver, gold.

I don't think I called them that.

I think I used my football passion.

I think I had some like Premier Championship, I don't know, something like that or I don't think I went with that in the end because I thought no one wants to be League one today.

So, so I think I went with something like World Europe, uk, something like that, as in the, the kind of Premier League, the, the UEFA Champions League and the World cup kind of that, that scenario I went with because I tried to make it fun.

Yeah.

You know, everyone knew who knew me, they knew I was into football and you know, I was a coach and etc outside of work.

So it was kind of like make it a bit of fun, make it a bit of a joke around what I do as a hobby.

But they understood the concept of the different routes they could go through and, and in that way I was able to add advisory in at different levels.

And that was when it was.

Became easier because I had it, I had it laminated and I had it in my office.

So, so I was able to share it if someone was in the office.

But if I was on a call with someone I had it to hand, I could just pick it up and say, this is, this is the package for you.

This is, this is what, what you'll get from it.

This is what we'll be looking to achieve.

You've already told me your outcome, so we're going to start moving you towards those.

And this is.

This is.

This is what it is.

And there was no kind of like, shall I faff around?

What are they paying that like in the old days?

What.

What are they paying their previous account?

I just wanted to look at their accounts to see what they were paying their previous account so I could pitch myself just below.

What.

Seriously, that's what I did.

It's mad, isn't it?

Or I might put my finger in the air and think, what should I.

What should I risk saying is the price for this now?

So this now, I had.

I had, like, a proper offer.

I had a proper concept of what advisory was.

Didn't happen overnight, it did take a bit of time, but I was able to start delivering the advisory.

And.

And what I found was I had a passion for it and I really was energized when I was having those conversations or preparing for a meeting for a client coming in, or reflecting on the meeting I'd had with that client afterwards.

Whereas when it came to the, the.

The submitting, you know, submitting accounts to HMRC and Companies House and, yeah, doing the tax return, I was just like, I really don't want to do this anymore.

So I was.

I was working out how I could go down this route of just being an advisor.

And fortunately for me, a local accountancy firm, I'd attracted attention and they came to me and said they wanted to buy the accountancy side of the business.

And within three months, there was no messing around with negotiations, to be honest.

He did.

I can remember him saying to me, I don't want to mess you around.

I'm going to offer this.

And he offered me a really high ratio.

And I was like, you know what?

I like that.

I was really like.

I thought.

I like that.

There's no trying to grind each other down.

And to a certain number, he just made a really good offer.

And I just thought, you know what?

I'm up for this.

And I liked the way that he made his offer.

And I just thought, yeah, this is it.

I can.

I can sell the compliance side off.

I can focus on advisory.

And.

And that's what I did.

And.

And, yeah, it was very weird.

I'm not gonna lie that the day after I'd sold the accountancy, I think it was on a Friday, I think.

I think me and Sarah, my wife, we went to St Ives for the Weekend just to like kind of celebrate in a way.

And I think it was on the Tuesday I went back into work and I sat in my office like this.

I just like so used to producing account and, and I was like, started to post on social media and started trying different things.

Now I sort of dawned on me, I thought this doesn't feel like work.

This feels like good fun.

But I had some clients already, you know, and I created a program and I've got some people in this program and yeah, I had great fun trying these things out.

I started to earn some money.

Obviously I had the comfort of having payments for the, for the accountancy business in the background.

Yeah, so that, that was, that was the accountancy business.

I ran it for 17 years.

And like I said, I made a lot of mistakes, but I learned a lot as well.

Nothing's perfect.

We're not taught to be business owners, but we become business owners and we work out is, is normally what happens.

And I guess those that can work out faster than, than others will maybe be successful quicker than others.

But the advantage that we've got is because we've gone through it, you know, 40, I think we worked out.

I've got 41 years of, of experience of working within the finance world and, and industry and all these different industries I worked in.

But mainly with the last, you know, 21, 22 years with accountant in the accountancy world.

It helps be able to share that knowledge and share all the lessons we've learned so that other accountants and bookkeepers can, can shortcut their route to success.

Because that's what I want to do for people.

That's where my passion kicks in is I don't want people to be there with their head first cracked on the desk like I was and, and stressed out and having to go to work on a Sunday, you know, when you, when you want to be doing something with the family or you know, going in on Saturday afternoon when, when I wanted to take my boys to watch Bristol City.

Yes, Bristol City.

I know, but I wanted to take them to watch them and the family stuff sat in the office not being able to.

So I did take them many times by the way, the poor kids.

But they've grown up now and they forgive me, you know, someone has to support them.

We know this.

So that there was that and then I'm talking so much.

Deb, I'm so sorry.

You asked me to tell stories.

Kind of gone off on a roll.

It's really interesting, Tim.

It's fascinating the variance in experience that You've gained but within one industry.

So it's.

You started off at the bank but then you went to small medium businesses in accounting and then you up his financial controller with.

What was it?

A one point.

What was the 1.9 billion.

1.9 Billion.

It's mad.

Is it?

There's crackers, is it?

That's a budget.

Can't even write that number out if I honest with you.

I mean that's from one extreme to the other, isn't it really?

I mean it's, it's.

But that's really in a c. Culmination of all your experiences.

Yeah.

And your journey and then to leave that kind of position and start off on your own back in accountancy for.

And serve small to medium sized businesses and then do that for 17 years and then have.

Well within that top end of that have an advisory service, leave compliance behind.

And then of course more recently you've been helping other accountants and bookkeepers, business owners themselves, practice owners themselves start offering advisory.

And go on the advisory journey so that they don't have their head in their hands, you know, and be the only one, only car left in the car park because it's up to their eyes in tax returns.

Yeah, I think it's a fascinating journey.

Quite different from my own and we'll talk about my own in a.

In another episode.

But I love it.

I mean, but I did notice it.

I, I loved the story about when you, you're in a meeting and you set an alarm off.

Will you tell us that?

Because I thought that was hilarious.

I was only six.

Yeah, that was.

So that was in my very first job.

So when I worked for NatWest International and when I first went there I was in a department called Foreign Notes and Coins and part of the.

The office had this secure section where only one person could go in plus the supervisor of the.

The whole department.

I guess it was a safe, safe area.

Whatever it had like glass panels so we could see the lady in there but we couldn't access it.

So it was a safe.

With all the, all the, you know, all the money was held in.

Now all the.

For when you think how many foreign currencies there are.

What, what we used to do was we were putting up the orders for people going on holiday.

So we would have.

The local branches would put their orders in and say we want, I don't know so many Spanish potatoes as it was in those days.

And we want it in these denominations because we've got to fulfill these orders.

So then we would have to get the money, we'd count it all out, you know, it would have to be check and it would go off and at the end of the day we'd balance to make sure the money that had come in, all the money had gone out or balanced and everything.

And we couldn't go home if it didn't balance.

It was really serious.

It had to be to the penny or to the.

To the poseto, whichever, you know, which have all these different currencies.

So everything had to balance at the end of the day and that was a tough.

A tough thing to.

To do.

But anyway, this particular day, and I'd only been there a couple of months, we had to sit in different places for some reason, so we had to sit on another desk and we were waiting for the money to come in.

So we had all these orders to fulfill, but we didn't have the money to.

To start counting up to.

To fulfill the orders.

And so we're sat there and we're chatting away and, you know, I was sat with a few people, I say older, they were probably only three or four or five years older than me, but when you're 16, that seems quite a big gap in the.

In the working world.

And we're sat there and I'm sort of fiddling around and I'm a bit too.

Isn't a bit of a nervous.

I can be a bit nervous, especially when I was younger.

So I was sort of twitching around and fiddling around under the desk and I thought, what's this?

And there was this kind of.

I don't know how to explain it, but I sort of put my finger inside and there was this button in there and.

And I just sort of.

My finger just kind of pushed it.

I didn't think anything of.

I thought, I wonder what that is.

Anyway, two minutes later, two minutes later, there's all panic in the post room behind us and they're coming in and there's people running everywhere and they're like, what's going on?

What's going on?

The police.

The police are armed.

Police are downstairs.

They're all ready to come up and we're like, what are you on about?

There's nothing going on.

Someone's pressed the alarm and I'm sat there and I just thought, oh, no.

I just went like a tomato in my face, bright red.

I had all this hair as well, down as well.

I'm just bright red.

And I went, is it under this desk?

And they went, yeah.

And I went, I might have pressed it and it was humiliated.

So half.

Half of the people I worked with were all trying not to laugh because obviously it was really serious, but it was really funny.

And my supervisor's face, he just went as red as I would, but you could see the steam coming out of his ears.

He was brilliant about it, as his name was Trevor.

I still remember he was a lovely bloke.

But, yeah, it's just.

You just.

What do you do?

You know what it's like when you're 16.

You fiddle around with everything, don't you?

You can't help yourself.

And I set the alarm off.

The police for downstairs, everything.

There was complete chaos around the whole bank.

400 People working there.

And it soon got round.

The new lad, Tim.

The shame, the shame.

It went on for months.

Everybody knew it was me, but I never had a.

It was such a good place to work.

It was all.

All in the right spirit.

But, yeah, things you do when you're young and you're learning and you just don't think.

Didn't compute in my head what.

What department I was in.

In it.

Of course it's alarmed, but at 16, they even didn't even think about it.

Mind you, no one told me it was there, so I don't know.

But that's funny.

That's very funny.

Something you remember all this time.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, yeah, that was a long time ago, wasn't it?

So.

Yeah, yeah, amazing.

But yeah, so that's it, really, Dev, I don't know what else I can tell you.

Well, as you know and you alluded to, yeah, four years of supporting accountants, guiding accountants and bookkeepers, or accounting professionals, business coaches, through lots of different strategies about offering advisory.

Looking at them within a community.

Again, learned so much from that environment, enjoyed helping, helping people that built.

And I built up some good relationships with people.

So, yeah, again, it's four years of experience.

It stands me in great stead to continue supporting accounting professionals as we move forward with what we're doing now.

Our world's changed slightly and we move forward in our direction and it's exciting times for us.

It is.

So, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's.

That's where we're at.

Yeah.

Fantastic.

And I'm one of those people that you.

You helped over the last four years.

Yes, yeah, yes, I know.

Well, what's interesting with you, Deb, is that I have always felt that, yeah, you, you followed in the steps that I encouraged you to take, but you still took that.

Those steps yourself.

I mean, I've encouraged a lot of people to take steps but not everybody does.

Some people do, some people don't.

And you took those steps, but you then took those steps to the next level.

And I think we'll talk about that more when we.

When we talk through your story.

But that's something I'd love to.

To talk about a bit more when we talk about you, because that really means.

That's important to me to share that message, because you didn't just follow me, you followed me and.

And some.

And added more.

And that's.

That's really good.

So I think that's what makes us a good.

A good pair.

Yeah.

Good team.

Quest for knowledge.

Yeah.

And quest.

Quest for moving forward all the time with a smile on our faces.

Yeah.

Always.

Yeah.

Always a smile.

Yeah.

Well, I look forward to the next episode.

Thanks, Tim.

I'm me.

We'll see you soon.

Thanks, Deb.

Thanks for listening to advisory conversations with Tim Seymour and Deb Halliday.

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