Absolute Architecture

Kate Cooper needed stronger financial guidance and deeper financial insight to build a sustainable future for her firm. She found it with Panthera.

When Kate Cooper first founded her architecture firm she was focused more on building for clients than building the business. However, over the next few years her approach to creating new spaces struck a real chord in her target market, and growth came nonetheless. 

She reflected, “After many years working in London, I just started the business to do what I loved best. I believe in holistic thinking about houses and how people actually live in them—not simply working with extensions and interiors. I’m really interested in how I can design something bespoke that really works for my clients—and as a result, all our projects look quite different.”

The business built naturally. It has environmental sustainability at its core, later embracing the Passivhaus standard which centres on drastically reducing energy consumption. Kate’s team grew from one to two, to three and then four.  It was turning over half a million pounds within a few short years. 

When it tipped the million-pound mark, the need for more financial control and insight only intensified.

Making a decision to build

Kate didn’t set out with a plan to grow a large business, she explained.  “When people join you in the business it never revolutionises things in the way you assume. Having a growing team enabled us to bring in extra revenue, but I wasn’t really getting much more of a financial return than when I was working alone—and I didn’t have much of a long-term plan. We hit a bit of a crunch point, and I realised that I needed to make a decision. Either I would build a proper business, or just carry on as a small, simple operation.” 

“I am not good at walking away from a challenge—so I decided on growth!”

Kate had early accounting help but found that a very small service provider  just didn’t deliver what was needed for this phase of the business. She recalled,  “He didn’t have staff to back him up, and I could see that some of the data I was seeing was wrong—luckily, I had enough of a handle that I caught it, and didn’t get into trouble, but I might well have done. I just could not afford to run the business by the seat of my pants—and it was taking up time I didn’t have to sort things out. I needed a more robust accountant to give me better visibility, and with capacity not to drop any ball.”

She needed something different. “I had to acknowledge that I didn’t have the sort of knowledge it would take to help the business grow much more. I needed more financial expertise to do cashflow forecasting and the next level of financial management to suit a bigger business.”

Choosing Panthera was a step she has not regretted, she said. “Right from the start we had useful discussions about things like how to structure the business. We did several workshops and a business planning session. It was a far  more grown-up way of looking at the big picture in the business, not just the financial details.”

Finding the right framework

Panthera provides Absolute Architecture not just with its compliance accounting basics, but with management reporting that gives Kate real insight into business performance, flagging issues and building confidence in her decision-making. 

Tory Wagg, Panthera’s founder, is key to the relationship. Kate acknowledged, “Tory is amazing—in those workshops she offers such valuable insight into the business and how it is run.”

Day to day, Absolute Architecture is supported by Ali Vermaak as its account manager, giving Kate the insights she needs to help run the business day to day. “Ali is brilliant—she’s that perfect, competent, safe accountant that I needed, plus a bit more,” she added. 

It took a little while to establish the right framework for reporting on the business. Kate now finds that she mainly gets the information she needs from a quarterly management report and meeting with Panthera. She remarked, “Quarterly reports are really useful, giving me a chance to catch up on all the trends in the business as well as the quarterly numbers.”

Encouraging one of her team members to step up into an in-house financial management role has helped her keep tabs on finance month by month during the quarter. She noted: “It’s still vital that I keep in close touch with the figures, though I’m not trained in financial management, so I do hit my limits still. Each quarter I constantly see that there are things that we could do better—such as improving our profitability.”

Developing new leadership dynamics

Kate now finds herself at the head of a substantial business, in which assuredand informed leadership is increasingly important. She said: “When you start a  business, you don’t need to be a CEO exactly—you are managing a small group of people, you know what’s in the bank account, and you know what’s going out—and whether you are profitable. As it grows, you can lose control of much of that. You have to keep the right balance between your cost base and turnover—and keep a good handle on profitability. You can’t just wing it anymore.”

With better financial support in place, Kate then secured further business coaching to help connect finance even more closely to the business’ growth strategy, which has helped her lead: “You need sight of everything all the time, not just the financial dashboard—so that means metrics on your conversions, your leads, your pricing and your profitability all together,” she noted.

It’s not just about the numbers

Overall, Kate says she has been delighted with the difference between Panthera and ‘typical’ accountants. She said, “Panthera makes financial data understandable which you can really underestimate if you’ve not worked with accountants before. They usually turn up with lots of Excel spreadsheets, baffle us with jargon, bluff a bit, and then leave—and you can tell if they’ve done little preparation beforehand.”

Now, she can sit down and hold a real conversation. She remarked,  “When we meet up, Ali has obviously spent hours putting a comprehensive report together—with everything in lovely graphical format. It makes things visible and understandable instead of impenetrable. She knows our numbers and business back to front and is never in a rush.”

“Doing business with Panthera and talking to them regularly is actually pleasurable, not a chore. It’s not dull, either—it’s rather nice to look forward to our quarterly reviews!” she added.

Kate is now at the point where she can look forward properly. “First, I needed to get a handle on the whole business and the whole process of growth. Look ahead at what I want the business to be in five years—and then, what the steps are to get there,” she explained.

As she sees it, “The difference is that I can talk to Panthera about the business challenges I face—and that matters because if you don’t face those you  
aren’t growing.”

Parallels underpin partnership

Finding the right accounting partner is also a matter of personality and alignment, Kate has realised. “Working with Panthera is like people working with me on their houses. Other architects do drawings based on what they think you need and aren’t interested in whether your dog comes home muddy and needs to be washed on the way in, but not next to the cooker. We take the time to understand how people really live. That’s how Panthera works too.”

Panthera has placed sustainable business at the heart of its business mission and, of course, sustainability is at the very heart of how Kate and the Absolute Architecture team work too. She stated, “My business has real parallels with Panthera. I am interested in the whole sustainability aspect of how Panthera works because I completely empathise with it.”

It’s also about people, Kate noted. “I want to work with people who are not just reliable but happy in their role—fast staff turnover was a problem I’ve had with a previous accountant. Culture and people are important, and I can see that Tory has built a business that people want to work in.”

She continued, “I have absolute faith that they work hard to do everything right and do it on time and diligently with all the checks in place. Tory and her team are genuinely committed to doing the right thing for your business, and I really don’t think that is what drives most accountants.”

Building a bright future

Reflecting on her journey so far, Kate summed up: “It’s absolutely vital to feel you have control over what is going on with your finances, because the stakes only get higher. You need a strong and safe grasp of your numbers as a basic requirement in any size of business, but to grow you need someone to help you turn your vision into a plausible plan for growth, with numbers to underpin all your decisions. You don’t get that help from an accountant that just helps you ‘do the books’.”

Good decisions are what underpin success, and Absolute Architecture has now grown to more than £1.2m in turnover. Tightening economic realities make growing any business a challenge, but Absolute Architecture has built a foundation that will enable its ongoing growth, as it continues to delight its clients with spaces that are not just sustainable but perfectly fit their lives.