Finance Awards Wales 2022 Finalists!
LHP is thrilled to have been shortlisted for Independent Accounting Practice of the Year by Finance Awards Wales! Our team of cloud accounting specialists, tax advisors and payroll professionals at our 5 Welsh offices have their fingers crossed! ?
About LHP
As an independent award-winning Cloud accountancy firm trading since 1935 and the first professional services firm in West Wales to embrace Cloud, our mission remains to this day, to be a force for good. Helping clients thrive, adapt and grow in business. We take time to get to know each business, and what makes it tick, to create a tailored package to suit each client’s needs.
Our 70 staff across five office locations (Carmarthen, Cross Hands, Tenby, Haverfordwest and Lampeter), have expertise to deal with the most complex financial issues. Yet we’re small enough to provide the individual service our clients appreciate.
What clients love about us is that they get a wide range of financial and business services under one roof from Tax Advisory, to Payroll, IHT, Audit and Probate. We work across many sectors including Tourism, Professional Services, Retail, Engineering, Construction, Property, Land and Agriculture – with key specialists in each sector. We help thousands of clients (over 5,000 clients across Southwest Wales now) move across to online accounts in time for Making Tax Digital.
We always ensure our clients get allocated a dedicated service manager, to guide them through the accounts process, from start to finish. And we promise to make the move over to us as seamless as possible. Making that leap to digital (Cloud), is easy, because we’re Xero Platinum Partners with the necessary training qualifications you need from us, to become happy account holders. We also provide QuickBooks and Sage, but mostly Xero is a great fit for clients.
Our certified trainers and use Xero extensively within LHP. We love providing clients with this great online accounting software package, as it’s created especially to suit the needs of small businesses. Most accounting firms will charge you for time spent, but LHP charges are fixed monthly.
At LHP we use a number of Xero’s suite of products and features to deliver value-added services. We have received a lot of recent awards for our hard work – we have been shortlisted as large firm of the year UK 2022 by Xero with the finalists’ award night pending in April (27th). We won an award for our clear transparent pricing (Go Proposal) in 2021 and Dext Global Challenge 2021 for the most licences sold that year. Our team continues to grow despite Covid and the economic backdrop – as does our client base and recognition.
LHP provides tailored packages to suit the exact needs of each client. Here are some popular ones below which help us manage VAT deadlines, prepare working papers, deliver payroll and support returns filing. During Covid it was key for clients to have an instant view of their business to access funds and for fast banking decisions to be made easily during a time of great change and uncertainty. We supported over 500 clients with furlough claims.
We use Xero HQ to navigate our way around 1,400 clients, enabling a view of clients’ outstanding VAT returns, particularly those who have signed up for Making Tax Digital, allowing us to ensure the deadline is not missed. We’ve several packages available to use and ready for clients to take the leap to online accounting.
We use Xero Workpapers, a great environment where client accounting working papers are prepared. This allows us to jump into their supporting documents on the go.
We use Xero Payroll to help clients who decide to use Xero Payroll internally. We use Xero CIS for our construction clients to make the filing of their monthly returns easier. We have a dedicated in-house payroll team at our HQ too.
Client onboarding differs by sector, company size and functionality. Construction businesses may require training on submitting CIS records. Retail may benefit from a system to monitor stock levels and a function for card payments. Some organisations split their business into departments and need to track income/expenses by department.
As well as all elements of cloud accounting one would expect from a modern practice today – we act as trusted advisors for clients, supporting them with sound business planning advice, help with local funding and tax expertise. We have 4 directors and 4 associates. Our team contains chartered accountants (FCCA), qualified accountants (ACCA) and payroll qualified staff (ACIPP). Also, semi-seniors working hard towards their qualifications.
Clients love how well we look after them with everything they need under one roof. Our great senior management team has a dedicated trade pod, agri pod and retail pod with qualified accountants serving clients in those sectors. We put on regular events for businesses in the area too (Cross Hands Networking bimonthly for example and business mentoring sessions in Carmarthen Focus Hub).
We support our team through their qualifications at LHP and have a great team spirit with regular socials and company benefits for staff including pension, free parking, study days, flexible working hours and holidays. We have free fruit on tap in our kitchens and do regular fundraising for charities – often involving dressing up or baking!
Further information on us, our services, sectors and featured clients is available to read at www.lhp.co.uk. The client stories are a great testimony to the challenges we have overcome with clients and the services we provide – to free up their time to focus on growing their businesses.
Company Blog: https://www.lhphillips.com/blog/
Client Stories: https://www.lhphillips.com/category/client-stories/
Our Story: https://www.lhphillips.com/our-story/
The Team: https://www.lhphillips.com/our-story/who-we-are/
