Each year, the Institute of Chartered Accountants Ghana (ICAG) classifies and ranks public accounting firms across the country into six categories: A1, A, B1, B, C, and D, with A1 being the highest classification available.
In doing so, ICAG considers revenue, number of partners, and number of staff. The classification system is therefore an important indicator of the relative quality of Ghana’s accounting firms.
When the classifications first began back in 2012, we were ranked as a B firm. In the five years since, we’ve progressed steadily through the rankings to the point where we have now attained the second highest classification in the industry.
An Intentional Journey
The path taken towards our A classification was no accident; it has been an intentional journey from the outset, driven by a determination to continuously improve every aspect of our firm.
We started with a vision to assist small and medium-sized enterprises in building strong financial management and reporting systems, enabling them to grow sustainably.
And we also set ourselves a goal of becoming a top five accounting firm in Ghana by 2020.
We aim to do that through the services we offer, and the way we deliver them; the quality of staff that we develop; and by applying technology to enhance our effectiveness and efficiency.
4 Pillars: In Support of Our Goals
From the inception of SCG, we have worked tirelessly on enhancing four pillars to support our growth and success. These are:
- People
- Process
- Technology
- Client service
Here’s how focusing on these pillars helped us progress from a B firm to an A firm in just five short years.
1. People
We value talent, and we seek to hire the very best that we can straight from school. We also invest heavily in training in order to help our people develop and progress.
In 2014 we hired an HR manager to oversee and organize our people management. And we continue to invest in and improve our recruitment and management to ensure our team remains fresh and motivated.
2. Process
Scaling up a business presents a growing firm with many risks. We have come to understand that implementing standard processes is how a firm ensure that it can consistently deliver a service to a defined standard regardless of who performs the service. It also us to effective train and delegate work.
We are committed first to creating process mindset in the firm and then defining standardized processes to cover every aspect of the firm. To build a process mindset we are investing in training on how to define, document and improve processes. This a precondition for scaling up and becoming a bigger firm.
Every business aspires to grow. To help them scale up successfully we will share the lessons we learn from implementing standardized processesWe will take the lessons we learn from implementing standardized.
3. Technology
We’re proud to be early adopters of many technological tools. New technology enables us to deliver our services faster, and with greater efficiency.
We have adopted cloud accounting tools to further improve our accounting and audit services, and we plan on introducing cloud tools to our payroll and tax services in the not-too-distant future.
Utilizing the cloud has allowed us to become – and remain – competitive, while providing our clients with the best and most up-to-date financial data.
4. Client service
We know that, in order to go from an A to an A1, high quality client service is crucial.
As we embark on the next stage of our journey, with a view to achieving our goal of being a top five firm by 2020, we will continue to invest in and improve this very important aspect of our business.
Our goal is to become indispensible to our clients, helping them solve real problems in real-time. And, as the firm grows, our capacity to provide more tailored services increases.
By adopting cloud accounting tools, we now spend less time on the mechanical aspects of accounting. This allows us to redirect our resources and take the time to understand the challenges faced by our accounting clients, and devise a strategy to help them.
Our Experience Can Guide You
As we travel down the road towards building a sustainable business that lasts – tweaking, scaling, and learning along the way – we have come to understand the challenges faced by SMEs in Ghana.
And we want to use that experience to guide you towards the same goal of building and scaling a successful business.
If you’d like to find out more about SCG and our services, contact us today.
