May 2021

Mental Health Awareness Week

It’s Mental Health Awareness week between 10 – 16 May. The theme this year is Nature and how powerful it can be for your mental health.

Our very own Kerry is a great advocate for mental health awareness and self-care and she’s challenging you to do three things this week; experience nature, share it and talk about it. Look out for updates on the AVN Facebook page.

Kerry also has more great tips and resources which are available to download from the Wellness section of the AVN Know How Hub – make sure to have a look!

.

April 2021

Are you making time for yourself?

We’re happy to announce that we have a new Wellness section in the Know How hub. We know how hard you all work and we want to make sure that whilst you’re looking after your clients, you’re also looking after yourself.

When it comes to wellness, small steps help you achieve your milestones and Kerry’s Action Brainstorm Worksheet is a great place to start. It’s now available to download from the AVN Know How Hub (in the new Wellness section). It’s also a great workshop to run with your team and get everyone focused on their wellness goals.

.

March 2021

It’s time for a new edition of the Business Owner’s Guide book!

The deadline for updates to the latest version of the Business Owner’s Guide book is Friday 23rd April at midnight. We’ve also made the decision to change the name to The Business Owner’s Guide to the Best Accountants so all of our members outside of the UK can now submit an entry too.

If you have an existing entry then make sure to review and update and for all of our latest Approved members make sure to add your entry to be included!

You can do this by opening up the AVN App Suite and selecting the UK’S BEST ACC ENTRY FORM icon. The details inputted will then be included within the next version of the book.

.

February 2021

Have you booked our dates into your diary?

Our workshop and events calendar is filling up with a great range of exciting and informative events for you and your team to attend.

Have a look at the Members Training page here to book your places.

.

January 2021

The Virtual AVN Masterclass

Since March 2020 we have been unable to run our 3 day Masterclass – Putting Excellence into Practice – but we are excited to say we have now set dates for a 2-day LIVE virtual version of this amazing learning and sharing experience .

For many accountants the Masterclass is the reason they decided to take back control of their Practice and their lives – and by attending they came away with a clear way to do it, AND the support of AVN to make it happen

You may have never attended this event, or you may have attended it several years ago – but whatever – this may be the injection of energy and enthusiasm you need to make sure 2021 is Your year.

As part of your AVN membership you have a place for you, your partners, and any of your team you think will help drive the future of your business.

You just need to decide which dates you want to attend. You can find more information, and book your tickets HERE.

.

December 2020

Member training changes for January

We are not here to make your life more difficult, we are here to help, and so during January we shall not be running our usual training sessions on a Tuesday lunchtime, instead we shall be holding an Open Surgery so that if you need us in any way you can log onto Zoom and ask us for help. You can talk to us, or other members and we will do our very best to help – even if you just want a bit of motivation or a kick up the a***

That’s on Tuesdays, any time between 12.30-13.30, in our Zoom room.

PLUS we are available by phone and email whenever you need help (though remember we are passionate about life work balance so if you email us at 10pm you might have to wait until the morning for a response!)

 

.

November 2020

Do you have an interest in working with e-commerce businesses?

If you missed the AVN Member training session on Tuesday 17th November then you missed a wonderful session where Charlotte Karacaaslan of The Accountancy Space and Emma Slack discussed working with e-commerce businesses.  The Pros and Cons and all the technology in between!

Plus one of Charlotte’s clients joined us to tell us exactly what an e-commerce business needs from their accountant.

To watch a recording of this session go to https://youtu.be/9yw0SFySkqo

.

October 2020

The deadline to feature in the next edition of the Business Owner’s Guide to the UK’s Best Accountants is Friday 30th October 2020

Don’t forget that there is still time to update or submit your entry for the Business Owner’s Guide to the UK’s Best Accountants.

If you’re already an Approved member and want to be in the next guide, fill in the details and apply on the app (incidentally, the app asks for details for the UK’s Best Acc Entry Form but this is a glitch – this is the right place to add your details for the guide).

.

September 2020

Excellence in Challenging Times award winner – MDH!

We’re delighted to announce the winner of the Excellence In Challenging Times Award is Michael Hemme and MDH. Michael and the MDH team have made huge efforts to help their clients throughout the Covid-19 crisis and have gone way beyond what most people would expect an accountant to do, providing both professional and emotional support. Many congratulations for your very well deserved win. And congratulations to all our finalists who have also been absolutely committed to their clients and local business communities through lockdown and beyond.

.

August 2020

October Masterclass Cancellation

With current events continuing as they have been we have made the decision to cancel the October Masterclass event due to take place in Birmingham. We shall be offering alternative options to this event so keep an eye out for more information.

.

July 2020

AVN Online Training

We’ve been running a number of webinars and training sessions lately, to help you support your clients through these current times.

Hopefully you’ve managed to join us on these as they were happening live however if circumstances meant that you couldn’t at the time, then visit our AVN Youtube channel or the AVN Know How Hub to view these now.

AVN Youtube

AVN Know How Hub

.

June 2020

Excellence in Challenging Times Award

AVN are launching an award for the Accountancy Practice that has demonstrated Excellence in Challenging Times.

Our plan is to raise the awareness of the difference accountants are making. There will be press coverage and stories will be shared. You have nothing to lose and lots to gain by entering.

To enter for this award we simply want your story or stories.  Tell us about the clients you’ve been there for, what you did for them and difference it made. Seek their permission to name them if possible but anonymise the client if that’s preferred but either way, share the story.  This isn’t about bragging, it’s about inspiring.

You can download the entry form by clicking the link: Excellence in Challenging Times award submission form

 

.

May 2020

Team Matters

Emma spoke about using team matters to check in on your team and see how they are getting on.  You need to set up the configuration for TeamMatters (when you get emails/text messages and who receives them). You do this by logging in here – http://teammatters.avn.co.uk

You can find the full instructions in the User Guide –  https://www.systembuilder.net/Document/View/1382

.

April 2020

Shane’s on Audible

We are pleased to announce that Shane Lukas’s book ‘Putting Excellence Into Practice’ is now available for you to listen to on audible.  If you prefer listening to books rather than reading, then this is great news for you.

The book is priced at £22.89 but you can get your copy for 1 credit if you already have an audible subscription using the link below.  If you don’t have a subscription for audible then you can sign up to get a free 30 day trial using the link below.

.

March 2020

Accountants helping Accountants

There’s certainly a lot of new stuff happening right now that’s affecting every business, large or small. I believe that in your capacity as an Accountant you’re in a wonderful position to provide guidance around their cash situations and accessing funding etc but also around how they can improve their business through these uncertain times helping them survive now and become incredibly strong businesses on the other side.

My upcoming webinar has just under 400 accountants registered to attend where they’ll be learning from other accountants, taking advice on how best to help their clients right now.

I’m launching weekly sessions to keep the momentum going and of course the topics will change over time since right now, many businesses are in panic mode (understandably so) but as they go through the equivalent stages of grief and begin to accept what’s happening, the support they’ll need will change too.

.

February 2020

Annual Review Calls 

February is a great time for review – of what you have done in the last 12 months and what you want to achieve in the next.  Last month we mentioned ‘Review calls’ and as a thank you to all who took part we will be having an Annual Review Call with you – delivered by a Practice Growth Expert that you currently don’t work with in order to give you a fresh perspective.

If you have been with AVN for more than 3 months you should have received a letter from us this week inviting you to an Annual Review call.

.

January 2020

Review Calls 

We have been trialling a series of ‘Review Calls’ where a Practice Growth Expert will work through a series of questions with you to ensure that you are still OnTrack (pardon the pun) and also that you are working towards the right goals for you and for your Practice.

This also provides us at AVN with the opportunity to see how we can help you in ways which haven’t come up before and use the collective brain of our Practice Growth Experts, so if  you have something that you want to tackle, and this is an area that one of our PGE are particularly skilled in, we are able to tap in to their knowledge.

.

October 2019

AVN Excellence

Hopefully you have all been using the AVNExcellence Self-Assessment Spreadsheet to monitor how close you are to achieving AVNExcellence. The AVNExcellence Workbook in System Builder has now been updated to match the spreadsheet. So ensure that you have the correct version.

The AVNExcellence Workbook is a way of finding out how you can achieve some of the standards, and a place to record where you are storing the evidence that proves you are meeting the standards, for the assessor.

The updated resource can be found here: https://www.systembuilder.net/Document/View/20888

We will be running a webinar on 6th November at 12pm on AVNExcellence with recently 6*accredited, Michael Hemme of MDH. He will be discussing ways to achieve the standards and answering any of your questions.

.

September 2019

AVN Conference 2019

We had a brilliant time as the AVN Conference.

Congratulations to MDH and Beyond The Numbers for winning Most Inspiring Accountants 2019! Well to Michael, Val and both of their teams!

Find out what else happened at www.avn.co.uk/conference

.

August 2019

Well Done Shane!

On the 28th July Shane took part in the Nottingham Iron Level Triathlon. Despite the weather conditions and the bike section being cancelled, Shane did extremely well and finished with a great time. 

Shane did the Triathlon for Head first, who use the donations they receive to fund research into helping the brain recover and also, to make the lives of brain injury victims much better. 

The AVN Team would like to say a huge congratulations to Shane. 

You can still help Shane raise more money for this amazing cause by clicking here: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/shane-lukas?utm_term=ypY57WdBM

.

July 2019

.

June 2019

Could you save a life?

This month, AVN have all signed up to be Stem Cell Donors.

It could be something as simple as giving blood. Every 20 minutes someone in the UK is diagnosed with a blood cancer such as leukaemia, lymphoma or myeloma.

By registering on the stem cell donor register, you could potentially gift them the stem cells that could save their life.

Register here: https://www.dkms.org.uk/en/register-now

Updated system – 2019 Income Tax – Tax Return System 

The income tax system has been updated for the 2019 tax year. You can find this here:

https://www.systembuilder.net/Document/View/1530

Updated Business Builder Forum – 3 proven ways to triple your chances of sales success. 

For Added Value members, this Business Builder Forum topic has been updated.  The BBF includes everything you need to run a meeting or webinar with your clients and prospects.  It is based on Doug Hall’s research, who is the author of this book, Jump Start Your Business Brain.  The research suggests that there are 3 issues with which businesses get to grips with, will fundamentally transform their chances of success.

Definitely worth a listen to the audio, even if you don’t run BBF’s yet, as the learning from this research can be used in your own practice too.

You can find the link to the BBF here:

https://www.systembuilder.net/Document/View/40

.

May 2019

SSTW

SSTW has been updated and recreated to work on any web browser. Just log out of your AVN Dashboard, and back in and it will be there for you. There is a user guide in System Builder for you to take a look at.

https://www.systembuilder.net/Document/View/27288

Team Matters

You can now add team members yourself! If you want to add a new team member onto Team Matters, this can now be done by just adding them to System Builder.

Also if you want to edit your settings, go to teammatters.avn.co.uk and log in to see your practice settings.

.

April 2019

We have built 3 houses!

Last week we celebrated 6 new members signing up by giving 2100 bricks towards our ongoing commitment to building homes in India. This huge donation has ment we have completed the build of our 3rd home!

We would like to thank you all for the commitment you give to us here at AVN, it means we can continue giving to great causes like this.

AVN Conference 2019

We would like to announce, Taxcalc, as our latest Gold sponsor at the AVN Conference, taking place on Wednesday 18th September at Edgbaston Stadium.

We will be working with Taxcalc more closely as we lead up to the event so be sure to keep an eye out for that.

If you would like to find out more information about the conference, or book tickets to attend click this link: https://www.avn.co.uk/conference/

System Updated

As Care Home Fee planning can no longer be promoted, we have updated the below document for you.

https://www.systembuilder.net/Document/View/24255

.

March 2019

AVN Masterclass Plus

Book you and your team a place on our Masterclass Plus event on Wednesday 3rd and Thursday 4th April.

Within the 2 days, we will show you as a team all the exciting things AVN has to offer within masterclass and your existing membership. 

Remember these 2 days are in with your membership so you would be crazy to miss out on the extra support and  guidance.

Value Roadmap Event

On 26th and 27th March we have the Value Roadmap Event. It will cover value driven growth and how to grow and cultivate your client base. Along with focusing on the PMI System and how to deliver it .

This event is designed around the third AVN Roadmap – Value.  You must have completed the Positioning Roadmap in order to attend this event.

Update within System Builder

We have reviewed and updated the service requests within System Builder, but because these link through to Time’s Up, and we don’t want to ‘impose’ the new versions on you, if you want them then you need to go into System Builder and ‘accept’ them. 

All you need to do is go to ‘pending documents’ and click on ‘External Pending Only’.  This will list the documents awaiting approval from you that we have published. 

All you need to do is to click on the icon on the right hand side, and then on accept/decline, and then accept them.

.

February 2019

AVN Conference 2019

Sponsors

We would like to welcome FreeAgent as our second Platinum sponsor for the AVN Conference, taking place on Wednesday 18th September at Edgbaston Stadium.

We will be working with FreeAgent more closely as we lead up to the event so be sure to keep an eye out for that. 

Speakers 

We’re also excited to welcome John Hotowka as our Keynote speaker for the event! John is a business speaker, humorist and magician who has first-hand experience of the highs and lows running a business solo. His presentation is about ‘Engaging Your Mind – Essential Resilience Strategies for the Pressured Accountant’ where you learn: 

1. How to recognise a limiting belief and over come it. 

2. How to focus on what is helpful to you to build resilience and achieve your goals. 

3. Where and how to tap in to a little known resource that’s under your nose to help you work more efficiently and effectively and give you all the moral support you need.  

You do not want to miss out!

BOOK NOW 

If you would like to find out more information about the conference, or book tickets to attend, you can do so here: https://www.avn.co.uk/conference/

New Digital Edition of the Business Owners Guide

There will be a new digital edition of the Business Owners guide produced in March. If you would like your practice to feature in this, please contact us about becoming an Approved Member.

.

January 2019

Gearing Roadmap

Our next Gearing Roadmap event is open to ALL AVN members on Wednesday 27th and Thursday 28th February 2019.

Start 2019 by focusing on you and your team. Gearing is about creating a team culture, getting the team much more focused on delivering high value services and interacting with customers in a way that continues to wow them, and keep them engaged and inspired.

New event for members? Masterclass Plus!

As a business owner, you may find it hard sometimes to get your team to really understand what you want to achieve for your Accountancy Practice.

As a team member, you may find it hard sometimes to get involved with AVN when you haven’t been shown what we are all about.

AVN Members who have revisited the Masterclass and brought their team along with them have found that their team truly ‘get it’ and this helps drive forward progress and improvements within the Practice.

On Tuesday 3rd and Wednesday 4th April, we’re running a 2 day Masterclass Plus event designed for AVN Members – as in you – to show you as a team all the exciting things AVN has to offer within masterclass and your existing membership. Look out for a more specific email coming from Shane about it

A system that you may not know about…

Advanced members, take a look at the Cryptocurrency system in System Builder to get all the tips and tricks you need: https://www.systembuilder.net/Document/View/27205

Foundation members, get access to the Cryptocurrency webinar for training yourselves and your team: https://www.systembuilder.net/Document/View/27211

Say hello to Charles!

Our team just got a brilliant new member!

Charles Ricketts is our new Business Development Manager. He has worked in the Training and FE sector for over 10 years and has first hand experience of supporting business growth through coaching and workforce development.

You may hear from Charles on the phone or see him at one of our events, please feel free to have a chat to him and make him feel welcome.

 

Positioning Day

We are running the Positioning day – How to Showcase your Practice on Thursday 21st February.

This day is designed to help you really focus on understanding, and communicating to others, who you are, who you want to work with and the value you can bring to a business. By the end of the day you will have created a clear picture of your business and be able to describe your practice in a way that attracts and engages the prospects, clients and team you want, written the first draft of your entry for the AVN Book – The Business Owners Guide to the Best UK Accountants, and be able to clearly deliver your “Elevator pitch” (which you should share with your team)

You may have done this event before  but if you have had some major changes in your business, rethought your business strategy, have had some partnership changes, or decided that 2019 needs to be different following your discussions with your Practice Growth Expert then I would recommend you come again and let us help you re-position your practice.

Conference 2019

We would like to welcome AccountancyManager as our first Platinum Sponsor at the AVN Conference, taking place on Wednesday 18th September at Edgbaston Stadium. We will be working with AccountancyManager more closely as we lead up to the event so be sure to keep an eye out for that.

IF you would like to find out more information about the conference, or book tickets to attend. You can do so here – https://www.avn.co.uk/conference/

Last week, we upset a few people…

A negative response to marketing may not always be seen as bad.

For Accountants, this time of year is tough and receiving an email with the subject line ‘penalty’ or ‘fine’ could really put you on edge. Last week we sent out an email with the subject ‘Penalty’ and unfortunately we received one negative response. Yes, of course we replied to them to set things right, however the subject line of the email still work. Somebody took the time to read and respond to one of our emails.

A proven fact that any reaction from marketing is a valued reaction.

.

December 2018

Giving at Christmas  

We’re all well and truly in the Christmas spirit here in the AVN Office and this year, along with our team Secret Santa we have all put together shoeboxes for elderly residents in the local area to be donated via Chesterfield Shoebox Appeal.

We’d love to hear about any good causes you’re supporting too! 

.

November 2018

The London Business Show

Representing AVN Accountants, Shane and Emma spent 2 days at The London Business Show – exhibiting and presenting to Business Owners of all sizes, who have been established for a varying amount of time, and of an incredibly diverse set of industries and niches. 22,000 Business Owners were booked to attend and the footfall was huge.  We gave away 6 boxes of the book ‘The Business Owner’s Guide to the UK’s Best Accountancy Practices’ over the 2 days to those business owners. Some will read the book, some won’t. But it’s highly unlikely they’ll throw the book away which makes it advertising space on their book shelf!  If you know of any other business shows (for accountants or other business owners) just let us know. Shane ran some presentations over the 2 days and generated a number of leads for AVN members that are in the book, and these will passed on.  If you would like to find out more about Shane’s presentations, take a look at Shane’s article. If you aren’t yet in the book, you need to be an approved AVN member to be able to enter your practice.You can complete the application form here.  The icon in your dashboard will then be activated.

Congratulations to our Newly Approved Members

Congratulations to DS Small Business Help, Starfish Accounting and The JDH Group for becoming approved AVN members in the past couple of months.

New Resources in System Builder

A number of members joined Emma and Andrea recently at our Strategic Development Group to look at some of the issues facing the profession at the moment.

The two areas that came out on top were

• Developing ourselves as trusted advisers, and
• Recruiting for the future
The brainstorming that took place at this day has resulted in the creation of two new resources in System Builder that will be available for you from Friday 23rd November.

• Developing ourselves as trusted advisers, and
• Recruiting for the future
More strategic development groups are being run and so keep an eye out for more resources in the future.

Changes to the Questions in OnTrack

Within the next week we will be making some changes to the questions in OnTrack, to enable you to start different conversations with your clients. We will be removing the following questions because of changes in legislation or because they were no longer appropriate…

• Is it likely that the client, their parents or other close family members, have more than £14,250 in capital (including the value of their home) and may need care home assistance in the next few years?
• Do they have everything in hand for complying with their Auto Enrolment responsibilities?

The following questions and/or answers have been updated…

• Have they been shown how to produce a One Page Plan? (question expanded)
• Does the client care about the size of their tax bills? (question changed to ask about TaxAbility)
• If they are currently unincorporated, could they save tax by incorporating? (report updated)
• Are they a limited company with profits that they want to distribute? (report updated)
• Have the key stakeholders all seen a first class independent financial adviser in the last twelve months? (report updated)
• Has your client personally suffered Capital Gains Tax in the last three years, and/or do they have annual income in excess of £100,000 or significant savings? (report updated)

And finally, the new questions added are…

• Do they have family or friends in business that could benefit from talking to us?
• Have you discussed (in the last 2 years), and do you have a record of, their personal and business goals?
• Is the client on a cloud accounting system in preparation for Making Tax Digital?
OnTrack should be used at least once a year with your clients, and if you would like some help on using it or introducing it to your clients then book a call with us at bookacall.avn.co.uk and select software training.

.

October 2018

So…How far are you prepared to go to get great training?

At the masterclass last week we had delegates from as far as Canada and the USA, and the feedback from one of these delegates from Chicago was as follows…

“It’s probably the most impactful professional development workshop I’ve ever attended, including my Masters Degree”

You and your senior team can come along to the Masterclass as part of your AVN membership – you just need to book here.

We would also like to welcome the new members that joined us following the Masterclass – it’s great to have you part of the community.

Another great opportunity to get training for your team

The feedback from the conference was some of the best we’ve ever had, with Will Whitehorn getting amazing scores.  The 2019 conference will have workshops for your team to attend  – while you are in the main presentation – with the theme for the day being ‘Engage’.  Engage your brain, engage your team and engage your clients.  And we’re in the final negotiations with a keynote speaker for that conference who will prove to be a huge inspiration but look out for more info.

We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN.

In light of this announcement the SustainAbility resource and it’s related documents will be updated in System Builder in the next few days.

Check out these two links for more information.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45775309
and
http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15/

This system can be used by you and also your clients, it will help you demonstrate your commitment to saving the world from “climate catastrophe”.

Making Tax Delightful: How to thrive in the age of digital tax

In the dark about MTD? Many accounting professionals are. Join QuickBooks’ for their webinar and find out how to build your practice strategy and get your clients ready in time for April 2019 deadline.

In this 45-minute webinar you will:

– Hear about QuickBooks’ MTD Beta and what’s next from HMRC
– Learn how to overcome the challenges facing your firm during the digital transition
– Develop a seamless plan to onboard your clients to cloud accounting software
– Have your questions answered to start Making Tax Delightful

AVN representing accountants at SME Live

Did you know that AVN will be representing you at the SME Live event next week at the NEC Birmingham?  We will be there handing out the book “The Business Owners Guide to the UK’s Best Accountancy Practices”.  Do you feature in it?  If you didn’t meet the deadline, why not put your entry in now in preparation for next time.  You can find the link on the AVN Dashboard.

.

September 2018

The date for the webinar to find out all about Bitcoin and crypto currency is the 23rd October.  Whether you have clients currently making transactions in crypto currency or not, it is something that you should be aware of (Even Coronation Street are covering it!)

Find out all about it at this webinar where former AVN Member Steven Briginshaw will share his insights, and at the same time create us a BBF for you to use with your clients.  If you have specific questions send them to us in plenty of time so that Steven can bring them into his presentation.

.

August 2018

Everything we do here at AVN is orientated around helping accountancy practices achieve the best standards in practice that you possibly can! That is why we have completed a brand new-tool and we would love to see how you perform.

This tool is a practice diagnostic which will give you an understanding of what might be holding your practice back from experiencing the level of growth, profits and general enjoyment in running your practice as you could have.

It’s a series of questions about you, your practice and your goals that if answered open and honestly will give you an understanding of your strengths and weaknesses. It Includes strategies and recommendations that our clients have tried and tested.

We are hoping to do some analysis of the membership as a whole based on the results, and if you could spare 5 minutes to answer the questionnaire it would be appreciated.

You can find it here.

At the end of it you will get a comprehensive report of your strengths and weaknesses and suggested ways to improve.

Changes to event dates

We’ve changed some of the dates of our events, including moving the August online training to September. Check out the new dates here.

AVN MOT Days

We are taking some time out of the business mid August to work, as a team, ON the business, and so on the 14th – 16th August the answerphone will be on and we will be replying to phone calls and emails periodically during the day.

Have you booked your conference place yet?  Rooms are running out so book now to avoid dissapointment!

We have nearly reached our allocated limit of rooms at the Belfry for the evening of the 17th September so if you are planning on coming along to the conference, then book your place now, or you may find you need to stay in a different hotel or pay the hotel directly which will be much more expensive.

You can book your places here.

.

June 2018

We are so pleased to announce that Guinness World Record Holder, mother of four, International Speaker and award-winning author Shonette Bason-Wood is joining us at the 20th Anniversary Conference in Spetember, and also at the Gala Dinner on the evening before the conference.

Shonette is not a motivational speaker but an experience.  Her message, performance, political satire and precision timed delivery, smattered with eye watering humour and unrivalled passion truly empower the audience to take hold of their life now and live it.  She will have you in stitches as you enjoy your dinner, and laughter in the morning could help relieve the hangover.

Book your place here.

Thinking of taking on an apprentice or already have one?

Well, you definintely need to come to the webinar on Wednesday 13th June at 12.00. The webinar covering the field of apprenticeships in Accountancy and will be led by Andrea with Sarah Cripps as a Guest Speaker. Sarah is an expert in apprenticeships and will share her knowledge of the changing qualifications with members. You can book your place here.

Are you ready for positioning your practice?

Book your place and come along to AVN House on 24th July.  Covering how to target your ideal client and how to create the perfect pitch in order to turn more prospects into clients. This event is designed around the second AVN Roadmap – Positioning. It will continue your roadmap journey after completing the Clarity roadmap. If you have not yet completed the Clarity roadmap please go to bookacall.avn.co.uk to book a Clarity call to start you on your way.

.

May 2018

Who will you be making a beeline for at the conference?

So far, we have…

Who else would you like to see there? Drop Victoria an email and she will contact them (victoria.walton@avn.co.uk)

If you haven’t yet booked for the conference you can do that on the conference page of the website.

Would you like to be an award winner?

If you want help and guidance on completing your AVN Award entry then tune into the webinar ‘Quick and easy tips to enter (and improve your chances of winning) the 2018 AVN Awards‘ next Tuesday 15th May at 1pm.

If you are considering moving to AVN Advanced Membership…

Then we are running a webinar to help you on the 6th June at 12pm (this date has changed from the date originally advertised in the AVN Guide).  You can book this webinar here.

.

April 2018

Taxability 2018/19 has been released

The 2018/19 Taxability checklist and marketing material has now been updated and is available for you in System Builder.  You can find them here…

Taxability Checklist
Marketing System

Recap on our latest online training

If you missed the recent online training, you can watch the recordings below:

• Tips and techniques on attracting the clients you want
• Time’s Up! Pricing Software – an overview of the benefits of the software and how to customise it and it’s associated documents

Steve Pipe is retiring

You may have heard that Steve is retiring so that he can focus on building his Get and Give a Million Foundation, but the great news is that he has agreed to continue being a guest speaker at AVN events including the Masterclass.

He will still be our special guest speaker at the AVN 20th Year Conference too, and will be interviewing the AVN Category Award Winners on stage.

And talking about the AVN Awards…

If you haven’t already downloaded the latest version of the AVN App on your Windows machine to get access to your AVN Awards you can do that here – you will need to uninstall your version before instaling the new version.

And if you want help with your AVN award, then tune into the upcoming training event ‘Quick and easy tips to enter (and improve your chances of winning) the 2018 AVN Awards‘.

And to book your place at the conference you can do that here. Make sure to book your team in too, especially if you are entering the awards, as it would be great to celebrate together if you are a winner.

Your AVN Awards for 2018 are now being opened

Do you have what it takes to be an AVN Award winner?  If you are on a windows machine, then uninstall your version of the AVN App, and download a new version from www.avn.co.uk/software-downloads to get your personalised link on your app for entering the awards.  The 7 categories of award follow the AVN Roadmaps – even if you haven’t completed all of the roadmaps, there is no reason why you can’t enter all of the categories if you are doing great things in these areas already.  Or just enter one or two categories that you feel strongest with.

The PGE’s are here to help you with your entry – just book a call with us here and we will help to get you started. We will be releasing more guidance to help with your award entry in the next few weeks so look out for this.

The closing date for entries will be 31st July, and so you have plenty of time to complete your entry.

Upcoming events

There is plenty of training coming up for everyone in the team, so get booked on it by going to www.avn.co.uk/member-training.

AVN Roadmap events

24th April – Positioning – Covering how to target your ideal client and how to create the perfect pitch in order to turn more prospects into clients. This event is designed around the second AVN Roadmap – Positioning. It will continue your roadmap journey after completing the Clarity roadmap. If you have not yet completed the Clarity roadmap please go to bookacall.avn.co.uk to book a Clarity call to start you on your way.

13th June – Gearing – Gearing is about creating a team culture, getting your team much more focused on delivering high value services and interacting with customers in a way that continues to wow them, keep them engaged and inspired.  It’s largely around mindset – your mindset in terms of letting go and trusting your team to deliver the quality and accuracy you’re passionate about and their mindset to get them thinking more commercially. You must have completed the Value Roadmap in order to attend this event.

Online Training

18th April – 12pm – 1pm – Tips and techniques on attracting the customers you want
25th April – 1pm – 2pm – Training on how to use Time’s Up!

Did you miss the webinar about GDPR?

Too many people are using scare tactics to sell their GDPR Services.  Watch our webinar with Craig Parsons of Persolvo to get a simple understaning of GDPR.  You can watch it here if you missed it.

So, remember to start thinking about your award entries and get booking on the upcoming events.

February 2018

New updates to the Benchmark software and reports

This week we have released an update to the AVN Benchmark software, so that it now formats monetary values with commas to separate the ‘000s.  In addition to this it adds the SIC category you are reporting on to the standard reports, and it now also pulls your clients’ business name into the standard reports.

Come and have a gamble on us

We would love you to join us to celebrate our 20th Anniversary at our Gala Dinner on the 17th September, and to keep you entertained, we would like to give you £20AVN to spend at the AVN casino.  Every Gala Dinner guest will receive the starter funds.  You can buy more casino money on the night with all proceeds going to charity.  The lucky winner on the night will receive a special prize at the conference.

Tickets for the conference are just £197 plus VAT per person, which incudes your Gala Dinner place, overnight accomodation, breakfast, and your day at the conference.

Just click here to book your tickets.

Our Keynote Speaker…Will Whitehorn

Will Whitehorn is a non-executive director or Chair of several public and private companies including Purplebricks Group PLC, GVC Holdings PLC, Stagecoach Group PLC, the Glasgow SEC /SSEHydro, The Scottish Gallery.  He has also now joined the board of Clyde Space Limited, the UKs leading space satellite manufacturer, which was recently acquired in a groundbreaking £30 million by AAC Microtec.

Having learned to fly as a 16-year-old RAF cadet and completing an MA Hons at Aberdeen University, he has spent almost all of his working life in the transport and technology industries. Starting out as a helicopter crewman in the North Sea Oil Industry, he went on to become a graduate trainee with Thomas Cook and eventually joined Virgin in 1986 where he established a career as Sir Richard Branson’s corporate affairs advisor and Brand Development Director for the group globally. He helped develop Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Trains and Virgin Media, and went on to become the first President of Virgin Galactic taking the business from a dream to reality. In 2010 he left Virgin to embark on a non exec career and was a founder shareholder in Purplebricks Group PLC.

Will is going to be explaining how businesses need to change in the future, how to create that change, how the Virgin Group did things, and how AVN members can make the change that is needed.

To book your place at the conference just go to www.avn.co.uk/conference

New GDPR Resources in System Builder

You will have received in the post your AVN 2018 Guide – if you want a downloadable version you can download it here.  Along with this, we included a copy of the Guide to GDPR.  You can use this guide with your clients, either exactly as it is, or use the Action Resource in System Builder which has the wording in for you to create your own branded version.

You can find them here…

GDPR Brochure
GDPR Action Resource

If you found these resources useful, hop onto the AVN Facebook page – we’d love to hear your feedback!

How to take the stress out of January 2019

Hopefully January wasn’t too painful for you – if your January was still busier than you would like it, why not revisit the video below?  This is an interview with AVN member Marc Lawson from Business Vision showing you how to change the systems in your business to ensure that January is pain free.

https://youtu.be/bl-c67oyYuw

The future of Financial Performance Review

While AVN have a number of software tools, our primary focus is not as a software provider, and there are so many other software providers doing a great job of allowing you to report on your clients growth, that we have decided to discontinue developing our Financial Performance Review software.

Many members are already using products such as Spotlight, Futrili and Xero to produce this key information for their clients.  We are investigating plans to build some additional functionality into AVN Benchmarking in the future to report on your clients key financial numbers.

You will be able to continue downloading it as part of the Advanced Software download until 31st July 2018, and will be able to continue using it until 31st December 2018.

Is AVN GDPR compliant?

We hold your data, and data for your clients and as such have a responsibility to you to ensure this data is protected.

Where does our clients’ and our data reside?
Your client data resides on the Microsoft Azure platform and is based in Western Europe. What this means is that it is GDPR compliant and is located in either Ireland, Germany, London or the Netherlands. Your data is also stored on additional cloud based software that we use for emailing you and invoicing you that is already GDPR compliant or will be by the May deadline.

What IT security measures do you have in place?
As well as the Microsoft Azure firewalls, antivirus, malware protection, and backups that you would expect, we have paid for our systems to be penetration tested. This means that we have paid friendly hackers to try to break into our systems to ensure that they are as secure as they possibly can be.

Have a relaxing February.  Remember if you want to chat with the team about the next steps for your business you can give us a ring on 01246 571191, or email us, or book a meeting at a convenient time for you here

January 2017

Are you tapping into the full support of AVN?

Shane has just created a video guiding you through all the different ways in which AVN can help you on your journey.  It’s only 5 minutes long – just click the link below to watch it.

https://youtu.be/lXSlbUllj68

Do you have MOT days?

We had our MOT last week, and it was fantastic being able to take a step back and look at our business for 3 whole days and make changes to the systems that we have, deleting things that we don’t use, and generally just having a really good tidy up.  It’s amazing how great it can make you feel, having the whole team focused on the business rather than just the business owner.  We plan on having more MOT days in the future, so that we continue to work on our business and suggest that you consider having them too.

GDPR – are you prepared?

It’s the big scary thing of the moment, and with so many different people offering many different solutions it’s hard to know where to start.  We are creating a brochure that you can personalise and give to your clients and it will be in System Builder soon.

Have you booked your place at the AVN Conference yet?

We have some amazing speakers booked so far for the Conference, and the current AVN Firm of the Year Michael Hemme from MDH will be explaining the benefits that implementing and applying for AVN Excellence 6* made to his practice.

February training events for your calendar

Why not book your AVN training now, so that you are ready to kickstart the year working on your practice?  You can Book all of these here

Training at AVN House

• Clarity – Let’s get started – 27^th February – A practical workshop to help you improve your key numbers. This event is designed to complement and assist you completing the first AVN Roadmap – Clarity and help you on your first steps on your AVN journey.
• Gearing – Preparing your practice for a successful future – 8^th February – An interactive workshop designed to enable you to leverage your time, earn more and work less.  The Roadmaps so far have been focused around you – now is the time to start getting your practice to truly work without relying on you being there to manage everything, and allowing it to grow exponentially. This workshop is only available to advance members that have already completed the Value Workshop.

Online training

• Developing your KPI’s – 14^th February – 12pm – 1pm – Taking a look at the measures you should have in place in your practice, to enable you to make the decisions you need to.

Book all of these here

The Bottom Line

Have you noticed when you visited the loo at AVN Head Office that we support toilet twinning?  Each of our toilets has been twinned with another in a part of the world giving people somewhere safe to go to the toilet – the basic of our needs.  If you want to find out more, you can find out here.

Articles ready for you to use

Did you know that while ever you remain an AVN member (foundation and above) all of the content in the articles written by the AVN team which have been put on the AVN website https://avn.co.uk/blog/ can be taken by you and used in newsletters and on your website?  There are dozens of great standalone articles that can be used wherever you need.

Have you started working through the AVN Roadmaps yet?

Jay Chatwani of Lawrence & Co spoke recently to James Miller about starting the AVN Roadmap journey. Even though they have been with AVN for a number of years and have implemented many of the AVN tools and resources, he found the process incredibly valuable – highlighting areas of the business where they may have let some things slip or they can do even better.  Watch the 8 minute video here.  And if you haven’t started on the AVN Roadmap journey yet you can book a call here.

Why your online presence is important

Back in December Shane presented a webinar on the importance of having an online presence, and how you should do this. If you missed it, you can watch the recording here.

AVN MOT Week

As with our cars (and our bodies) every so often it’s a great idea to have an MOT, and as we are in our 20^th year we are taking a few days to take stock of where we are and have a bit of a tidy up and a plan.  We are doing this next week from Tuesday 9^th to Thursday 11^th January.  During this time we will only be responding to urgent phone calls and emails and will respond to all other communication on Friday.

December 2017

We would like to take this time of year to say ‘Thank You’ for working with us over the last year, and to let you know that rather than sending out Christmas cards, we have decided to provide 250 days of business training to women in Africa, via B1G1.

Our Christmas Opening Hours
We are out celebrating on the afternoon of Monday 18^th, and so the office will close at 11.45 on that day.  The office will officially close for Christmas on Friday 22^nd December and reopens on Monday 2^nd January. And so if you need any help from us then give us a ring before the 22^nd.

Join us for our 20^th Year Celebrations
In September 2018 AVN will be celebrating 20 years and we would love for you to join us to celebrate.  For those of you at the conference this year you will know we said it would be in London, but the feedback from you is that London is not the place to have the event and so we have managed to secure an amazing deal in Birmingham.

Come along and join us for an evening of fun on the Monday 17^th September at our Gala Dinner, and then at the conference on Tuesday 18^th September, for an all-inclusive price of just £197 plus VAT per person – that includes the Gala Dinner, your accommodation, breakfast, and your day at the conference.

Book your places here

New System Builder resources
We have reviewed the Lifetime Financial Responsibility resources and the B1G1 Action Resource in System Builder.  To see new resources that are in System Builder, just open the software and click the ‘What’s New’ button on the home page.

New AVN App Suite
I am delighted to tell you that we have released OnTrack on the AVN Dashboard/Apps Suite (Windows versions only today – keep an eye out for the release of the MAC and IPad versions coming soon).

Uninstall and reinstall
An email yesterday explaned that to get OnTrack on your own Windows Dashboard you will need to uninstall the existing version and then install the new version, which can be found here…

avn.co.uk/software-downloads.

The reports have been reviewed and updated in light of recent changes to tax legislation, and the templates for the reports are in System Builder (just like Time’s Up! and BenchMark) in case you want to change the report template and put on your logo, or change the standard wording that appears on the reports.  (Don’t change anything in the )

All of your clients already on the dashboard will be there.  Just select to add a new questionnaire, complete the questions and produce the reports.  It will automatically save the data against your client.

Other new things on the Dashboard

Book a call – You now have a link to book a call with one of the PGE’s, so you don’t need to worry about storing the booking link anywhere.  Just click the link, choose who you want to speak to and select a date and time that works for you.

What’s new – there is a new link to the What’s New at AVN page on the AVN website – so you can see at a glance the new training resources and tools that have been released.

Coming in the new year…

Membership benefits – so that you can at arrange benefits to use with your team, and offer these same benefits to your clients

SSTW – Web based, so that you can invite your clients to use it and don’t have to worry about copying files onto CD’s or USB’s for your clients.

November 2017

Welcome to our New Members

Last week was another amazing week at AVN and we would like to take this opportunity to welcome the newest members to our community.

Thanks to everyone involved but especially to Phil Ellerby and Andrew James for sharing their amazing journeys so far at the event. You are Inspiring Accountants.

Remember, if you would like your team to energised and enthused, then bring them along to the March Masterclass.

Following on from the AVN Masterclass we have supported the following projects as our commitment to the UN’s Global Goals.

We have…

• provided in Cambodia, 52 families with enough seeds for them to grow their own food for a year. This will have allowed the girls in these families to attend school rather than having to search for food.
• supported 39 families in rural villages with access to clean and safe water for a year. This not only gives them clean water, but also provides them with financial security and ongoing health.
• helped by providing extra tuition to 13 girls for a period of one year, this allows them to pass their exams and to move on to the next year of schooling which would normally not be accessible for them.

And also special thanks to AVN’s very own Victoria, who managed to find a charity to donate the left over food to so that it didn’t go to waste.

AVN Apps Update

Keep an eye out for the new AVN apps update, which includes OnTrack in the cloud, a link to book your calls with us, and a link to keep up to date with what’s new at AVN.  We will send an email to let you know when this is released.

Have you started your AVN Roadmap Journey Yet?

We now have almost 70% of members on the AVN roadmap journey, some taking great leaps, and others smaller steps, but they are moving their practices forward on the journey they want to take.  Have you started your journey?  If not you can book a call to get started here…bookacall.avn.co.uk.  Remember the roadmaps aren’t just for new members – they are a great way to take a fresh look at your business.

Updated Bank Videos in System Builder

We have updated the bank videos in light of new legislation with regard to promoting advanced tax planning, and have removed the section where Remuneration Tax Planner shows an option of a tax strategy.  The new videos can be found in the ‘what’s new’ section in System Builder.

Updates for Remuneration Planner and Incorporation Tax Planner

As you know the world of tax changes constantly, and so we have decided that the time is right to stop updating Remuneration Planner and Incorporation Tax Planner and leave the technical calculations to the experts, and so we will not be updating the calculations for the tax year 2018/19.  You will still be able to use the software for the whole of 2018, for the tax year 2017/18, and continue to be able to see any calculations already done for your clients.

In the coming weeks we will be removing the advanced tax planning option from Remuneration Planner, so keep an eye out for this change.

Shane’s message to stakeholders

If you didn’t attend the conference (or even if you did and want a refresher on what Shane covered) and want an update on Shane’s message to the key stakeholders in AVN, you can find it in the link here.

Online training just for you

You may see the emails coming out from us letting you know of the different training that we offer. If you want a refresher of the content, we put many of the videos on YouTube.  Just subscribe to the channel to get updates from YouTube as they are uploaded.

The most recent were

• 10 cloud technologies you should know about
• Create a business that works like clockwork without you
• Engaging the younger generation

Our quarterly planning day

On Monday 4th December the AVN team will be having our quarterly planning day, and so if you need help from us, drop us an email or leave a voicemail and we will come back to you on Tuesday 5th.

And remember the AVN Facebook community is always there on hand to help. Recent topics in the facebook group include how to price bookkeeping, and which practice management software to use.

October 2017

And the AVN Firm of the Year is…

MDH

Congratulations to Michael and his team.

Online Training

• Engaging the younger generation – In this 50 minute training session Andrea Higginbottom talks to Sarah Cripps MD from Salad Skills about her experience in recruiting millennials and how to engage apprentices. She answers many of your common questions and looks at many misconceptions.

September 2017

Online Training

• Tools to engage your clients and enhance your business – Tools and strategies to engage your clients and demonstrate how you can provide services that enhance their business. In this session Emma Slack of AVN shows how you can start with the things you already know and are comfortable talking about as an Accountant and develop the conversation into business advisory work. How your team can spot opportunities and use the AVN tools to change you clients perceptions of you and your services and see how you can really help them and their business grow.

August 2017

Online Training

• Have you created a practice image that attracts your ideal client? –

 July 2017

Updated System Builder resources

• Updated videos for working with bankers and other referral sources

June 2017

Online Training

• Connect, Engage, Earn!  Join Emma Slack of AVN as she explores how to connect and engage with prospects and clients in order to show them the value of the services you can offer them to help them get from where they are now to where they want to be. And how connect that value to their investment in your services.

May 2017

Online Training

• Developing a practice that works for you 

AVN Facebook Member Community Group:

We set up the AVN Member Community Group as a forum to help you progress on your AVN journey and create connections with other AVN members helping you to set and reach your goals. It has been incredibly popular and allows AVN members to post questions to the AVN team but most importantly to their peers. There is always a steady stream of new conversations and people have found it valuable to have direct access to other AVN members to air their views, ask questions, share their advice, successes and experiences. There are currently 122 members of the group and that number is steadily increasing. It is a closed, secret group for AVN member firms and their teams only so if you would like to be given access, simply email members@avn.co.uk.

New Action Resource in System Builder:

In a recent query in the AVN Members Facebook community about purchasing another practice, the member who asked received some amazing advice which we wanted to bring to the rest of the membership…so we have!

We have created a new Action Resource – Key things to consider when buying a practice/fees. This is a combination of ideas from AVN members and AVN team.

It includes –

Questions to consider / ask when buying a practice or block of fees

You can use to prepare your self before any meeting with potential sellers

You could also ask yourself these questions before you enquire about any sales

If you are planning to sell any fees or your own practice you may want to prepare for such questions.

We hope you find it of value as you grow your business. We would like to thank all our active members on the AVN Facebook Community as your contributions helped us create this resource.

April 2017

Software in the cloud:

As you know, the AVN App suite is designed to be the first port of call for the main software resources and updates from AVN.

The AVN App Suite Dashboard currently looks like the screenshot below.

The five cloud-based pieces of software (Time’s Up!, System Builder, BenchMark, Remuneration Planner and Incorporation Tax Planner) can be accessed from their respective icons.

There is also an icon to access upcoming live and online training sessions from AVN for you and your team.

The software downloads icon allows you to download the latest version of the AVN software (including Mac, Hosted Desktop and iPad versions of the App Suite).

The UK’s Best Acc entry form’ icon allows you to complete an entry to feature your practice in ‘The Business Owner’s Guide to the UK’s Best Accountancy Practices’

There is also a ‘New Feed’ within the dashboard to give an overview of the latest updates and developments from AVN and the wider community.

New AVN Toolkits:

• Building a Team That Works Toolkit – This toolkit is designed to guide you through using the TeamMatters software, building a team culture, recruitment of new team members and engaging your team.
• AVN Roadmap Toolkit – This Toolkit will guide you to the supporting documents to help you achieve your actions and progress through all the AVN Roadmaps. It is designed to help you navigate the tools and resources to embed within your practice and work towards AVNExcellence

Online Training:

• Build a customer service experience that everyone is talking about

March 2017

BenchMark in the Cloud:

The new AVNBenchmark software is now in the Cloud and on your AVN App suite (the AVN Dashboard).

The software works in a very similar way to the old version but you should find the screens cleaner and easier to use.

The software shares client details with any other AVN product on the App Suite/Dashboard so if you are already using Time’s Up! your clients will already be there for you to BenchMark.

As you requested, the reporting function now allows you to select data by SIC code, Activity code, Geographical Area, and selected date ranges.

We have also made it simple for you to add your own logo and create your own templates (with a simple drag and drop function).

You can also use AVNBenchmark anywhere and on any device that has an internet browser and internet access by just going to benchmark.avn.co.uk and log in using your System Builder password.

And to support you using this tool we have updated the BenchMark Toolkit in System Builder to show you clearly how to use the software and the reports it produces. Click here to take a look.

AVN Toolkits updated:

• Benchmark Toolkit – to give you everything you need to systematically roll out BenchMark throughout your practice with Clients and Prospects.
• Time’s Up! Toolkit – to help you to get started with using and customising Time’s Up and implementing the pricing theories and policies it advocates.
• System Builder Toolkit – to give you everything you need to systematically roll out System Builder throughout your practice with Clients and Prospects.

Online Training:

• Are you creating the biggest impact with your current client base?

February 2017

Online Training:

• How to position yourself as a credible expert to attract the clients you really want

December 2016

Online Training:

• Great ideas to take you forward into 2017
• How to find the time to do the important things 

November 2016

Updated AVN Toolkit:

• BBF Toolkit – This toolkit is an overview of what BBFs are, objectives of BBFs, a list of the resources included and the timings for BBFs. There is a library detailing every title, what type of subject is covered, if it is a top 10 BBF and a link straight to the BBFs individual checklist of resources in Systembuilder.net. There is a resources page that has links to the supporting resources in Systembuilder.net

October 2016

The New AVN Roadmap Journey Launched at AVN Conference!

We have designed 7 Roadmaps to help guide you and your team to take action to create the practice you desire. Each Roadmap is a printed workbook to track your progress, write your ideas, and point you to the AVN resources that will best help you to complete your actions.

The 7 Roadmaps are designed to guide you through the process of achieving 4,5, and 6 Star AVNExcellence Accreditation.

The Clarity Roadmap is designed to start you on your AVN Roadmaps journey. Based on your firm’s specific circumstances, the Clarity Roadmap workbook is tailored to help guide you to take action to create the practice you desire. Along the way there will be actions which you can involve your team members with which will develop their skills and promote a strong team culture within your firm – not to mention free up your time to work on the more important things.

If you haven’t yet started on your Clarity Roadmap journey Click Here to book an initial 30 minute call with one of the PGE Team.

Once you have completed the Clarity Roadmap workbook, for each of the subsequent Roadmap stages, (beginning with the second Roadmap ‘ Positioning’) there is an accompanying Implementation Workshop to kickstart each new step of your journey. You will spend the day at the AVN Head office with like-minded peers – it will be interactive, hands on, in-depth training designed to allow you to hit the ground running and give you the momentum to continue when you go back to your practice.

Roadmap online support sessions. These start after your attendance at the Positioning Roadmap Implementation Workshop. Facilitated by one of the PGE Team, these are 3-weekly online group sessions and are designed to support you as you work through your current Roadmap with focus on the AVN tools and resources that can help you along the way.

Online training:

• Getting and converting prospects
• Pricing for maximum profit
• How to sell without feeling like a salesperson

Updated Toolkit:

• Marketing Toolkit – The objective of this toolkit is to give you everything you need to systematically roll out the marketing systems throughout your practice with Clients and Prospects.

September 2016

Time’s Up!:

A new version of Time’s Up! will be released on Monday 14 September. Time’s Up! 1.3 is packed full of new features and benefits for you:

1. Speed – We’ve dramatically increased the sync speed.
2. Cross group items – You can now see items that appear in multiple categories and amend the order in which they display.
3. Default optional extras – You can now choose what appears first in your quotes – for example, PMI, TAS or Optional Extras.
4. Locking down a quote – You can now lock down a quote so it can’t be changed accidentally once it’s been signed off by a client.
5. Navigation – It’s now much easier to navigate to other pages within a quote.
6. Printing – New Print Proposal facility on the Quote Settings screen.
7. Syncing for Terminal Services users – Improved compatibility for Terminal Services users.

New AVN Toolkit:

• Time’s Up! Toolkit – to help you to get started with using and customising Time’s Up and implementing the pricing theories and policies it advocates.

Online training:

• How to differentiate yourself from your competitors
• 3 secrets to delivering really valuable business advice

Your On Demand 24/7 online training:

To support you and your team’s learning we have improved the On Demand training platform within System Builder. We have redesigned this platform to better help your team to understand how AVN can be of use to them. (It would be a great step in your induction programme / training programme). Our newest AVN members can also gain an understanding how the AVN tools and resources can help in the many areas that can help to transform your practice.

The four sections within the training platform are – Introduction to AVN, Quick Wins, Cultivate and Grow and Making it stick. They all have supporting resources, user guides and pre-recorded training videos to help engage, enthuse and get your team on board to achieve your business goals.

All the training platforms can be accessed within System Builder. Click here to find simple instructions to add your team members to System Builder.

September 2020

Excellence in Challenging Times award winner – MDH!

We’re delighted to announce the winner of the Excellence In Challenging Times Award is Michael Hemme and MDH. Michael and the MDH team have made huge efforts to help their clients throughout the Covid-19 crisis and have gone way beyond what most people would expect an accountant to do, providing both professional and emotional support. Many congratulations for your very well deserved win. And congratulations to all our finalists who have also been absolutely committed to their clients and local business communities through lockdown and beyond.

.

August 2020

October Masterclass Cancellation

With current events continuing as they have been we have made the decision to cancel the October Masterclass event due to take place in Birmingham. We shall be offering alternative options to this event so keep an eye out for more information.

.

July 2020

AVN Online Training

We’ve been running a number of webinars and training sessions lately, to help you support your clients through these current times.

Hopefully you’ve managed to join us on these as they were happening live however if circumstances meant that you couldn’t at the time, then visit our AVN Youtube channel or the AVN Know How Hub to view these now.

AVN Youtube

AVN Know How Hub

.

June 2020

Excellence in Challenging Times Award

AVN are launching an award for the Accountancy Practice that has demonstrated Excellence in Challenging Times.

Our plan is to raise the awareness of the difference accountants are making. There will be press coverage and stories will be shared. You have nothing to lose and lots to gain by entering.

To enter for this award we simply want your story or stories.  Tell us about the clients you’ve been there for, what you did for them and difference it made. Seek their permission to name them if possible but anonymise the client if that’s preferred but either way, share the story.  This isn’t about bragging, it’s about inspiring.

You can download the entry form by clicking the link: Excellence in Challenging Times award submission form

 

.

May 2020

Team Matters

Emma spoke about using team matters to check in on your team and see how they are getting on.  You need to set up the configuration for TeamMatters (when you get emails/text messages and who receives them). You do this by logging in here – http://teammatters.avn.co.uk

You can find the full instructions in the User Guide –  https://www.systembuilder.net/Document/View/1382

.

April 2020

Shane’s on Audible

We are pleased to announce that Shane Lukas’s book ‘Putting Excellence Into Practice’ is now available for you to listen to on audible.  If you prefer listening to books rather than reading, then this is great news for you.

The book is priced at £22.89 but you can get your copy for 1 credit if you already have an audible subscription using the link below.  If you don’t have a subscription for audible then you can sign up to get a free 30 day trial using the link below.

.

March 2020

Accountants helping Accountants

There’s certainly a lot of new stuff happening right now that’s affecting every business, large or small. I believe that in your capacity as an Accountant you’re in a wonderful position to provide guidance around their cash situations and accessing funding etc but also around how they can improve their business through these uncertain times helping them survive now and become incredibly strong businesses on the other side.

My upcoming webinar has just under 400 accountants registered to attend where they’ll be learning from other accountants, taking advice on how best to help their clients right now.

I’m launching weekly sessions to keep the momentum going and of course the topics will change over time since right now, many businesses are in panic mode (understandably so) but as they go through the equivalent stages of grief and begin to accept what’s happening, the support they’ll need will change too.

.

February 2020

Annual Review Calls 

February is a great time for review – of what you have done in the last 12 months and what you want to achieve in the next.  Last month we mentioned ‘Review calls’ and as a thank you to all who took part we will be having an Annual Review Call with you – delivered by a Practice Growth Expert that you currently don’t work with in order to give you a fresh perspective.

If you have been with AVN for more than 3 months you should have received a letter from us this week inviting you to an Annual Review call.

.

January 2020

Review Calls 

We have been trialling a series of ‘Review Calls’ where a Practice Growth Expert will work through a series of questions with you to ensure that you are still OnTrack (pardon the pun) and also that you are working towards the right goals for you and for your Practice.

This also provides us at AVN with the opportunity to see how we can help you in ways which haven’t come up before and use the collective brain of our Practice Growth Experts, so if  you have something that you want to tackle, and this is an area that one of our PGE are particularly skilled in, we are able to tap in to their knowledge.

.

October 2019

AVN Excellence

Hopefully you have all been using the AVNExcellence Self-Assessment Spreadsheet to monitor how close you are to achieving AVNExcellence. The AVNExcellence Workbook in System Builder has now been updated to match the spreadsheet. So ensure that you have the correct version.

The AVNExcellence Workbook is a way of finding out how you can achieve some of the standards, and a place to record where you are storing the evidence that proves you are meeting the standards, for the assessor.

The updated resource can be found here: https://www.systembuilder.net/Document/View/20888

We will be running a webinar on 6th November at 12pm on AVNExcellence with recently 6*accredited, Michael Hemme of MDH. He will be discussing ways to achieve the standards and answering any of your questions.

.

September 2019

AVN Conference 2019

We had a brilliant time as the AVN Conference.

Congratulations to MDH and Beyond The Numbers for winning Most Inspiring Accountants 2019! Well to Michael, Val and both of their teams!

Find out what else happened at www.avn.co.uk/conference

.

August 2019

Well Done Shane!

On the 28th July Shane took part in the Nottingham Iron Level Triathlon. Despite the weather conditions and the bike section being cancelled, Shane did extremely well and finished with a great time. 

Shane did the Triathlon for Head first, who use the donations they receive to fund research into helping the brain recover and also, to make the lives of brain injury victims much better. 

The AVN Team would like to say a huge congratulations to Shane. 

You can still help Shane raise more money for this amazing cause by clicking here: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/shane-lukas?utm_term=ypY57WdBM

.

July 2019

.

June 2019

Could you save a life?

This month, AVN have all signed up to be Stem Cell Donors.

It could be something as simple as giving blood. Every 20 minutes someone in the UK is diagnosed with a blood cancer such as leukaemia, lymphoma or myeloma.

By registering on the stem cell donor register, you could potentially gift them the stem cells that could save their life.

Register here: https://www.dkms.org.uk/en/register-now

Updated system – 2019 Income Tax – Tax Return System 

The income tax system has been updated for the 2019 tax year. You can find this here:

https://www.systembuilder.net/Document/View/1530

Updated Business Builder Forum – 3 proven ways to triple your chances of sales success. 

For Added Value members, this Business Builder Forum topic has been updated.  The BBF includes everything you need to run a meeting or webinar with your clients and prospects.  It is based on Doug Hall’s research, who is the author of this book, Jump Start Your Business Brain.  The research suggests that there are 3 issues with which businesses get to grips with, will fundamentally transform their chances of success.

Definitely worth a listen to the audio, even if you don’t run BBF’s yet, as the learning from this research can be used in your own practice too.

You can find the link to the BBF here:

https://www.systembuilder.net/Document/View/40

.

May 2019

SSTW

SSTW has been updated and recreated to work on any web browser. Just log out of your AVN Dashboard, and back in and it will be there for you. There is a user guide in System Builder for you to take a look at.

https://www.systembuilder.net/Document/View/27288

Team Matters

You can now add team members yourself! If you want to add a new team member onto Team Matters, this can now be done by just adding them to System Builder.

Also if you want to edit your settings, go to teammatters.avn.co.uk and log in to see your practice settings.

.

April 2019

We have built 3 houses!

Last week we celebrated 6 new members signing up by giving 2100 bricks towards our ongoing commitment to building homes in India. This huge donation has ment we have completed the build of our 3rd home!

We would like to thank you all for the commitment you give to us here at AVN, it means we can continue giving to great causes like this.

AVN Conference 2019

We would like to announce, Taxcalc, as our latest Gold sponsor at the AVN Conference, taking place on Wednesday 18th September at Edgbaston Stadium.

We will be working with Taxcalc more closely as we lead up to the event so be sure to keep an eye out for that.

If you would like to find out more information about the conference, or book tickets to attend click this link: https://www.avn.co.uk/conference/

System Updated

As Care Home Fee planning can no longer be promoted, we have updated the below document for you.

https://www.systembuilder.net/Document/View/24255

.

March 2019

AVN Masterclass Plus

Book you and your team a place on our Masterclass Plus event on Wednesday 3rd and Thursday 4th April.

Within the 2 days, we will show you as a team all the exciting things AVN has to offer within masterclass and your existing membership. 

Remember these 2 days are in with your membership so you would be crazy to miss out on the extra support and  guidance.

Value Roadmap Event

On 26th and 27th March we have the Value Roadmap Event. It will cover value driven growth and how to grow and cultivate your client base. Along with focusing on the PMI System and how to deliver it .

This event is designed around the third AVN Roadmap – Value.  You must have completed the Positioning Roadmap in order to attend this event.

Update within System Builder

We have reviewed and updated the service requests within System Builder, but because these link through to Time’s Up, and we don’t want to ‘impose’ the new versions on you, if you want them then you need to go into System Builder and ‘accept’ them. 

All you need to do is go to ‘pending documents’ and click on ‘External Pending Only’.  This will list the documents awaiting approval from you that we have published. 

All you need to do is to click on the icon on the right hand side, and then on accept/decline, and then accept them.

.

February 2019

AVN Conference 2019

Sponsors

We would like to welcome FreeAgent as our second Platinum sponsor for the AVN Conference, taking place on Wednesday 18th September at Edgbaston Stadium.

We will be working with FreeAgent more closely as we lead up to the event so be sure to keep an eye out for that. 

Speakers 

We’re also excited to welcome John Hotowka as our Keynote speaker for the event! John is a business speaker, humorist and magician who has first-hand experience of the highs and lows running a business solo. His presentation is about ‘Engaging Your Mind – Essential Resilience Strategies for the Pressured Accountant’ where you learn: 

1. How to recognise a limiting belief and over come it. 

2. How to focus on what is helpful to you to build resilience and achieve your goals. 

3. Where and how to tap in to a little known resource that’s under your nose to help you work more efficiently and effectively and give you all the moral support you need.  

You do not want to miss out!

BOOK NOW 

If you would like to find out more information about the conference, or book tickets to attend, you can do so here: https://www.avn.co.uk/conference/

New Digital Edition of the Business Owners Guide

There will be a new digital edition of the Business Owners guide produced in March. If you would like your practice to feature in this, please contact us about becoming an Approved Member.

.

January 2019

Gearing Roadmap

Our next Gearing Roadmap event is open to ALL AVN members on Wednesday 27th and Thursday 28th February 2019.

Start 2019 by focusing on you and your team. Gearing is about creating a team culture, getting the team much more focused on delivering high value services and interacting with customers in a way that continues to wow them, and keep them engaged and inspired.

New event for members? Masterclass Plus!

As a business owner, you may find it hard sometimes to get your team to really understand what you want to achieve for your Accountancy Practice.

As a team member, you may find it hard sometimes to get involved with AVN when you haven’t been shown what we are all about.

AVN Members who have revisited the Masterclass and brought their team along with them have found that their team truly ‘get it’ and this helps drive forward progress and improvements within the Practice.

On Tuesday 3rd and Wednesday 4th April, we’re running a 2 day Masterclass Plus event designed for AVN Members – as in you – to show you as a team all the exciting things AVN has to offer within masterclass and your existing membership. Look out for a more specific email coming from Shane about it

A system that you may not know about…

Advanced members, take a look at the Cryptocurrency system in System Builder to get all the tips and tricks you need: https://www.systembuilder.net/Document/View/27205

Foundation members, get access to the Cryptocurrency webinar for training yourselves and your team: https://www.systembuilder.net/Document/View/27211

Say hello to Charles!

Our team just got a brilliant new member!

Charles Ricketts is our new Business Development Manager. He has worked in the Training and FE sector for over 10 years and has first hand experience of supporting business growth through coaching and workforce development.

You may hear from Charles on the phone or see him at one of our events, please feel free to have a chat to him and make him feel welcome.

 

Positioning Day

We are running the Positioning day – How to Showcase your Practice on Thursday 21st February.

This day is designed to help you really focus on understanding, and communicating to others, who you are, who you want to work with and the value you can bring to a business. By the end of the day you will have created a clear picture of your business and be able to describe your practice in a way that attracts and engages the prospects, clients and team you want, written the first draft of your entry for the AVN Book – The Business Owners Guide to the Best UK Accountants, and be able to clearly deliver your “Elevator pitch” (which you should share with your team)

You may have done this event before  but if you have had some major changes in your business, rethought your business strategy, have had some partnership changes, or decided that 2019 needs to be different following your discussions with your Practice Growth Expert then I would recommend you come again and let us help you re-position your practice.

Conference 2019

We would like to welcome AccountancyManager as our first Platinum Sponsor at the AVN Conference, taking place on Wednesday 18th September at Edgbaston Stadium. We will be working with AccountancyManager more closely as we lead up to the event so be sure to keep an eye out for that.

IF you would like to find out more information about the conference, or book tickets to attend. You can do so here – https://www.avn.co.uk/conference/

Last week, we upset a few people…

A negative response to marketing may not always be seen as bad.

For Accountants, this time of year is tough and receiving an email with the subject line ‘penalty’ or ‘fine’ could really put you on edge. Last week we sent out an email with the subject ‘Penalty’ and unfortunately we received one negative response. Yes, of course we replied to them to set things right, however the subject line of the email still work. Somebody took the time to read and respond to one of our emails.

A proven fact that any reaction from marketing is a valued reaction.

.

December 2018

Giving at Christmas  

We’re all well and truly in the Christmas spirit here in the AVN Office and this year, along with our team Secret Santa we have all put together shoeboxes for elderly residents in the local area to be donated via Chesterfield Shoebox Appeal.

We’d love to hear about any good causes you’re supporting too! 

.

November 2018

The London Business Show

Representing AVN Accountants, Shane and Emma spent 2 days at The London Business Show – exhibiting and presenting to Business Owners of all sizes, who have been established for a varying amount of time, and of an incredibly diverse set of industries and niches. 22,000 Business Owners were booked to attend and the footfall was huge.  We gave away 6 boxes of the book ‘The Business Owner’s Guide to the UK’s Best Accountancy Practices’ over the 2 days to those business owners. Some will read the book, some won’t. But it’s highly unlikely they’ll throw the book away which makes it advertising space on their book shelf!  If you know of any other business shows (for accountants or other business owners) just let us know. Shane ran some presentations over the 2 days and generated a number of leads for AVN members that are in the book, and these will passed on.  If you would like to find out more about Shane’s presentations, take a look at Shane’s article. If you aren’t yet in the book, you need to be an approved AVN member to be able to enter your practice.You can complete the application form here.  The icon in your dashboard will then be activated.

Congratulations to our Newly Approved Members

Congratulations to DS Small Business Help, Starfish Accounting and The JDH Group for becoming approved AVN members in the past couple of months.

New Resources in System Builder

A number of members joined Emma and Andrea recently at our Strategic Development Group to look at some of the issues facing the profession at the moment.

The two areas that came out on top were

• Developing ourselves as trusted advisers, and
• Recruiting for the future
The brainstorming that took place at this day has resulted in the creation of two new resources in System Builder that will be available for you from Friday 23rd November.

• Developing ourselves as trusted advisers, and
• Recruiting for the future
More strategic development groups are being run and so keep an eye out for more resources in the future.

Changes to the Questions in OnTrack

Within the next week we will be making some changes to the questions in OnTrack, to enable you to start different conversations with your clients. We will be removing the following questions because of changes in legislation or because they were no longer appropriate…

• Is it likely that the client, their parents or other close family members, have more than £14,250 in capital (including the value of their home) and may need care home assistance in the next few years?
• Do they have everything in hand for complying with their Auto Enrolment responsibilities?

The following questions and/or answers have been updated…

• Have they been shown how to produce a One Page Plan? (question expanded)
• Does the client care about the size of their tax bills? (question changed to ask about TaxAbility)
• If they are currently unincorporated, could they save tax by incorporating? (report updated)
• Are they a limited company with profits that they want to distribute? (report updated)
• Have the key stakeholders all seen a first class independent financial adviser in the last twelve months? (report updated)
• Has your client personally suffered Capital Gains Tax in the last three years, and/or do they have annual income in excess of £100,000 or significant savings? (report updated)

And finally, the new questions added are…

• Do they have family or friends in business that could benefit from talking to us?
• Have you discussed (in the last 2 years), and do you have a record of, their personal and business goals?
• Is the client on a cloud accounting system in preparation for Making Tax Digital?
OnTrack should be used at least once a year with your clients, and if you would like some help on using it or introducing it to your clients then book a call with us at bookacall.avn.co.uk and select software training.

.

October 2018

So…How far are you prepared to go to get great training?

At the masterclass last week we had delegates from as far as Canada and the USA, and the feedback from one of these delegates from Chicago was as follows…

“It’s probably the most impactful professional development workshop I’ve ever attended, including my Masters Degree”

You and your senior team can come along to the Masterclass as part of your AVN membership – you just need to book here.

We would also like to welcome the new members that joined us following the Masterclass – it’s great to have you part of the community.

Another great opportunity to get training for your team

The feedback from the conference was some of the best we’ve ever had, with Will Whitehorn getting amazing scores.  The 2019 conference will have workshops for your team to attend  – while you are in the main presentation – with the theme for the day being ‘Engage’.  Engage your brain, engage your team and engage your clients.  And we’re in the final negotiations with a keynote speaker for that conference who will prove to be a huge inspiration but look out for more info.

We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN.

In light of this announcement the SustainAbility resource and it’s related documents will be updated in System Builder in the next few days.

Check out these two links for more information.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45775309
and
http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15/

This system can be used by you and also your clients, it will help you demonstrate your commitment to saving the world from “climate catastrophe”.

Making Tax Delightful: How to thrive in the age of digital tax

In the dark about MTD? Many accounting professionals are. Join QuickBooks’ for their webinar and find out how to build your practice strategy and get your clients ready in time for April 2019 deadline.

In this 45-minute webinar you will:

– Hear about QuickBooks’ MTD Beta and what’s next from HMRC
– Learn how to overcome the challenges facing your firm during the digital transition
– Develop a seamless plan to onboard your clients to cloud accounting software
– Have your questions answered to start Making Tax Delightful

AVN representing accountants at SME Live

Did you know that AVN will be representing you at the SME Live event next week at the NEC Birmingham?  We will be there handing out the book “The Business Owners Guide to the UK’s Best Accountancy Practices”.  Do you feature in it?  If you didn’t meet the deadline, why not put your entry in now in preparation for next time.  You can find the link on the AVN Dashboard.

.

September 2018

The date for the webinar to find out all about Bitcoin and crypto currency is the 23rd October.  Whether you have clients currently making transactions in crypto currency or not, it is something that you should be aware of (Even Coronation Street are covering it!)

Find out all about it at this webinar where former AVN Member Steven Briginshaw will share his insights, and at the same time create us a BBF for you to use with your clients.  If you have specific questions send them to us in plenty of time so that Steven can bring them into his presentation.

.

August 2018

Everything we do here at AVN is orientated around helping accountancy practices achieve the best standards in practice that you possibly can! That is why we have completed a brand new-tool and we would love to see how you perform.

This tool is a practice diagnostic which will give you an understanding of what might be holding your practice back from experiencing the level of growth, profits and general enjoyment in running your practice as you could have.

It’s a series of questions about you, your practice and your goals that if answered open and honestly will give you an understanding of your strengths and weaknesses. It Includes strategies and recommendations that our clients have tried and tested.

We are hoping to do some analysis of the membership as a whole based on the results, and if you could spare 5 minutes to answer the questionnaire it would be appreciated.

You can find it here.

At the end of it you will get a comprehensive report of your strengths and weaknesses and suggested ways to improve.

Changes to event dates

We’ve changed some of the dates of our events, including moving the August online training to September. Check out the new dates here.

AVN MOT Days

We are taking some time out of the business mid August to work, as a team, ON the business, and so on the 14th – 16th August the answerphone will be on and we will be replying to phone calls and emails periodically during the day.

Have you booked your conference place yet?  Rooms are running out so book now to avoid dissapointment!

We have nearly reached our allocated limit of rooms at the Belfry for the evening of the 17th September so if you are planning on coming along to the conference, then book your place now, or you may find you need to stay in a different hotel or pay the hotel directly which will be much more expensive.

You can book your places here.

.

June 2018

We are so pleased to announce that Guinness World Record Holder, mother of four, International Speaker and award-winning author Shonette Bason-Wood is joining us at the 20th Anniversary Conference in Spetember, and also at the Gala Dinner on the evening before the conference.

Shonette is not a motivational speaker but an experience.  Her message, performance, political satire and precision timed delivery, smattered with eye watering humour and unrivalled passion truly empower the audience to take hold of their life now and live it.  She will have you in stitches as you enjoy your dinner, and laughter in the morning could help relieve the hangover.

Book your place here.

Thinking of taking on an apprentice or already have one?

Well, you definintely need to come to the webinar on Wednesday 13th June at 12.00. The webinar covering the field of apprenticeships in Accountancy and will be led by Andrea with Sarah Cripps as a Guest Speaker. Sarah is an expert in apprenticeships and will share her knowledge of the changing qualifications with members. You can book your place here.

Are you ready for positioning your practice?

Book your place and come along to AVN House on 24th July.  Covering how to target your ideal client and how to create the perfect pitch in order to turn more prospects into clients. This event is designed around the second AVN Roadmap – Positioning. It will continue your roadmap journey after completing the Clarity roadmap. If you have not yet completed the Clarity roadmap please go to bookacall.avn.co.uk to book a Clarity call to start you on your way.

.

May 2018

Who will you be making a beeline for at the conference?

So far, we have…

Who else would you like to see there? Drop Victoria an email and she will contact them (victoria.walton@avn.co.uk)

If you haven’t yet booked for the conference you can do that on the conference page of the website.

Would you like to be an award winner?

If you want help and guidance on completing your AVN Award entry then tune into the webinar ‘Quick and easy tips to enter (and improve your chances of winning) the 2018 AVN Awards‘ next Tuesday 15th May at 1pm.

If you are considering moving to AVN Advanced Membership…

Then we are running a webinar to help you on the 6th June at 12pm (this date has changed from the date originally advertised in the AVN Guide).  You can book this webinar here.

.

April 2018

Taxability 2018/19 has been released

The 2018/19 Taxability checklist and marketing material has now been updated and is available for you in System Builder.  You can find them here…

Taxability Checklist
Marketing System

Recap on our latest online training

If you missed the recent online training, you can watch the recordings below:

• Tips and techniques on attracting the clients you want
• Time’s Up! Pricing Software – an overview of the benefits of the software and how to customise it and it’s associated documents

Steve Pipe is retiring

You may have heard that Steve is retiring so that he can focus on building his Get and Give a Million Foundation, but the great news is that he has agreed to continue being a guest speaker at AVN events including the Masterclass.

He will still be our special guest speaker at the AVN 20th Year Conference too, and will be interviewing the AVN Category Award Winners on stage.

And talking about the AVN Awards…

If you haven’t already downloaded the latest version of the AVN App on your Windows machine to get access to your AVN Awards you can do that here – you will need to uninstall your version before instaling the new version.

And if you want help with your AVN award, then tune into the upcoming training event ‘Quick and easy tips to enter (and improve your chances of winning) the 2018 AVN Awards‘.

And to book your place at the conference you can do that here. Make sure to book your team in too, especially if you are entering the awards, as it would be great to celebrate together if you are a winner.

Your AVN Awards for 2018 are now being opened

Do you have what it takes to be an AVN Award winner?  If you are on a windows machine, then uninstall your version of the AVN App, and download a new version from www.avn.co.uk/software-downloads to get your personalised link on your app for entering the awards.  The 7 categories of award follow the AVN Roadmaps – even if you haven’t completed all of the roadmaps, there is no reason why you can’t enter all of the categories if you are doing great things in these areas already.  Or just enter one or two categories that you feel strongest with.

The PGE’s are here to help you with your entry – just book a call with us here and we will help to get you started. We will be releasing more guidance to help with your award entry in the next few weeks so look out for this.

The closing date for entries will be 31st July, and so you have plenty of time to complete your entry.

Upcoming events

There is plenty of training coming up for everyone in the team, so get booked on it by going to www.avn.co.uk/member-training.

AVN Roadmap events

24th April – Positioning – Covering how to target your ideal client and how to create the perfect pitch in order to turn more prospects into clients. This event is designed around the second AVN Roadmap – Positioning. It will continue your roadmap journey after completing the Clarity roadmap. If you have not yet completed the Clarity roadmap please go to bookacall.avn.co.uk to book a Clarity call to start you on your way.

13th June – Gearing – Gearing is about creating a team culture, getting your team much more focused on delivering high value services and interacting with customers in a way that continues to wow them, keep them engaged and inspired.  It’s largely around mindset – your mindset in terms of letting go and trusting your team to deliver the quality and accuracy you’re passionate about and their mindset to get them thinking more commercially. You must have completed the Value Roadmap in order to attend this event.

Online Training

18th April – 12pm – 1pm – Tips and techniques on attracting the customers you want
25th April – 1pm – 2pm – Training on how to use Time’s Up!

Did you miss the webinar about GDPR?

Too many people are using scare tactics to sell their GDPR Services.  Watch our webinar with Craig Parsons of Persolvo to get a simple understaning of GDPR.  You can watch it here if you missed it.

So, remember to start thinking about your award entries and get booking on the upcoming events.

February 2018

New updates to the Benchmark software and reports

This week we have released an update to the AVN Benchmark software, so that it now formats monetary values with commas to separate the ‘000s.  In addition to this it adds the SIC category you are reporting on to the standard reports, and it now also pulls your clients’ business name into the standard reports.

Come and have a gamble on us

We would love you to join us to celebrate our 20th Anniversary at our Gala Dinner on the 17th September, and to keep you entertained, we would like to give you £20AVN to spend at the AVN casino.  Every Gala Dinner guest will receive the starter funds.  You can buy more casino money on the night with all proceeds going to charity.  The lucky winner on the night will receive a special prize at the conference.

Tickets for the conference are just £197 plus VAT per person, which incudes your Gala Dinner place, overnight accomodation, breakfast, and your day at the conference.

Just click here to book your tickets.

Our Keynote Speaker…Will Whitehorn

Will Whitehorn is a non-executive director or Chair of several public and private companies including Purplebricks Group PLC, GVC Holdings PLC, Stagecoach Group PLC, the Glasgow SEC /SSEHydro, The Scottish Gallery.  He has also now joined the board of Clyde Space Limited, the UKs leading space satellite manufacturer, which was recently acquired in a groundbreaking £30 million by AAC Microtec.

Having learned to fly as a 16-year-old RAF cadet and completing an MA Hons at Aberdeen University, he has spent almost all of his working life in the transport and technology industries. Starting out as a helicopter crewman in the North Sea Oil Industry, he went on to become a graduate trainee with Thomas Cook and eventually joined Virgin in 1986 where he established a career as Sir Richard Branson’s corporate affairs advisor and Brand Development Director for the group globally. He helped develop Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Trains and Virgin Media, and went on to become the first President of Virgin Galactic taking the business from a dream to reality. In 2010 he left Virgin to embark on a non exec career and was a founder shareholder in Purplebricks Group PLC.

Will is going to be explaining how businesses need to change in the future, how to create that change, how the Virgin Group did things, and how AVN members can make the change that is needed.

To book your place at the conference just go to www.avn.co.uk/conference

New GDPR Resources in System Builder

You will have received in the post your AVN 2018 Guide – if you want a downloadable version you can download it here.  Along with this, we included a copy of the Guide to GDPR.  You can use this guide with your clients, either exactly as it is, or use the Action Resource in System Builder which has the wording in for you to create your own branded version.

You can find them here…

GDPR Brochure
GDPR Action Resource

If you found these resources useful, hop onto the AVN Facebook page – we’d love to hear your feedback!

How to take the stress out of January 2019

Hopefully January wasn’t too painful for you – if your January was still busier than you would like it, why not revisit the video below?  This is an interview with AVN member Marc Lawson from Business Vision showing you how to change the systems in your business to ensure that January is pain free.

https://youtu.be/bl-c67oyYuw

The future of Financial Performance Review

While AVN have a number of software tools, our primary focus is not as a software provider, and there are so many other software providers doing a great job of allowing you to report on your clients growth, that we have decided to discontinue developing our Financial Performance Review software.

Many members are already using products such as Spotlight, Futrili and Xero to produce this key information for their clients.  We are investigating plans to build some additional functionality into AVN Benchmarking in the future to report on your clients key financial numbers.

You will be able to continue downloading it as part of the Advanced Software download until 31st July 2018, and will be able to continue using it until 31st December 2018.

Is AVN GDPR compliant?

We hold your data, and data for your clients and as such have a responsibility to you to ensure this data is protected.

Where does our clients’ and our data reside?
Your client data resides on the Microsoft Azure platform and is based in Western Europe. What this means is that it is GDPR compliant and is located in either Ireland, Germany, London or the Netherlands. Your data is also stored on additional cloud based software that we use for emailing you and invoicing you that is already GDPR compliant or will be by the May deadline.

What IT security measures do you have in place?
As well as the Microsoft Azure firewalls, antivirus, malware protection, and backups that you would expect, we have paid for our systems to be penetration tested. This means that we have paid friendly hackers to try to break into our systems to ensure that they are as secure as they possibly can be.

Have a relaxing February.  Remember if you want to chat with the team about the next steps for your business you can give us a ring on 01246 571191, or email us, or book a meeting at a convenient time for you here

January 2017

Are you tapping into the full support of AVN?

Shane has just created a video guiding you through all the different ways in which AVN can help you on your journey.  It’s only 5 minutes long – just click the link below to watch it.

https://youtu.be/lXSlbUllj68

Do you have MOT days?

We had our MOT last week, and it was fantastic being able to take a step back and look at our business for 3 whole days and make changes to the systems that we have, deleting things that we don’t use, and generally just having a really good tidy up.  It’s amazing how great it can make you feel, having the whole team focused on the business rather than just the business owner.  We plan on having more MOT days in the future, so that we continue to work on our business and suggest that you consider having them too.

GDPR – are you prepared?

It’s the big scary thing of the moment, and with so many different people offering many different solutions it’s hard to know where to start.  We are creating a brochure that you can personalise and give to your clients and it will be in System Builder soon.

Have you booked your place at the AVN Conference yet?

We have some amazing speakers booked so far for the Conference, and the current AVN Firm of the Year Michael Hemme from MDH will be explaining the benefits that implementing and applying for AVN Excellence 6* made to his practice.

February training events for your calendar

Why not book your AVN training now, so that you are ready to kickstart the year working on your practice?  You can Book all of these here

Training at AVN House

• Clarity – Let’s get started – 27^th February – A practical workshop to help you improve your key numbers. This event is designed to complement and assist you completing the first AVN Roadmap – Clarity and help you on your first steps on your AVN journey.
• Gearing – Preparing your practice for a successful future – 8^th February – An interactive workshop designed to enable you to leverage your time, earn more and work less.  The Roadmaps so far have been focused around you – now is the time to start getting your practice to truly work without relying on you being there to manage everything, and allowing it to grow exponentially. This workshop is only available to advance members that have already completed the Value Workshop.

Online training

• Developing your KPI’s – 14^th February – 12pm – 1pm – Taking a look at the measures you should have in place in your practice, to enable you to make the decisions you need to.

Book all of these here

The Bottom Line

Have you noticed when you visited the loo at AVN Head Office that we support toilet twinning?  Each of our toilets has been twinned with another in a part of the world giving people somewhere safe to go to the toilet – the basic of our needs.  If you want to find out more, you can find out here.

Articles ready for you to use

Did you know that while ever you remain an AVN member (foundation and above) all of the content in the articles written by the AVN team which have been put on the AVN website https://avn.co.uk/blog/ can be taken by you and used in newsletters and on your website?  There are dozens of great standalone articles that can be used wherever you need.

Have you started working through the AVN Roadmaps yet?

Jay Chatwani of Lawrence & Co spoke recently to James Miller about starting the AVN Roadmap journey. Even though they have been with AVN for a number of years and have implemented many of the AVN tools and resources, he found the process incredibly valuable – highlighting areas of the business where they may have let some things slip or they can do even better.  Watch the 8 minute video here.  And if you haven’t started on the AVN Roadmap journey yet you can book a call here.

Why your online presence is important

Back in December Shane presented a webinar on the importance of having an online presence, and how you should do this. If you missed it, you can watch the recording here.

AVN MOT Week

As with our cars (and our bodies) every so often it’s a great idea to have an MOT, and as we are in our 20^th year we are taking a few days to take stock of where we are and have a bit of a tidy up and a plan.  We are doing this next week from Tuesday 9^th to Thursday 11^th January.  During this time we will only be responding to urgent phone calls and emails and will respond to all other communication on Friday.

December 2017

We would like to take this time of year to say ‘Thank You’ for working with us over the last year, and to let you know that rather than sending out Christmas cards, we have decided to provide 250 days of business training to women in Africa, via B1G1.

Our Christmas Opening Hours
We are out celebrating on the afternoon of Monday 18^th, and so the office will close at 11.45 on that day.  The office will officially close for Christmas on Friday 22^nd December and reopens on Monday 2^nd January. And so if you need any help from us then give us a ring before the 22^nd.

Join us for our 20^th Year Celebrations
In September 2018 AVN will be celebrating 20 years and we would love for you to join us to celebrate.  For those of you at the conference this year you will know we said it would be in London, but the feedback from you is that London is not the place to have the event and so we have managed to secure an amazing deal in Birmingham.

Come along and join us for an evening of fun on the Monday 17^th September at our Gala Dinner, and then at the conference on Tuesday 18^th September, for an all-inclusive price of just £197 plus VAT per person – that includes the Gala Dinner, your accommodation, breakfast, and your day at the conference.

Book your places here

New System Builder resources
We have reviewed the Lifetime Financial Responsibility resources and the B1G1 Action Resource in System Builder.  To see new resources that are in System Builder, just open the software and click the ‘What’s New’ button on the home page.

New AVN App Suite
I am delighted to tell you that we have released OnTrack on the AVN Dashboard/Apps Suite (Windows versions only today – keep an eye out for the release of the MAC and IPad versions coming soon).

Uninstall and reinstall
An email yesterday explaned that to get OnTrack on your own Windows Dashboard you will need to uninstall the existing version and then install the new version, which can be found here…

avn.co.uk/software-downloads.

The reports have been reviewed and updated in light of recent changes to tax legislation, and the templates for the reports are in System Builder (just like Time’s Up! and BenchMark) in case you want to change the report template and put on your logo, or change the standard wording that appears on the reports.  (Don’t change anything in the )

All of your clients already on the dashboard will be there.  Just select to add a new questionnaire, complete the questions and produce the reports.  It will automatically save the data against your client.

Other new things on the Dashboard

Book a call – You now have a link to book a call with one of the PGE’s, so you don’t need to worry about storing the booking link anywhere.  Just click the link, choose who you want to speak to and select a date and time that works for you.

What’s new – there is a new link to the What’s New at AVN page on the AVN website – so you can see at a glance the new training resources and tools that have been released.

Coming in the new year…

Membership benefits – so that you can at arrange benefits to use with your team, and offer these same benefits to your clients

SSTW – Web based, so that you can invite your clients to use it and don’t have to worry about copying files onto CD’s or USB’s for your clients.

November 2017

Welcome to our New Members

Last week was another amazing week at AVN and we would like to take this opportunity to welcome the newest members to our community.

Thanks to everyone involved but especially to Phil Ellerby and Andrew James for sharing their amazing journeys so far at the event. You are Inspiring Accountants.

Remember, if you would like your team to energised and enthused, then bring them along to the March Masterclass.

Following on from the AVN Masterclass we have supported the following projects as our commitment to the UN’s Global Goals.

We have…

• provided in Cambodia, 52 families with enough seeds for them to grow their own food for a year. This will have allowed the girls in these families to attend school rather than having to search for food.
• supported 39 families in rural villages with access to clean and safe water for a year. This not only gives them clean water, but also provides them with financial security and ongoing health.
• helped by providing extra tuition to 13 girls for a period of one year, this allows them to pass their exams and to move on to the next year of schooling which would normally not be accessible for them.

And also special thanks to AVN’s very own Victoria, who managed to find a charity to donate the left over food to so that it didn’t go to waste.

AVN Apps Update

Keep an eye out for the new AVN apps update, which includes OnTrack in the cloud, a link to book your calls with us, and a link to keep up to date with what’s new at AVN.  We will send an email to let you know when this is released.

Have you started your AVN Roadmap Journey Yet?

We now have almost 70% of members on the AVN roadmap journey, some taking great leaps, and others smaller steps, but they are moving their practices forward on the journey they want to take.  Have you started your journey?  If not you can book a call to get started here…bookacall.avn.co.uk.  Remember the roadmaps aren’t just for new members – they are a great way to take a fresh look at your business.

Updated Bank Videos in System Builder

We have updated the bank videos in light of new legislation with regard to promoting advanced tax planning, and have removed the section where Remuneration Tax Planner shows an option of a tax strategy.  The new videos can be found in the ‘what’s new’ section in System Builder.

Updates for Remuneration Planner and Incorporation Tax Planner

As you know the world of tax changes constantly, and so we have decided that the time is right to stop updating Remuneration Planner and Incorporation Tax Planner and leave the technical calculations to the experts, and so we will not be updating the calculations for the tax year 2018/19.  You will still be able to use the software for the whole of 2018, for the tax year 2017/18, and continue to be able to see any calculations already done for your clients.

In the coming weeks we will be removing the advanced tax planning option from Remuneration Planner, so keep an eye out for this change.

Shane’s message to stakeholders

If you didn’t attend the conference (or even if you did and want a refresher on what Shane covered) and want an update on Shane’s message to the key stakeholders in AVN, you can find it in the link here.

Online training just for you

You may see the emails coming out from us letting you know of the different training that we offer. If you want a refresher of the content, we put many of the videos on YouTube.  Just subscribe to the channel to get updates from YouTube as they are uploaded.

The most recent were

• 10 cloud technologies you should know about
• Create a business that works like clockwork without you
• Engaging the younger generation

Our quarterly planning day

On Monday 4th December the AVN team will be having our quarterly planning day, and so if you need help from us, drop us an email or leave a voicemail and we will come back to you on Tuesday 5th.

And remember the AVN Facebook community is always there on hand to help. Recent topics in the facebook group include how to price bookkeeping, and which practice management software to use.

October 2017

And the AVN Firm of the Year is…

MDH

Congratulations to Michael and his team.

Online Training

• Engaging the younger generation – In this 50 minute training session Andrea Higginbottom talks to Sarah Cripps MD from Salad Skills about her experience in recruiting millennials and how to engage apprentices. She answers many of your common questions and looks at many misconceptions.

September 2017

Online Training

• Tools to engage your clients and enhance your business – Tools and strategies to engage your clients and demonstrate how you can provide services that enhance their business. In this session Emma Slack of AVN shows how you can start with the things you already know and are comfortable talking about as an Accountant and develop the conversation into business advisory work. How your team can spot opportunities and use the AVN tools to change you clients perceptions of you and your services and see how you can really help them and their business grow.

August 2017

Online Training

• Have you created a practice image that attracts your ideal client? –

 July 2017

Updated System Builder resources

• Updated videos for working with bankers and other referral sources

June 2017

Online Training

• Connect, Engage, Earn!  Join Emma Slack of AVN as she explores how to connect and engage with prospects and clients in order to show them the value of the services you can offer them to help them get from where they are now to where they want to be. And how connect that value to their investment in your services.

May 2017

Online Training

• Developing a practice that works for you 

AVN Facebook Member Community Group:

We set up the AVN Member Community Group as a forum to help you progress on your AVN journey and create connections with other AVN members helping you to set and reach your goals. It has been incredibly popular and allows AVN members to post questions to the AVN team but most importantly to their peers. There is always a steady stream of new conversations and people have found it valuable to have direct access to other AVN members to air their views, ask questions, share their advice, successes and experiences. There are currently 122 members of the group and that number is steadily increasing. It is a closed, secret group for AVN member firms and their teams only so if you would like to be given access, simply email members@avn.co.uk.

New Action Resource in System Builder:

In a recent query in the AVN Members Facebook community about purchasing another practice, the member who asked received some amazing advice which we wanted to bring to the rest of the membership…so we have!

We have created a new Action Resource – Key things to consider when buying a practice/fees. This is a combination of ideas from AVN members and AVN team.

It includes –

Questions to consider / ask when buying a practice or block of fees

You can use to prepare your self before any meeting with potential sellers

You could also ask yourself these questions before you enquire about any sales

If you are planning to sell any fees or your own practice you may want to prepare for such questions.

We hope you find it of value as you grow your business. We would like to thank all our active members on the AVN Facebook Community as your contributions helped us create this resource.

April 2017

Software in the cloud:

As you know, the AVN App suite is designed to be the first port of call for the main software resources and updates from AVN.

The AVN App Suite Dashboard currently looks like the screenshot below.

The five cloud-based pieces of software (Time’s Up!, System Builder, BenchMark, Remuneration Planner and Incorporation Tax Planner) can be accessed from their respective icons.

There is also an icon to access upcoming live and online training sessions from AVN for you and your team.

The software downloads icon allows you to download the latest version of the AVN software (including Mac, Hosted Desktop and iPad versions of the App Suite).

The UK’s Best Acc entry form’ icon allows you to complete an entry to feature your practice in ‘The Business Owner’s Guide to the UK’s Best Accountancy Practices’

There is also a ‘New Feed’ within the dashboard to give an overview of the latest updates and developments from AVN and the wider community.

New AVN Toolkits:

• Building a Team That Works Toolkit – This toolkit is designed to guide you through using the TeamMatters software, building a team culture, recruitment of new team members and engaging your team.
• AVN Roadmap Toolkit – This Toolkit will guide you to the supporting documents to help you achieve your actions and progress through all the AVN Roadmaps. It is designed to help you navigate the tools and resources to embed within your practice and work towards AVNExcellence

Online Training:

• Build a customer service experience that everyone is talking about

March 2017

BenchMark in the Cloud:

The new AVNBenchmark software is now in the Cloud and on your AVN App suite (the AVN Dashboard).

The software works in a very similar way to the old version but you should find the screens cleaner and easier to use.

The software shares client details with any other AVN product on the App Suite/Dashboard so if you are already using Time’s Up! your clients will already be there for you to BenchMark.

As you requested, the reporting function now allows you to select data by SIC code, Activity code, Geographical Area, and selected date ranges.

We have also made it simple for you to add your own logo and create your own templates (with a simple drag and drop function).

You can also use AVNBenchmark anywhere and on any device that has an internet browser and internet access by just going to benchmark.avn.co.uk and log in using your System Builder password.

And to support you using this tool we have updated the BenchMark Toolkit in System Builder to show you clearly how to use the software and the reports it produces. Click here to take a look.

AVN Toolkits updated:

• Benchmark Toolkit – to give you everything you need to systematically roll out BenchMark throughout your practice with Clients and Prospects.
• Time’s Up! Toolkit – to help you to get started with using and customising Time’s Up and implementing the pricing theories and policies it advocates.
• System Builder Toolkit – to give you everything you need to systematically roll out System Builder throughout your practice with Clients and Prospects.

Online Training:

• Are you creating the biggest impact with your current client base?

February 2017

Online Training:

• How to position yourself as a credible expert to attract the clients you really want

December 2016

Online Training:

• Great ideas to take you forward into 2017
• How to find the time to do the important things 

November 2016

Updated AVN Toolkit:

• BBF Toolkit – This toolkit is an overview of what BBFs are, objectives of BBFs, a list of the resources included and the timings for BBFs. There is a library detailing every title, what type of subject is covered, if it is a top 10 BBF and a link straight to the BBFs individual checklist of resources in Systembuilder.net. There is a resources page that has links to the supporting resources in Systembuilder.net

October 2016

The New AVN Roadmap Journey Launched at AVN Conference!

We have designed 7 Roadmaps to help guide you and your team to take action to create the practice you desire. Each Roadmap is a printed workbook to track your progress, write your ideas, and point you to the AVN resources that will best help you to complete your actions.

The 7 Roadmaps are designed to guide you through the process of achieving 4,5, and 6 Star AVNExcellence Accreditation.

The Clarity Roadmap is designed to start you on your AVN Roadmaps journey. Based on your firm’s specific circumstances, the Clarity Roadmap workbook is tailored to help guide you to take action to create the practice you desire. Along the way there will be actions which you can involve your team members with which will develop their skills and promote a strong team culture within your firm – not to mention free up your time to work on the more important things.

If you haven’t yet started on your Clarity Roadmap journey Click Here to book an initial 30 minute call with one of the PGE Team.

Once you have completed the Clarity Roadmap workbook, for each of the subsequent Roadmap stages, (beginning with the second Roadmap ‘ Positioning’) there is an accompanying Implementation Workshop to kickstart each new step of your journey. You will spend the day at the AVN Head office with like-minded peers – it will be interactive, hands on, in-depth training designed to allow you to hit the ground running and give you the momentum to continue when you go back to your practice.

Roadmap online support sessions. These start after your attendance at the Positioning Roadmap Implementation Workshop. Facilitated by one of the PGE Team, these are 3-weekly online group sessions and are designed to support you as you work through your current Roadmap with focus on the AVN tools and resources that can help you along the way.

Online training:

• Getting and converting prospects
• Pricing for maximum profit
• How to sell without feeling like a salesperson

Updated Toolkit:

• Marketing Toolkit – The objective of this toolkit is to give you everything you need to systematically roll out the marketing systems throughout your practice with Clients and Prospects.

September 2016

Time’s Up!:

A new version of Time’s Up! will be released on Monday 14 September. Time’s Up! 1.3 is packed full of new features and benefits for you:

1. Speed – We’ve dramatically increased the sync speed.
2. Cross group items – You can now see items that appear in multiple categories and amend the order in which they display.
3. Default optional extras – You can now choose what appears first in your quotes – for example, PMI, TAS or Optional Extras.
4. Locking down a quote – You can now lock down a quote so it can’t be changed accidentally once it’s been signed off by a client.
5. Navigation – It’s now much easier to navigate to other pages within a quote.
6. Printing – New Print Proposal facility on the Quote Settings screen.
7. Syncing for Terminal Services users – Improved compatibility for Terminal Services users.

New AVN Toolkit:

• Time’s Up! Toolkit – to help you to get started with using and customising Time’s Up and implementing the pricing theories and policies it advocates.

Online training:

• How to differentiate yourself from your competitors
• 3 secrets to delivering really valuable business advice

Your On Demand 24/7 online training:

To support you and your team’s learning we have improved the On Demand training platform within System Builder. We have redesigned this platform to better help your team to understand how AVN can be of use to them. (It would be a great step in your induction programme / training programme). Our newest AVN members can also gain an understanding how the AVN tools and resources can help in the many areas that can help to transform your practice.

The four sections within the training platform are – Introduction to AVN, Quick Wins, Cultivate and Grow and Making it stick. They all have supporting resources, user guides and pre-recorded training videos to help engage, enthuse and get your team on board to achieve your business goals.

All the training platforms can be accessed within System Builder. Click here to find simple instructions to add your team members to System Builder.

September 2020

Excellence in Challenging Times award winner – MDH!

We’re delighted to announce the winner of the Excellence In Challenging Times Award is Michael Hemme and MDH. Michael and the MDH team have made huge efforts to help their clients throughout the Covid-19 crisis and have gone way beyond what most people would expect an accountant to do, providing both professional and emotional support. Many congratulations for your very well deserved win. And congratulations to all our finalists who have also been absolutely committed to their clients and local business communities through lockdown and beyond.

.

August 2020

October Masterclass Cancellation

With current events continuing as they have been we have made the decision to cancel the October Masterclass event due to take place in Birmingham. We shall be offering alternative options to this event so keep an eye out for more information.

.

July 2020

AVN Online Training

We’ve been running a number of webinars and training sessions lately, to help you support your clients through these current times.

Hopefully you’ve managed to join us on these as they were happening live however if circumstances meant that you couldn’t at the time, then visit our AVN Youtube channel or the AVN Know How Hub to view these now.

AVN Youtube

AVN Know How Hub

.

June 2020

Excellence in Challenging Times Award

AVN are launching an award for the Accountancy Practice that has demonstrated Excellence in Challenging Times.

Our plan is to raise the awareness of the difference accountants are making. There will be press coverage and stories will be shared. You have nothing to lose and lots to gain by entering.

To enter for this award we simply want your story or stories.  Tell us about the clients you’ve been there for, what you did for them and difference it made. Seek their permission to name them if possible but anonymise the client if that’s preferred but either way, share the story.  This isn’t about bragging, it’s about inspiring.

You can download the entry form by clicking the link: Excellence in Challenging Times award submission form

 

.

May 2020

Team Matters

Emma spoke about using team matters to check in on your team and see how they are getting on.  You need to set up the configuration for TeamMatters (when you get emails/text messages and who receives them). You do this by logging in here – http://teammatters.avn.co.uk

You can find the full instructions in the User Guide –  https://www.systembuilder.net/Document/View/1382

.

April 2020

Shane’s on Audible

We are pleased to announce that Shane Lukas’s book ‘Putting Excellence Into Practice’ is now available for you to listen to on audible.  If you prefer listening to books rather than reading, then this is great news for you.

The book is priced at £22.89 but you can get your copy for 1 credit if you already have an audible subscription using the link below.  If you don’t have a subscription for audible then you can sign up to get a free 30 day trial using the link below.

.

March 2020

Accountants helping Accountants

There’s certainly a lot of new stuff happening right now that’s affecting every business, large or small. I believe that in your capacity as an Accountant you’re in a wonderful position to provide guidance around their cash situations and accessing funding etc but also around how they can improve their business through these uncertain times helping them survive now and become incredibly strong businesses on the other side.

My upcoming webinar has just under 400 accountants registered to attend where they’ll be learning from other accountants, taking advice on how best to help their clients right now.

I’m launching weekly sessions to keep the momentum going and of course the topics will change over time since right now, many businesses are in panic mode (understandably so) but as they go through the equivalent stages of grief and begin to accept what’s happening, the support they’ll need will change too.

.

February 2020

Annual Review Calls 

February is a great time for review – of what you have done in the last 12 months and what you want to achieve in the next.  Last month we mentioned ‘Review calls’ and as a thank you to all who took part we will be having an Annual Review Call with you – delivered by a Practice Growth Expert that you currently don’t work with in order to give you a fresh perspective.

If you have been with AVN for more than 3 months you should have received a letter from us this week inviting you to an Annual Review call.

.

January 2020

Review Calls 

We have been trialling a series of ‘Review Calls’ where a Practice Growth Expert will work through a series of questions with you to ensure that you are still OnTrack (pardon the pun) and also that you are working towards the right goals for you and for your Practice.

This also provides us at AVN with the opportunity to see how we can help you in ways which haven’t come up before and use the collective brain of our Practice Growth Experts, so if  you have something that you want to tackle, and this is an area that one of our PGE are particularly skilled in, we are able to tap in to their knowledge.

.

October 2019

AVN Excellence

Hopefully you have all been using the AVNExcellence Self-Assessment Spreadsheet to monitor how close you are to achieving AVNExcellence. The AVNExcellence Workbook in System Builder has now been updated to match the spreadsheet. So ensure that you have the correct version.

The AVNExcellence Workbook is a way of finding out how you can achieve some of the standards, and a place to record where you are storing the evidence that proves you are meeting the standards, for the assessor.

The updated resource can be found here: https://www.systembuilder.net/Document/View/20888

We will be running a webinar on 6th November at 12pm on AVNExcellence with recently 6*accredited, Michael Hemme of MDH. He will be discussing ways to achieve the standards and answering any of your questions.

.

September 2019

AVN Conference 2019

We had a brilliant time as the AVN Conference.

Congratulations to MDH and Beyond The Numbers for winning Most Inspiring Accountants 2019! Well to Michael, Val and both of their teams!

Find out what else happened at www.avn.co.uk/conference

.

August 2019

Well Done Shane!

On the 28th July Shane took part in the Nottingham Iron Level Triathlon. Despite the weather conditions and the bike section being cancelled, Shane did extremely well and finished with a great time. 

Shane did the Triathlon for Head first, who use the donations they receive to fund research into helping the brain recover and also, to make the lives of brain injury victims much better. 

The AVN Team would like to say a huge congratulations to Shane. 

You can still help Shane raise more money for this amazing cause by clicking here: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/shane-lukas?utm_term=ypY57WdBM

.

July 2019

.

June 2019

Could you save a life?

This month, AVN have all signed up to be Stem Cell Donors.

It could be something as simple as giving blood. Every 20 minutes someone in the UK is diagnosed with a blood cancer such as leukaemia, lymphoma or myeloma.

By registering on the stem cell donor register, you could potentially gift them the stem cells that could save their life.

Register here: https://www.dkms.org.uk/en/register-now

Updated system – 2019 Income Tax – Tax Return System 

The income tax system has been updated for the 2019 tax year. You can find this here:

https://www.systembuilder.net/Document/View/1530

Updated Business Builder Forum – 3 proven ways to triple your chances of sales success. 

For Added Value members, this Business Builder Forum topic has been updated.  The BBF includes everything you need to run a meeting or webinar with your clients and prospects.  It is based on Doug Hall’s research, who is the author of this book, Jump Start Your Business Brain.  The research suggests that there are 3 issues with which businesses get to grips with, will fundamentally transform their chances of success.

Definitely worth a listen to the audio, even if you don’t run BBF’s yet, as the learning from this research can be used in your own practice too.

You can find the link to the BBF here:

https://www.systembuilder.net/Document/View/40

.

May 2019

SSTW

SSTW has been updated and recreated to work on any web browser. Just log out of your AVN Dashboard, and back in and it will be there for you. There is a user guide in System Builder for you to take a look at.

https://www.systembuilder.net/Document/View/27288

Team Matters

You can now add team members yourself! If you want to add a new team member onto Team Matters, this can now be done by just adding them to System Builder.

Also if you want to edit your settings, go to teammatters.avn.co.uk and log in to see your practice settings.

.

April 2019

We have built 3 houses!

Last week we celebrated 6 new members signing up by giving 2100 bricks towards our ongoing commitment to building homes in India. This huge donation has ment we have completed the build of our 3rd home!

We would like to thank you all for the commitment you give to us here at AVN, it means we can continue giving to great causes like this.

AVN Conference 2019

We would like to announce, Taxcalc, as our latest Gold sponsor at the AVN Conference, taking place on Wednesday 18th September at Edgbaston Stadium.

We will be working with Taxcalc more closely as we lead up to the event so be sure to keep an eye out for that.

If you would like to find out more information about the conference, or book tickets to attend click this link: https://www.avn.co.uk/conference/

System Updated

As Care Home Fee planning can no longer be promoted, we have updated the below document for you.

https://www.systembuilder.net/Document/View/24255

.

March 2019

AVN Masterclass Plus

Book you and your team a place on our Masterclass Plus event on Wednesday 3rd and Thursday 4th April.

Within the 2 days, we will show you as a team all the exciting things AVN has to offer within masterclass and your existing membership. 

Remember these 2 days are in with your membership so you would be crazy to miss out on the extra support and  guidance.

Value Roadmap Event

On 26th and 27th March we have the Value Roadmap Event. It will cover value driven growth and how to grow and cultivate your client base. Along with focusing on the PMI System and how to deliver it .

This event is designed around the third AVN Roadmap – Value.  You must have completed the Positioning Roadmap in order to attend this event.

Update within System Builder

We have reviewed and updated the service requests within System Builder, but because these link through to Time’s Up, and we don’t want to ‘impose’ the new versions on you, if you want them then you need to go into System Builder and ‘accept’ them. 

All you need to do is go to ‘pending documents’ and click on ‘External Pending Only’.  This will list the documents awaiting approval from you that we have published. 

All you need to do is to click on the icon on the right hand side, and then on accept/decline, and then accept them.

.

February 2019

AVN Conference 2019

Sponsors

We would like to welcome FreeAgent as our second Platinum sponsor for the AVN Conference, taking place on Wednesday 18th September at Edgbaston Stadium.

We will be working with FreeAgent more closely as we lead up to the event so be sure to keep an eye out for that. 

Speakers 

We’re also excited to welcome John Hotowka as our Keynote speaker for the event! John is a business speaker, humorist and magician who has first-hand experience of the highs and lows running a business solo. His presentation is about ‘Engaging Your Mind – Essential Resilience Strategies for the Pressured Accountant’ where you learn: 

1. How to recognise a limiting belief and over come it. 

2. How to focus on what is helpful to you to build resilience and achieve your goals. 

3. Where and how to tap in to a little known resource that’s under your nose to help you work more efficiently and effectively and give you all the moral support you need.  

You do not want to miss out!

BOOK NOW 

If you would like to find out more information about the conference, or book tickets to attend, you can do so here: https://www.avn.co.uk/conference/

New Digital Edition of the Business Owners Guide

There will be a new digital edition of the Business Owners guide produced in March. If you would like your practice to feature in this, please contact us about becoming an Approved Member.

.

January 2019

Gearing Roadmap

Our next Gearing Roadmap event is open to ALL AVN members on Wednesday 27th and Thursday 28th February 2019.

Start 2019 by focusing on you and your team. Gearing is about creating a team culture, getting the team much more focused on delivering high value services and interacting with customers in a way that continues to wow them, and keep them engaged and inspired.

New event for members? Masterclass Plus!

As a business owner, you may find it hard sometimes to get your team to really understand what you want to achieve for your Accountancy Practice.

As a team member, you may find it hard sometimes to get involved with AVN when you haven’t been shown what we are all about.

AVN Members who have revisited the Masterclass and brought their team along with them have found that their team truly ‘get it’ and this helps drive forward progress and improvements within the Practice.

On Tuesday 3rd and Wednesday 4th April, we’re running a 2 day Masterclass Plus event designed for AVN Members – as in you – to show you as a team all the exciting things AVN has to offer within masterclass and your existing membership. Look out for a more specific email coming from Shane about it

A system that you may not know about…

Advanced members, take a look at the Cryptocurrency system in System Builder to get all the tips and tricks you need: https://www.systembuilder.net/Document/View/27205

Foundation members, get access to the Cryptocurrency webinar for training yourselves and your team: https://www.systembuilder.net/Document/View/27211

Say hello to Charles!

Our team just got a brilliant new member!

Charles Ricketts is our new Business Development Manager. He has worked in the Training and FE sector for over 10 years and has first hand experience of supporting business growth through coaching and workforce development.

You may hear from Charles on the phone or see him at one of our events, please feel free to have a chat to him and make him feel welcome.

 

Positioning Day

We are running the Positioning day – How to Showcase your Practice on Thursday 21st February.

This day is designed to help you really focus on understanding, and communicating to others, who you are, who you want to work with and the value you can bring to a business. By the end of the day you will have created a clear picture of your business and be able to describe your practice in a way that attracts and engages the prospects, clients and team you want, written the first draft of your entry for the AVN Book – The Business Owners Guide to the Best UK Accountants, and be able to clearly deliver your “Elevator pitch” (which you should share with your team)

You may have done this event before  but if you have had some major changes in your business, rethought your business strategy, have had some partnership changes, or decided that 2019 needs to be different following your discussions with your Practice Growth Expert then I would recommend you come again and let us help you re-position your practice.

Conference 2019

We would like to welcome AccountancyManager as our first Platinum Sponsor at the AVN Conference, taking place on Wednesday 18th September at Edgbaston Stadium. We will be working with AccountancyManager more closely as we lead up to the event so be sure to keep an eye out for that.

IF you would like to find out more information about the conference, or book tickets to attend. You can do so here – https://www.avn.co.uk/conference/

Last week, we upset a few people…

A negative response to marketing may not always be seen as bad.

For Accountants, this time of year is tough and receiving an email with the subject line ‘penalty’ or ‘fine’ could really put you on edge. Last week we sent out an email with the subject ‘Penalty’ and unfortunately we received one negative response. Yes, of course we replied to them to set things right, however the subject line of the email still work. Somebody took the time to read and respond to one of our emails.

A proven fact that any reaction from marketing is a valued reaction.

.

December 2018

Giving at Christmas  

We’re all well and truly in the Christmas spirit here in the AVN Office and this year, along with our team Secret Santa we have all put together shoeboxes for elderly residents in the local area to be donated via Chesterfield Shoebox Appeal.

We’d love to hear about any good causes you’re supporting too! 

.

November 2018

The London Business Show

Representing AVN Accountants, Shane and Emma spent 2 days at The London Business Show – exhibiting and presenting to Business Owners of all sizes, who have been established for a varying amount of time, and of an incredibly diverse set of industries and niches. 22,000 Business Owners were booked to attend and the footfall was huge.  We gave away 6 boxes of the book ‘The Business Owner’s Guide to the UK’s Best Accountancy Practices’ over the 2 days to those business owners. Some will read the book, some won’t. But it’s highly unlikely they’ll throw the book away which makes it advertising space on their book shelf!  If you know of any other business shows (for accountants or other business owners) just let us know. Shane ran some presentations over the 2 days and generated a number of leads for AVN members that are in the book, and these will passed on.  If you would like to find out more about Shane’s presentations, take a look at Shane’s article. If you aren’t yet in the book, you need to be an approved AVN member to be able to enter your practice.You can complete the application form here.  The icon in your dashboard will then be activated.

Congratulations to our Newly Approved Members

Congratulations to DS Small Business Help, Starfish Accounting and The JDH Group for becoming approved AVN members in the past couple of months.

New Resources in System Builder

A number of members joined Emma and Andrea recently at our Strategic Development Group to look at some of the issues facing the profession at the moment.

The two areas that came out on top were

• Developing ourselves as trusted advisers, and
• Recruiting for the future
The brainstorming that took place at this day has resulted in the creation of two new resources in System Builder that will be available for you from Friday 23rd November.

• Developing ourselves as trusted advisers, and
• Recruiting for the future
More strategic development groups are being run and so keep an eye out for more resources in the future.

Changes to the Questions in OnTrack

Within the next week we will be making some changes to the questions in OnTrack, to enable you to start different conversations with your clients. We will be removing the following questions because of changes in legislation or because they were no longer appropriate…

• Is it likely that the client, their parents or other close family members, have more than £14,250 in capital (including the value of their home) and may need care home assistance in the next few years?
• Do they have everything in hand for complying with their Auto Enrolment responsibilities?

The following questions and/or answers have been updated…

• Have they been shown how to produce a One Page Plan? (question expanded)
• Does the client care about the size of their tax bills? (question changed to ask about TaxAbility)
• If they are currently unincorporated, could they save tax by incorporating? (report updated)
• Are they a limited company with profits that they want to distribute? (report updated)
• Have the key stakeholders all seen a first class independent financial adviser in the last twelve months? (report updated)
• Has your client personally suffered Capital Gains Tax in the last three years, and/or do they have annual income in excess of £100,000 or significant savings? (report updated)

And finally, the new questions added are…

• Do they have family or friends in business that could benefit from talking to us?
• Have you discussed (in the last 2 years), and do you have a record of, their personal and business goals?
• Is the client on a cloud accounting system in preparation for Making Tax Digital?
OnTrack should be used at least once a year with your clients, and if you would like some help on using it or introducing it to your clients then book a call with us at bookacall.avn.co.uk and select software training.

.

October 2018

So…How far are you prepared to go to get great training?

At the masterclass last week we had delegates from as far as Canada and the USA, and the feedback from one of these delegates from Chicago was as follows…

“It’s probably the most impactful professional development workshop I’ve ever attended, including my Masters Degree”

You and your senior team can come along to the Masterclass as part of your AVN membership – you just need to book here.

We would also like to welcome the new members that joined us following the Masterclass – it’s great to have you part of the community.

Another great opportunity to get training for your team

The feedback from the conference was some of the best we’ve ever had, with Will Whitehorn getting amazing scores.  The 2019 conference will have workshops for your team to attend  – while you are in the main presentation – with the theme for the day being ‘Engage’.  Engage your brain, engage your team and engage your clients.  And we’re in the final negotiations with a keynote speaker for that conference who will prove to be a huge inspiration but look out for more info.

We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN.

In light of this announcement the SustainAbility resource and it’s related documents will be updated in System Builder in the next few days.

Check out these two links for more information.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45775309
and
http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15/

This system can be used by you and also your clients, it will help you demonstrate your commitment to saving the world from “climate catastrophe”.

Making Tax Delightful: How to thrive in the age of digital tax

In the dark about MTD? Many accounting professionals are. Join QuickBooks’ for their webinar and find out how to build your practice strategy and get your clients ready in time for April 2019 deadline.

In this 45-minute webinar you will:

– Hear about QuickBooks’ MTD Beta and what’s next from HMRC
– Learn how to overcome the challenges facing your firm during the digital transition
– Develop a seamless plan to onboard your clients to cloud accounting software
– Have your questions answered to start Making Tax Delightful

AVN representing accountants at SME Live

Did you know that AVN will be representing you at the SME Live event next week at the NEC Birmingham?  We will be there handing out the book “The Business Owners Guide to the UK’s Best Accountancy Practices”.  Do you feature in it?  If you didn’t meet the deadline, why not put your entry in now in preparation for next time.  You can find the link on the AVN Dashboard.

.

September 2018

The date for the webinar to find out all about Bitcoin and crypto currency is the 23rd October.  Whether you have clients currently making transactions in crypto currency or not, it is something that you should be aware of (Even Coronation Street are covering it!)

Find out all about it at this webinar where former AVN Member Steven Briginshaw will share his insights, and at the same time create us a BBF for you to use with your clients.  If you have specific questions send them to us in plenty of time so that Steven can bring them into his presentation.

.

August 2018

Everything we do here at AVN is orientated around helping accountancy practices achieve the best standards in practice that you possibly can! That is why we have completed a brand new-tool and we would love to see how you perform.

This tool is a practice diagnostic which will give you an understanding of what might be holding your practice back from experiencing the level of growth, profits and general enjoyment in running your practice as you could have.

It’s a series of questions about you, your practice and your goals that if answered open and honestly will give you an understanding of your strengths and weaknesses. It Includes strategies and recommendations that our clients have tried and tested.

We are hoping to do some analysis of the membership as a whole based on the results, and if you could spare 5 minutes to answer the questionnaire it would be appreciated.

You can find it here.

At the end of it you will get a comprehensive report of your strengths and weaknesses and suggested ways to improve.

Changes to event dates

We’ve changed some of the dates of our events, including moving the August online training to September. Check out the new dates here.

AVN MOT Days

We are taking some time out of the business mid August to work, as a team, ON the business, and so on the 14th – 16th August the answerphone will be on and we will be replying to phone calls and emails periodically during the day.

Have you booked your conference place yet?  Rooms are running out so book now to avoid dissapointment!

We have nearly reached our allocated limit of rooms at the Belfry for the evening of the 17th September so if you are planning on coming along to the conference, then book your place now, or you may find you need to stay in a different hotel or pay the hotel directly which will be much more expensive.

You can book your places here.

.

June 2018

We are so pleased to announce that Guinness World Record Holder, mother of four, International Speaker and award-winning author Shonette Bason-Wood is joining us at the 20th Anniversary Conference in Spetember, and also at the Gala Dinner on the evening before the conference.

Shonette is not a motivational speaker but an experience.  Her message, performance, political satire and precision timed delivery, smattered with eye watering humour and unrivalled passion truly empower the audience to take hold of their life now and live it.  She will have you in stitches as you enjoy your dinner, and laughter in the morning could help relieve the hangover.

Book your place here.

Thinking of taking on an apprentice or already have one?

Well, you definintely need to come to the webinar on Wednesday 13th June at 12.00. The webinar covering the field of apprenticeships in Accountancy and will be led by Andrea with Sarah Cripps as a Guest Speaker. Sarah is an expert in apprenticeships and will share her knowledge of the changing qualifications with members. You can book your place here.

Are you ready for positioning your practice?

Book your place and come along to AVN House on 24th July.  Covering how to target your ideal client and how to create the perfect pitch in order to turn more prospects into clients. This event is designed around the second AVN Roadmap – Positioning. It will continue your roadmap journey after completing the Clarity roadmap. If you have not yet completed the Clarity roadmap please go to bookacall.avn.co.uk to book a Clarity call to start you on your way.

.

May 2018

Who will you be making a beeline for at the conference?

So far, we have…

Who else would you like to see there? Drop Victoria an email and she will contact them (victoria.walton@avn.co.uk)

If you haven’t yet booked for the conference you can do that on the conference page of the website.

Would you like to be an award winner?

If you want help and guidance on completing your AVN Award entry then tune into the webinar ‘Quick and easy tips to enter (and improve your chances of winning) the 2018 AVN Awards‘ next Tuesday 15th May at 1pm.

If you are considering moving to AVN Advanced Membership…

Then we are running a webinar to help you on the 6th June at 12pm (this date has changed from the date originally advertised in the AVN Guide).  You can book this webinar here.

.

April 2018

Taxability 2018/19 has been released

The 2018/19 Taxability checklist and marketing material has now been updated and is available for you in System Builder.  You can find them here…

Taxability Checklist
Marketing System

Recap on our latest online training

If you missed the recent online training, you can watch the recordings below:

• Tips and techniques on attracting the clients you want
• Time’s Up! Pricing Software – an overview of the benefits of the software and how to customise it and it’s associated documents

Steve Pipe is retiring

You may have heard that Steve is retiring so that he can focus on building his Get and Give a Million Foundation, but the great news is that he has agreed to continue being a guest speaker at AVN events including the Masterclass.

He will still be our special guest speaker at the AVN 20th Year Conference too, and will be interviewing the AVN Category Award Winners on stage.

And talking about the AVN Awards…

If you haven’t already downloaded the latest version of the AVN App on your Windows machine to get access to your AVN Awards you can do that here – you will need to uninstall your version before instaling the new version.

And if you want help with your AVN award, then tune into the upcoming training event ‘Quick and easy tips to enter (and improve your chances of winning) the 2018 AVN Awards‘.

And to book your place at the conference you can do that here. Make sure to book your team in too, especially if you are entering the awards, as it would be great to celebrate together if you are a winner.

Your AVN Awards for 2018 are now being opened

Do you have what it takes to be an AVN Award winner?  If you are on a windows machine, then uninstall your version of the AVN App, and download a new version from www.avn.co.uk/software-downloads to get your personalised link on your app for entering the awards.  The 7 categories of award follow the AVN Roadmaps – even if you haven’t completed all of the roadmaps, there is no reason why you can’t enter all of the categories if you are doing great things in these areas already.  Or just enter one or two categories that you feel strongest with.

The PGE’s are here to help you with your entry – just book a call with us here and we will help to get you started. We will be releasing more guidance to help with your award entry in the next few weeks so look out for this.

The closing date for entries will be 31st July, and so you have plenty of time to complete your entry.

Upcoming events

There is plenty of training coming up for everyone in the team, so get booked on it by going to www.avn.co.uk/member-training.

AVN Roadmap events

24th April – Positioning – Covering how to target your ideal client and how to create the perfect pitch in order to turn more prospects into clients. This event is designed around the second AVN Roadmap – Positioning. It will continue your roadmap journey after completing the Clarity roadmap. If you have not yet completed the Clarity roadmap please go to bookacall.avn.co.uk to book a Clarity call to start you on your way.

13th June – Gearing – Gearing is about creating a team culture, getting your team much more focused on delivering high value services and interacting with customers in a way that continues to wow them, keep them engaged and inspired.  It’s largely around mindset – your mindset in terms of letting go and trusting your team to deliver the quality and accuracy you’re passionate about and their mindset to get them thinking more commercially. You must have completed the Value Roadmap in order to attend this event.

Online Training

18th April – 12pm – 1pm – Tips and techniques on attracting the customers you want
25th April – 1pm – 2pm – Training on how to use Time’s Up!

Did you miss the webinar about GDPR?

Too many people are using scare tactics to sell their GDPR Services.  Watch our webinar with Craig Parsons of Persolvo to get a simple understaning of GDPR.  You can watch it here if you missed it.

So, remember to start thinking about your award entries and get booking on the upcoming events.

February 2018

New updates to the Benchmark software and reports

This week we have released an update to the AVN Benchmark software, so that it now formats monetary values with commas to separate the ‘000s.  In addition to this it adds the SIC category you are reporting on to the standard reports, and it now also pulls your clients’ business name into the standard reports.

Come and have a gamble on us

We would love you to join us to celebrate our 20th Anniversary at our Gala Dinner on the 17th September, and to keep you entertained, we would like to give you £20AVN to spend at the AVN casino.  Every Gala Dinner guest will receive the starter funds.  You can buy more casino money on the night with all proceeds going to charity.  The lucky winner on the night will receive a special prize at the conference.

Tickets for the conference are just £197 plus VAT per person, which incudes your Gala Dinner place, overnight accomodation, breakfast, and your day at the conference.

Just click here to book your tickets.

Our Keynote Speaker…Will Whitehorn

Will Whitehorn is a non-executive director or Chair of several public and private companies including Purplebricks Group PLC, GVC Holdings PLC, Stagecoach Group PLC, the Glasgow SEC /SSEHydro, The Scottish Gallery.  He has also now joined the board of Clyde Space Limited, the UKs leading space satellite manufacturer, which was recently acquired in a groundbreaking £30 million by AAC Microtec.

Having learned to fly as a 16-year-old RAF cadet and completing an MA Hons at Aberdeen University, he has spent almost all of his working life in the transport and technology industries. Starting out as a helicopter crewman in the North Sea Oil Industry, he went on to become a graduate trainee with Thomas Cook and eventually joined Virgin in 1986 where he established a career as Sir Richard Branson’s corporate affairs advisor and Brand Development Director for the group globally. He helped develop Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Trains and Virgin Media, and went on to become the first President of Virgin Galactic taking the business from a dream to reality. In 2010 he left Virgin to embark on a non exec career and was a founder shareholder in Purplebricks Group PLC.

Will is going to be explaining how businesses need to change in the future, how to create that change, how the Virgin Group did things, and how AVN members can make the change that is needed.

To book your place at the conference just go to www.avn.co.uk/conference

New GDPR Resources in System Builder

You will have received in the post your AVN 2018 Guide – if you want a downloadable version you can download it here.  Along with this, we included a copy of the Guide to GDPR.  You can use this guide with your clients, either exactly as it is, or use the Action Resource in System Builder which has the wording in for you to create your own branded version.

You can find them here…

GDPR Brochure
GDPR Action Resource

If you found these resources useful, hop onto the AVN Facebook page – we’d love to hear your feedback!

How to take the stress out of January 2019

Hopefully January wasn’t too painful for you – if your January was still busier than you would like it, why not revisit the video below?  This is an interview with AVN member Marc Lawson from Business Vision showing you how to change the systems in your business to ensure that January is pain free.

https://youtu.be/bl-c67oyYuw

The future of Financial Performance Review

While AVN have a number of software tools, our primary focus is not as a software provider, and there are so many other software providers doing a great job of allowing you to report on your clients growth, that we have decided to discontinue developing our Financial Performance Review software.

Many members are already using products such as Spotlight, Futrili and Xero to produce this key information for their clients.  We are investigating plans to build some additional functionality into AVN Benchmarking in the future to report on your clients key financial numbers.

You will be able to continue downloading it as part of the Advanced Software download until 31st July 2018, and will be able to continue using it until 31st December 2018.

Is AVN GDPR compliant?

We hold your data, and data for your clients and as such have a responsibility to you to ensure this data is protected.

Where does our clients’ and our data reside?
Your client data resides on the Microsoft Azure platform and is based in Western Europe. What this means is that it is GDPR compliant and is located in either Ireland, Germany, London or the Netherlands. Your data is also stored on additional cloud based software that we use for emailing you and invoicing you that is already GDPR compliant or will be by the May deadline.

What IT security measures do you have in place?
As well as the Microsoft Azure firewalls, antivirus, malware protection, and backups that you would expect, we have paid for our systems to be penetration tested. This means that we have paid friendly hackers to try to break into our systems to ensure that they are as secure as they possibly can be.

Have a relaxing February.  Remember if you want to chat with the team about the next steps for your business you can give us a ring on 01246 571191, or email us, or book a meeting at a convenient time for you here

January 2017

Are you tapping into the full support of AVN?

Shane has just created a video guiding you through all the different ways in which AVN can help you on your journey.  It’s only 5 minutes long – just click the link below to watch it.

https://youtu.be/lXSlbUllj68

Do you have MOT days?

We had our MOT last week, and it was fantastic being able to take a step back and look at our business for 3 whole days and make changes to the systems that we have, deleting things that we don’t use, and generally just having a really good tidy up.  It’s amazing how great it can make you feel, having the whole team focused on the business rather than just the business owner.  We plan on having more MOT days in the future, so that we continue to work on our business and suggest that you consider having them too.

GDPR – are you prepared?

It’s the big scary thing of the moment, and with so many different people offering many different solutions it’s hard to know where to start.  We are creating a brochure that you can personalise and give to your clients and it will be in System Builder soon.

Have you booked your place at the AVN Conference yet?

We have some amazing speakers booked so far for the Conference, and the current AVN Firm of the Year Michael Hemme from MDH will be explaining the benefits that implementing and applying for AVN Excellence 6* made to his practice.

February training events for your calendar

Why not book your AVN training now, so that you are ready to kickstart the year working on your practice?  You can Book all of these here

Training at AVN House

• Clarity – Let’s get started – 27^th February – A practical workshop to help you improve your key numbers. This event is designed to complement and assist you completing the first AVN Roadmap – Clarity and help you on your first steps on your AVN journey.
• Gearing – Preparing your practice for a successful future – 8^th February – An interactive workshop designed to enable you to leverage your time, earn more and work less.  The Roadmaps so far have been focused around you – now is the time to start getting your practice to truly work without relying on you being there to manage everything, and allowing it to grow exponentially. This workshop is only available to advance members that have already completed the Value Workshop.

Online training

• Developing your KPI’s – 14^th February – 12pm – 1pm – Taking a look at the measures you should have in place in your practice, to enable you to make the decisions you need to.

Book all of these here

The Bottom Line

Have you noticed when you visited the loo at AVN Head Office that we support toilet twinning?  Each of our toilets has been twinned with another in a part of the world giving people somewhere safe to go to the toilet – the basic of our needs.  If you want to find out more, you can find out here.

Articles ready for you to use

Did you know that while ever you remain an AVN member (foundation and above) all of the content in the articles written by the AVN team which have been put on the AVN website https://avn.co.uk/blog/ can be taken by you and used in newsletters and on your website?  There are dozens of great standalone articles that can be used wherever you need.

Have you started working through the AVN Roadmaps yet?

Jay Chatwani of Lawrence & Co spoke recently to James Miller about starting the AVN Roadmap journey. Even though they have been with AVN for a number of years and have implemented many of the AVN tools and resources, he found the process incredibly valuable – highlighting areas of the business where they may have let some things slip or they can do even better.  Watch the 8 minute video here.  And if you haven’t started on the AVN Roadmap journey yet you can book a call here.

Why your online presence is important

Back in December Shane presented a webinar on the importance of having an online presence, and how you should do this. If you missed it, you can watch the recording here.

AVN MOT Week

As with our cars (and our bodies) every so often it’s a great idea to have an MOT, and as we are in our 20^th year we are taking a few days to take stock of where we are and have a bit of a tidy up and a plan.  We are doing this next week from Tuesday 9^th to Thursday 11^th January.  During this time we will only be responding to urgent phone calls and emails and will respond to all other communication on Friday.

December 2017

We would like to take this time of year to say ‘Thank You’ for working with us over the last year, and to let you know that rather than sending out Christmas cards, we have decided to provide 250 days of business training to women in Africa, via B1G1.

Our Christmas Opening Hours
We are out celebrating on the afternoon of Monday 18^th, and so the office will close at 11.45 on that day.  The office will officially close for Christmas on Friday 22^nd December and reopens on Monday 2^nd January. And so if you need any help from us then give us a ring before the 22^nd.

Join us for our 20^th Year Celebrations
In September 2018 AVN will be celebrating 20 years and we would love for you to join us to celebrate.  For those of you at the conference this year you will know we said it would be in London, but the feedback from you is that London is not the place to have the event and so we have managed to secure an amazing deal in Birmingham.

Come along and join us for an evening of fun on the Monday 17^th September at our Gala Dinner, and then at the conference on Tuesday 18^th September, for an all-inclusive price of just £197 plus VAT per person – that includes the Gala Dinner, your accommodation, breakfast, and your day at the conference.

Book your places here

New System Builder resources
We have reviewed the Lifetime Financial Responsibility resources and the B1G1 Action Resource in System Builder.  To see new resources that are in System Builder, just open the software and click the ‘What’s New’ button on the home page.

New AVN App Suite
I am delighted to tell you that we have released OnTrack on the AVN Dashboard/Apps Suite (Windows versions only today – keep an eye out for the release of the MAC and IPad versions coming soon).

Uninstall and reinstall
An email yesterday explaned that to get OnTrack on your own Windows Dashboard you will need to uninstall the existing version and then install the new version, which can be found here…

avn.co.uk/software-downloads.

The reports have been reviewed and updated in light of recent changes to tax legislation, and the templates for the reports are in System Builder (just like Time’s Up! and BenchMark) in case you want to change the report template and put on your logo, or change the standard wording that appears on the reports.  (Don’t change anything in the )

All of your clients already on the dashboard will be there.  Just select to add a new questionnaire, complete the questions and produce the reports.  It will automatically save the data against your client.

Other new things on the Dashboard

Book a call – You now have a link to book a call with one of the PGE’s, so you don’t need to worry about storing the booking link anywhere.  Just click the link, choose who you want to speak to and select a date and time that works for you.

What’s new – there is a new link to the What’s New at AVN page on the AVN website – so you can see at a glance the new training resources and tools that have been released.

Coming in the new year…

Membership benefits – so that you can at arrange benefits to use with your team, and offer these same benefits to your clients

SSTW – Web based, so that you can invite your clients to use it and don’t have to worry about copying files onto CD’s or USB’s for your clients.

November 2017

Welcome to our New Members

Last week was another amazing week at AVN and we would like to take this opportunity to welcome the newest members to our community.

Thanks to everyone involved but especially to Phil Ellerby and Andrew James for sharing their amazing journeys so far at the event. You are Inspiring Accountants.

Remember, if you would like your team to energised and enthused, then bring them along to the March Masterclass.

Following on from the AVN Masterclass we have supported the following projects as our commitment to the UN’s Global Goals.

We have…

• provided in Cambodia, 52 families with enough seeds for them to grow their own food for a year. This will have allowed the girls in these families to attend school rather than having to search for food.
• supported 39 families in rural villages with access to clean and safe water for a year. This not only gives them clean water, but also provides them with financial security and ongoing health.
• helped by providing extra tuition to 13 girls for a period of one year, this allows them to pass their exams and to move on to the next year of schooling which would normally not be accessible for them.

And also special thanks to AVN’s very own Victoria, who managed to find a charity to donate the left over food to so that it didn’t go to waste.

AVN Apps Update

Keep an eye out for the new AVN apps update, which includes OnTrack in the cloud, a link to book your calls with us, and a link to keep up to date with what’s new at AVN.  We will send an email to let you know when this is released.

Have you started your AVN Roadmap Journey Yet?

We now have almost 70% of members on the AVN roadmap journey, some taking great leaps, and others smaller steps, but they are moving their practices forward on the journey they want to take.  Have you started your journey?  If not you can book a call to get started here…bookacall.avn.co.uk.  Remember the roadmaps aren’t just for new members – they are a great way to take a fresh look at your business.

Updated Bank Videos in System Builder

We have updated the bank videos in light of new legislation with regard to promoting advanced tax planning, and have removed the section where Remuneration Tax Planner shows an option of a tax strategy.  The new videos can be found in the ‘what’s new’ section in System Builder.

Updates for Remuneration Planner and Incorporation Tax Planner

As you know the world of tax changes constantly, and so we have decided that the time is right to stop updating Remuneration Planner and Incorporation Tax Planner and leave the technical calculations to the experts, and so we will not be updating the calculations for the tax year 2018/19.  You will still be able to use the software for the whole of 2018, for the tax year 2017/18, and continue to be able to see any calculations already done for your clients.

In the coming weeks we will be removing the advanced tax planning option from Remuneration Planner, so keep an eye out for this change.

Shane’s message to stakeholders

If you didn’t attend the conference (or even if you did and want a refresher on what Shane covered) and want an update on Shane’s message to the key stakeholders in AVN, you can find it in the link here.

Online training just for you

You may see the emails coming out from us letting you know of the different training that we offer. If you want a refresher of the content, we put many of the videos on YouTube.  Just subscribe to the channel to get updates from YouTube as they are uploaded.

The most recent were

• 10 cloud technologies you should know about
• Create a business that works like clockwork without you
• Engaging the younger generation

Our quarterly planning day

On Monday 4th December the AVN team will be having our quarterly planning day, and so if you need help from us, drop us an email or leave a voicemail and we will come back to you on Tuesday 5th.

And remember the AVN Facebook community is always there on hand to help. Recent topics in the facebook group include how to price bookkeeping, and which practice management software to use.

October 2017

And the AVN Firm of the Year is…

MDH

Congratulations to Michael and his team.

Online Training

• Engaging the younger generation – In this 50 minute training session Andrea Higginbottom talks to Sarah Cripps MD from Salad Skills about her experience in recruiting millennials and how to engage apprentices. She answers many of your common questions and looks at many misconceptions.

September 2017

Online Training

• Tools to engage your clients and enhance your business – Tools and strategies to engage your clients and demonstrate how you can provide services that enhance their business. In this session Emma Slack of AVN shows how you can start with the things you already know and are comfortable talking about as an Accountant and develop the conversation into business advisory work. How your team can spot opportunities and use the AVN tools to change you clients perceptions of you and your services and see how you can really help them and their business grow.

August 2017

Online Training

• Have you created a practice image that attracts your ideal client? –

 July 2017

Updated System Builder resources

• Updated videos for working with bankers and other referral sources

June 2017

Online Training

• Connect, Engage, Earn!  Join Emma Slack of AVN as she explores how to connect and engage with prospects and clients in order to show them the value of the services you can offer them to help them get from where they are now to where they want to be. And how connect that value to their investment in your services.

May 2017

Online Training

• Developing a practice that works for you 

AVN Facebook Member Community Group:

We set up the AVN Member Community Group as a forum to help you progress on your AVN journey and create connections with other AVN members helping you to set and reach your goals. It has been incredibly popular and allows AVN members to post questions to the AVN team but most importantly to their peers. There is always a steady stream of new conversations and people have found it valuable to have direct access to other AVN members to air their views, ask questions, share their advice, successes and experiences. There are currently 122 members of the group and that number is steadily increasing. It is a closed, secret group for AVN member firms and their teams only so if you would like to be given access, simply email members@avn.co.uk.

New Action Resource in System Builder:

In a recent query in the AVN Members Facebook community about purchasing another practice, the member who asked received some amazing advice which we wanted to bring to the rest of the membership…so we have!

We have created a new Action Resource – Key things to consider when buying a practice/fees. This is a combination of ideas from AVN members and AVN team.

It includes –

Questions to consider / ask when buying a practice or block of fees

You can use to prepare your self before any meeting with potential sellers

You could also ask yourself these questions before you enquire about any sales

If you are planning to sell any fees or your own practice you may want to prepare for such questions.

We hope you find it of value as you grow your business. We would like to thank all our active members on the AVN Facebook Community as your contributions helped us create this resource.

April 2017

Software in the cloud:

As you know, the AVN App suite is designed to be the first port of call for the main software resources and updates from AVN.

The AVN App Suite Dashboard currently looks like the screenshot below.

The five cloud-based pieces of software (Time’s Up!, System Builder, BenchMark, Remuneration Planner and Incorporation Tax Planner) can be accessed from their respective icons.

There is also an icon to access upcoming live and online training sessions from AVN for you and your team.

The software downloads icon allows you to download the latest version of the AVN software (including Mac, Hosted Desktop and iPad versions of the App Suite).

The UK’s Best Acc entry form’ icon allows you to complete an entry to feature your practice in ‘The Business Owner’s Guide to the UK’s Best Accountancy Practices’

There is also a ‘New Feed’ within the dashboard to give an overview of the latest updates and developments from AVN and the wider community.

New AVN Toolkits:

• Building a Team That Works Toolkit – This toolkit is designed to guide you through using the TeamMatters software, building a team culture, recruitment of new team members and engaging your team.
• AVN Roadmap Toolkit – This Toolkit will guide you to the supporting documents to help you achieve your actions and progress through all the AVN Roadmaps. It is designed to help you navigate the tools and resources to embed within your practice and work towards AVNExcellence

Online Training:

• Build a customer service experience that everyone is talking about

March 2017

BenchMark in the Cloud:

The new AVNBenchmark software is now in the Cloud and on your AVN App suite (the AVN Dashboard).

The software works in a very similar way to the old version but you should find the screens cleaner and easier to use.

The software shares client details with any other AVN product on the App Suite/Dashboard so if you are already using Time’s Up! your clients will already be there for you to BenchMark.

As you requested, the reporting function now allows you to select data by SIC code, Activity code, Geographical Area, and selected date ranges.

We have also made it simple for you to add your own logo and create your own templates (with a simple drag and drop function).

You can also use AVNBenchmark anywhere and on any device that has an internet browser and internet access by just going to benchmark.avn.co.uk and log in using your System Builder password.

And to support you using this tool we have updated the BenchMark Toolkit in System Builder to show you clearly how to use the software and the reports it produces. Click here to take a look.

AVN Toolkits updated:

• Benchmark Toolkit – to give you everything you need to systematically roll out BenchMark throughout your practice with Clients and Prospects.
• Time’s Up! Toolkit – to help you to get started with using and customising Time’s Up and implementing the pricing theories and policies it advocates.
• System Builder Toolkit – to give you everything you need to systematically roll out System Builder throughout your practice with Clients and Prospects.

Online Training:

• Are you creating the biggest impact with your current client base?

February 2017

Online Training:

• How to position yourself as a credible expert to attract the clients you really want

December 2016

Online Training:

• Great ideas to take you forward into 2017
• How to find the time to do the important things 

November 2016

Updated AVN Toolkit:

• BBF Toolkit – This toolkit is an overview of what BBFs are, objectives of BBFs, a list of the resources included and the timings for BBFs. There is a library detailing every title, what type of subject is covered, if it is a top 10 BBF and a link straight to the BBFs individual checklist of resources in Systembuilder.net. There is a resources page that has links to the supporting resources in Systembuilder.net

October 2016

The New AVN Roadmap Journey Launched at AVN Conference!

We have designed 7 Roadmaps to help guide you and your team to take action to create the practice you desire. Each Roadmap is a printed workbook to track your progress, write your ideas, and point you to the AVN resources that will best help you to complete your actions.

The 7 Roadmaps are designed to guide you through the process of achieving 4,5, and 6 Star AVNExcellence Accreditation.

The Clarity Roadmap is designed to start you on your AVN Roadmaps journey. Based on your firm’s specific circumstances, the Clarity Roadmap workbook is tailored to help guide you to take action to create the practice you desire. Along the way there will be actions which you can involve your team members with which will develop their skills and promote a strong team culture within your firm – not to mention free up your time to work on the more important things.

If you haven’t yet started on your Clarity Roadmap journey Click Here to book an initial 30 minute call with one of the PGE Team.

Once you have completed the Clarity Roadmap workbook, for each of the subsequent Roadmap stages, (beginning with the second Roadmap ‘ Positioning’) there is an accompanying Implementation Workshop to kickstart each new step of your journey. You will spend the day at the AVN Head office with like-minded peers – it will be interactive, hands on, in-depth training designed to allow you to hit the ground running and give you the momentum to continue when you go back to your practice.

Roadmap online support sessions. These start after your attendance at the Positioning Roadmap Implementation Workshop. Facilitated by one of the PGE Team, these are 3-weekly online group sessions and are designed to support you as you work through your current Roadmap with focus on the AVN tools and resources that can help you along the way.

Online training:

• Getting and converting prospects
• Pricing for maximum profit
• How to sell without feeling like a salesperson

Updated Toolkit:

• Marketing Toolkit – The objective of this toolkit is to give you everything you need to systematically roll out the marketing systems throughout your practice with Clients and Prospects.

September 2016

Time’s Up!:

A new version of Time’s Up! will be released on Monday 14 September. Time’s Up! 1.3 is packed full of new features and benefits for you:

1. Speed – We’ve dramatically increased the sync speed.
2. Cross group items – You can now see items that appear in multiple categories and amend the order in which they display.
3. Default optional extras – You can now choose what appears first in your quotes – for example, PMI, TAS or Optional Extras.
4. Locking down a quote – You can now lock down a quote so it can’t be changed accidentally once it’s been signed off by a client.
5. Navigation – It’s now much easier to navigate to other pages within a quote.
6. Printing – New Print Proposal facility on the Quote Settings screen.
7. Syncing for Terminal Services users – Improved compatibility for Terminal Services users.

New AVN Toolkit:

• Time’s Up! Toolkit – to help you to get started with using and customising Time’s Up and implementing the pricing theories and policies it advocates.

Online training:

• How to differentiate yourself from your competitors
• 3 secrets to delivering really valuable business advice

Your On Demand 24/7 online training:

To support you and your team’s learning we have improved the On Demand training platform within System Builder. We have redesigned this platform to better help your team to understand how AVN can be of use to them. (It would be a great step in your induction programme / training programme). Our newest AVN members can also gain an understanding how the AVN tools and resources can help in the many areas that can help to transform your practice.

The four sections within the training platform are – Introduction to AVN, Quick Wins, Cultivate and Grow and Making it stick. They all have supporting resources, user guides and pre-recorded training videos to help engage, enthuse and get your team on board to achieve your business goals.

All the training platforms can be accessed within System Builder. Click here to find simple instructions to add your team members to System Builder.

May 2020

Team Matters

Emma spoke about using team matters to check in on your team and see how they are getting on.  You need to set up the configuration for TeamMatters (when you get emails/text messages and who receives them). You do this by logging in here – http://teammatters.avn.co.uk

You can find the full instructions in the User Guide –  https://www.systembuilder.net/Document/View/1382

.

April 2020

Shane’s on Audible

We are pleased to announce that Shane Lukas’s book ‘Putting Excellence Into Practice’ is now available for you to listen to on audible.  If you prefer listening to books rather than reading, then this is great news for you.

The book is priced at £22.89 but you can get your copy for 1 credit if you already have an audible subscription using the link below.  If you don’t have a subscription for audible then you can sign up to get a free 30 day trial using the link below.

.

March 2020

Accountants helping Accountants

There’s certainly a lot of new stuff happening right now that’s affecting every business, large or small. I believe that in your capacity as an Accountant you’re in a wonderful position to provide guidance around their cash situations and accessing funding etc but also around how they can improve their business through these uncertain times helping them survive now and become incredibly strong businesses on the other side.

My upcoming webinar has just under 400 accountants registered to attend where they’ll be learning from other accountants, taking advice on how best to help their clients right now.

I’m launching weekly sessions to keep the momentum going and of course the topics will change over time since right now, many businesses are in panic mode (understandably so) but as they go through the equivalent stages of grief and begin to accept what’s happening, the support they’ll need will change too.

.

February 2020

Annual Review Calls 

February is a great time for review – of what you have done in the last 12 months and what you want to achieve in the next.  Last month we mentioned ‘Review calls’ and as a thank you to all who took part we will be having an Annual Review Call with you – delivered by a Practice Growth Expert that you currently don’t work with in order to give you a fresh perspective.

If you have been with AVN for more than 3 months you should have received a letter from us this week inviting you to an Annual Review call.

.

January 2020

Review Calls 

We have been trialling a series of ‘Review Calls’ where a Practice Growth Expert will work through a series of questions with you to ensure that you are still OnTrack (pardon the pun) and also that you are working towards the right goals for you and for your Practice.

This also provides us at AVN with the opportunity to see how we can help you in ways which haven’t come up before and use the collective brain of our Practice Growth Experts, so if  you have something that you want to tackle, and this is an area that one of our PGE are particularly skilled in, we are able to tap in to their knowledge.

.

October 2019

AVN Excellence

Hopefully you have all been using the AVNExcellence Self-Assessment Spreadsheet to monitor how close you are to achieving AVNExcellence. The AVNExcellence Workbook in System Builder has now been updated to match the spreadsheet. So ensure that you have the correct version.

The AVNExcellence Workbook is a way of finding out how you can achieve some of the standards, and a place to record where you are storing the evidence that proves you are meeting the standards, for the assessor.

The updated resource can be found here: https://www.systembuilder.net/Document/View/20888

We will be running a webinar on 6th November at 12pm on AVNExcellence with recently 6*accredited, Michael Hemme of MDH. He will be discussing ways to achieve the standards and answering any of your questions.

.

September 2019

AVN Conference 2019

We had a brilliant time as the AVN Conference.

Congratulations to MDH and Beyond The Numbers for winning Most Inspiring Accountants 2019! Well to Michael, Val and both of their teams!

Find out what else happened at www.avn.co.uk/conference

.

August 2019

Well Done Shane!

On the 28th July Shane took part in the Nottingham Iron Level Triathlon. Despite the weather conditions and the bike section being cancelled, Shane did extremely well and finished with a great time. 

Shane did the Triathlon for Head first, who use the donations they receive to fund research into helping the brain recover and also, to make the lives of brain injury victims much better. 

The AVN Team would like to say a huge congratulations to Shane. 

You can still help Shane raise more money for this amazing cause by clicking here: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/shane-lukas?utm_term=ypY57WdBM

.

July 2019

.

June 2019

Could you save a life?

This month, AVN have all signed up to be Stem Cell Donors.

It could be something as simple as giving blood. Every 20 minutes someone in the UK is diagnosed with a blood cancer such as leukaemia, lymphoma or myeloma.

By registering on the stem cell donor register, you could potentially gift them the stem cells that could save their life.

Register here: https://www.dkms.org.uk/en/register-now

Updated system – 2019 Income Tax – Tax Return System 

The income tax system has been updated for the 2019 tax year. You can find this here:

https://www.systembuilder.net/Document/View/1530

Updated Business Builder Forum – 3 proven ways to triple your chances of sales success. 

For Added Value members, this Business Builder Forum topic has been updated.  The BBF includes everything you need to run a meeting or webinar with your clients and prospects.  It is based on Doug Hall’s research, who is the author of this book, Jump Start Your Business Brain.  The research suggests that there are 3 issues with which businesses get to grips with, will fundamentally transform their chances of success.

Definitely worth a listen to the audio, even if you don’t run BBF’s yet, as the learning from this research can be used in your own practice too.

You can find the link to the BBF here:

https://www.systembuilder.net/Document/View/40

.

May 2019

SSTW

SSTW has been updated and recreated to work on any web browser. Just log out of your AVN Dashboard, and back in and it will be there for you. There is a user guide in System Builder for you to take a look at.

https://www.systembuilder.net/Document/View/27288

Team Matters

You can now add team members yourself! If you want to add a new team member onto Team Matters, this can now be done by just adding them to System Builder.

Also if you want to edit your settings, go to teammatters.avn.co.uk and log in to see your practice settings.

.

April 2019

We have built 3 houses!

Last week we celebrated 6 new members signing up by giving 2100 bricks towards our ongoing commitment to building homes in India. This huge donation has ment we have completed the build of our 3rd home!

We would like to thank you all for the commitment you give to us here at AVN, it means we can continue giving to great causes like this.

AVN Conference 2019

We would like to announce, Taxcalc, as our latest Gold sponsor at the AVN Conference, taking place on Wednesday 18th September at Edgbaston Stadium.

We will be working with Taxcalc more closely as we lead up to the event so be sure to keep an eye out for that.

If you would like to find out more information about the conference, or book tickets to attend click this link: https://www.avn.co.uk/conference/

System Updated

As Care Home Fee planning can no longer be promoted, we have updated the below document for you.

https://www.systembuilder.net/Document/View/24255

.

March 2019

AVN Masterclass Plus

Book you and your team a place on our Masterclass Plus event on Wednesday 3rd and Thursday 4th April.

Within the 2 days, we will show you as a team all the exciting things AVN has to offer within masterclass and your existing membership. 

Remember these 2 days are in with your membership so you would be crazy to miss out on the extra support and  guidance.

Value Roadmap Event

On 26th and 27th March we have the Value Roadmap Event. It will cover value driven growth and how to grow and cultivate your client base. Along with focusing on the PMI System and how to deliver it .

This event is designed around the third AVN Roadmap – Value.  You must have completed the Positioning Roadmap in order to attend this event.

Update within System Builder

We have reviewed and updated the service requests within System Builder, but because these link through to Time’s Up, and we don’t want to ‘impose’ the new versions on you, if you want them then you need to go into System Builder and ‘accept’ them. 

All you need to do is go to ‘pending documents’ and click on ‘External Pending Only’.  This will list the documents awaiting approval from you that we have published. 

All you need to do is to click on the icon on the right hand side, and then on accept/decline, and then accept them.

.

February 2019

AVN Conference 2019

Sponsors

We would like to welcome FreeAgent as our second Platinum sponsor for the AVN Conference, taking place on Wednesday 18th September at Edgbaston Stadium.

We will be working with FreeAgent more closely as we lead up to the event so be sure to keep an eye out for that. 

Speakers 

We’re also excited to welcome John Hotowka as our Keynote speaker for the event! John is a business speaker, humorist and magician who has first-hand experience of the highs and lows running a business solo. His presentation is about ‘Engaging Your Mind – Essential Resilience Strategies for the Pressured Accountant’ where you learn: 

1. How to recognise a limiting belief and over come it. 

2. How to focus on what is helpful to you to build resilience and achieve your goals. 

3. Where and how to tap in to a little known resource that’s under your nose to help you work more efficiently and effectively and give you all the moral support you need.  

You do not want to miss out!

BOOK NOW 

If you would like to find out more information about the conference, or book tickets to attend, you can do so here: https://www.avn.co.uk/conference/

New Digital Edition of the Business Owners Guide

There will be a new digital edition of the Business Owners guide produced in March. If you would like your practice to feature in this, please contact us about becoming an Approved Member.

.

January 2019

Gearing Roadmap

Our next Gearing Roadmap event is open to ALL AVN members on Wednesday 27th and Thursday 28th February 2019.

Start 2019 by focusing on you and your team. Gearing is about creating a team culture, getting the team much more focused on delivering high value services and interacting with customers in a way that continues to wow them, and keep them engaged and inspired.

New event for members? Masterclass Plus!

As a business owner, you may find it hard sometimes to get your team to really understand what you want to achieve for your Accountancy Practice.

As a team member, you may find it hard sometimes to get involved with AVN when you haven’t been shown what we are all about.

AVN Members who have revisited the Masterclass and brought their team along with them have found that their team truly ‘get it’ and this helps drive forward progress and improvements within the Practice.

On Tuesday 3rd and Wednesday 4th April, we’re running a 2 day Masterclass Plus event designed for AVN Members – as in you – to show you as a team all the exciting things AVN has to offer within masterclass and your existing membership. Look out for a more specific email coming from Shane about it

A system that you may not know about…

Advanced members, take a look at the Cryptocurrency system in System Builder to get all the tips and tricks you need: https://www.systembuilder.net/Document/View/27205

Foundation members, get access to the Cryptocurrency webinar for training yourselves and your team: https://www.systembuilder.net/Document/View/27211

Say hello to Charles!

Our team just got a brilliant new member!

Charles Ricketts is our new Business Development Manager. He has worked in the Training and FE sector for over 10 years and has first hand experience of supporting business growth through coaching and workforce development.

You may hear from Charles on the phone or see him at one of our events, please feel free to have a chat to him and make him feel welcome.

 

Positioning Day

We are running the Positioning day – How to Showcase your Practice on Thursday 21st February.

This day is designed to help you really focus on understanding, and communicating to others, who you are, who you want to work with and the value you can bring to a business. By the end of the day you will have created a clear picture of your business and be able to describe your practice in a way that attracts and engages the prospects, clients and team you want, written the first draft of your entry for the AVN Book – The Business Owners Guide to the Best UK Accountants, and be able to clearly deliver your “Elevator pitch” (which you should share with your team)

You may have done this event before  but if you have had some major changes in your business, rethought your business strategy, have had some partnership changes, or decided that 2019 needs to be different following your discussions with your Practice Growth Expert then I would recommend you come again and let us help you re-position your practice.

Conference 2019

We would like to welcome AccountancyManager as our first Platinum Sponsor at the AVN Conference, taking place on Wednesday 18th September at Edgbaston Stadium. We will be working with AccountancyManager more closely as we lead up to the event so be sure to keep an eye out for that.

IF you would like to find out more information about the conference, or book tickets to attend. You can do so here – https://www.avn.co.uk/conference/

Last week, we upset a few people…

A negative response to marketing may not always be seen as bad.

For Accountants, this time of year is tough and receiving an email with the subject line ‘penalty’ or ‘fine’ could really put you on edge. Last week we sent out an email with the subject ‘Penalty’ and unfortunately we received one negative response. Yes, of course we replied to them to set things right, however the subject line of the email still work. Somebody took the time to read and respond to one of our emails.

A proven fact that any reaction from marketing is a valued reaction.

.

December 2018

Giving at Christmas  

We’re all well and truly in the Christmas spirit here in the AVN Office and this year, along with our team Secret Santa we have all put together shoeboxes for elderly residents in the local area to be donated via Chesterfield Shoebox Appeal.

We’d love to hear about any good causes you’re supporting too! 

.

November 2018

The London Business Show

Representing AVN Accountants, Shane and Emma spent 2 days at The London Business Show – exhibiting and presenting to Business Owners of all sizes, who have been established for a varying amount of time, and of an incredibly diverse set of industries and niches. 22,000 Business Owners were booked to attend and the footfall was huge.  We gave away 6 boxes of the book ‘The Business Owner’s Guide to the UK’s Best Accountancy Practices’ over the 2 days to those business owners. Some will read the book, some won’t. But it’s highly unlikely they’ll throw the book away which makes it advertising space on their book shelf!  If you know of any other business shows (for accountants or other business owners) just let us know. Shane ran some presentations over the 2 days and generated a number of leads for AVN members that are in the book, and these will passed on.  If you would like to find out more about Shane’s presentations, take a look at Shane’s article. If you aren’t yet in the book, you need to be an approved AVN member to be able to enter your practice.You can complete the application form here.  The icon in your dashboard will then be activated.

Congratulations to our Newly Approved Members

Congratulations to DS Small Business Help, Starfish Accounting and The JDH Group for becoming approved AVN members in the past couple of months.

New Resources in System Builder

A number of members joined Emma and Andrea recently at our Strategic Development Group to look at some of the issues facing the profession at the moment.

The two areas that came out on top were

• Developing ourselves as trusted advisers, and
• Recruiting for the future
The brainstorming that took place at this day has resulted in the creation of two new resources in System Builder that will be available for you from Friday 23rd November.

• Developing ourselves as trusted advisers, and
• Recruiting for the future
More strategic development groups are being run and so keep an eye out for more resources in the future.

Changes to the Questions in OnTrack

Within the next week we will be making some changes to the questions in OnTrack, to enable you to start different conversations with your clients. We will be removing the following questions because of changes in legislation or because they were no longer appropriate…

• Is it likely that the client, their parents or other close family members, have more than £14,250 in capital (including the value of their home) and may need care home assistance in the next few years?
• Do they have everything in hand for complying with their Auto Enrolment responsibilities?

The following questions and/or answers have been updated…

• Have they been shown how to produce a One Page Plan? (question expanded)
• Does the client care about the size of their tax bills? (question changed to ask about TaxAbility)
• If they are currently unincorporated, could they save tax by incorporating? (report updated)
• Are they a limited company with profits that they want to distribute? (report updated)
• Have the key stakeholders all seen a first class independent financial adviser in the last twelve months? (report updated)
• Has your client personally suffered Capital Gains Tax in the last three years, and/or do they have annual income in excess of £100,000 or significant savings? (report updated)

And finally, the new questions added are…

• Do they have family or friends in business that could benefit from talking to us?
• Have you discussed (in the last 2 years), and do you have a record of, their personal and business goals?
• Is the client on a cloud accounting system in preparation for Making Tax Digital?
OnTrack should be used at least once a year with your clients, and if you would like some help on using it or introducing it to your clients then book a call with us at bookacall.avn.co.uk and select software training.

.

October 2018

So…How far are you prepared to go to get great training?

At the masterclass last week we had delegates from as far as Canada and the USA, and the feedback from one of these delegates from Chicago was as follows…

“It’s probably the most impactful professional development workshop I’ve ever attended, including my Masters Degree”

You and your senior team can come along to the Masterclass as part of your AVN membership – you just need to book here.

We would also like to welcome the new members that joined us following the Masterclass – it’s great to have you part of the community.

Another great opportunity to get training for your team

The feedback from the conference was some of the best we’ve ever had, with Will Whitehorn getting amazing scores.  The 2019 conference will have workshops for your team to attend  – while you are in the main presentation – with the theme for the day being ‘Engage’.  Engage your brain, engage your team and engage your clients.  And we’re in the final negotiations with a keynote speaker for that conference who will prove to be a huge inspiration but look out for more info.

We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN.

In light of this announcement the SustainAbility resource and it’s related documents will be updated in System Builder in the next few days.

Check out these two links for more information.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45775309
and
http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15/

This system can be used by you and also your clients, it will help you demonstrate your commitment to saving the world from “climate catastrophe”.

Making Tax Delightful: How to thrive in the age of digital tax

In the dark about MTD? Many accounting professionals are. Join QuickBooks’ for their webinar and find out how to build your practice strategy and get your clients ready in time for April 2019 deadline.

In this 45-minute webinar you will:

– Hear about QuickBooks’ MTD Beta and what’s next from HMRC
– Learn how to overcome the challenges facing your firm during the digital transition
– Develop a seamless plan to onboard your clients to cloud accounting software
– Have your questions answered to start Making Tax Delightful

AVN representing accountants at SME Live

Did you know that AVN will be representing you at the SME Live event next week at the NEC Birmingham?  We will be there handing out the book “The Business Owners Guide to the UK’s Best Accountancy Practices”.  Do you feature in it?  If you didn’t meet the deadline, why not put your entry in now in preparation for next time.  You can find the link on the AVN Dashboard.

.

September 2018

The date for the webinar to find out all about Bitcoin and crypto currency is the 23rd October.  Whether you have clients currently making transactions in crypto currency or not, it is something that you should be aware of (Even Coronation Street are covering it!)

Find out all about it at this webinar where former AVN Member Steven Briginshaw will share his insights, and at the same time create us a BBF for you to use with your clients.  If you have specific questions send them to us in plenty of time so that Steven can bring them into his presentation.

.

August 2018

Everything we do here at AVN is orientated around helping accountancy practices achieve the best standards in practice that you possibly can! That is why we have completed a brand new-tool and we would love to see how you perform.

This tool is a practice diagnostic which will give you an understanding of what might be holding your practice back from experiencing the level of growth, profits and general enjoyment in running your practice as you could have.

It’s a series of questions about you, your practice and your goals that if answered open and honestly will give you an understanding of your strengths and weaknesses. It Includes strategies and recommendations that our clients have tried and tested.

We are hoping to do some analysis of the membership as a whole based on the results, and if you could spare 5 minutes to answer the questionnaire it would be appreciated.

You can find it here.

At the end of it you will get a comprehensive report of your strengths and weaknesses and suggested ways to improve.

Changes to event dates

We’ve changed some of the dates of our events, including moving the August online training to September. Check out the new dates here.

AVN MOT Days

We are taking some time out of the business mid August to work, as a team, ON the business, and so on the 14th – 16th August the answerphone will be on and we will be replying to phone calls and emails periodically during the day.

Have you booked your conference place yet?  Rooms are running out so book now to avoid dissapointment!

We have nearly reached our allocated limit of rooms at the Belfry for the evening of the 17th September so if you are planning on coming along to the conference, then book your place now, or you may find you need to stay in a different hotel or pay the hotel directly which will be much more expensive.

You can book your places here.

.

June 2018

We are so pleased to announce that Guinness World Record Holder, mother of four, International Speaker and award-winning author Shonette Bason-Wood is joining us at the 20th Anniversary Conference in Spetember, and also at the Gala Dinner on the evening before the conference.

Shonette is not a motivational speaker but an experience.  Her message, performance, political satire and precision timed delivery, smattered with eye watering humour and unrivalled passion truly empower the audience to take hold of their life now and live it.  She will have you in stitches as you enjoy your dinner, and laughter in the morning could help relieve the hangover.

Book your place here.

Thinking of taking on an apprentice or already have one?

Well, you definintely need to come to the webinar on Wednesday 13th June at 12.00. The webinar covering the field of apprenticeships in Accountancy and will be led by Andrea with Sarah Cripps as a Guest Speaker. Sarah is an expert in apprenticeships and will share her knowledge of the changing qualifications with members. You can book your place here.

Are you ready for positioning your practice?

Book your place and come along to AVN House on 24th July.  Covering how to target your ideal client and how to create the perfect pitch in order to turn more prospects into clients. This event is designed around the second AVN Roadmap – Positioning. It will continue your roadmap journey after completing the Clarity roadmap. If you have not yet completed the Clarity roadmap please go to bookacall.avn.co.uk to book a Clarity call to start you on your way.

.

May 2018

Who will you be making a beeline for at the conference?

So far, we have…

Who else would you like to see there? Drop Victoria an email and she will contact them (victoria.walton@avn.co.uk)

If you haven’t yet booked for the conference you can do that on the conference page of the website.

Would you like to be an award winner?

If you want help and guidance on completing your AVN Award entry then tune into the webinar ‘Quick and easy tips to enter (and improve your chances of winning) the 2018 AVN Awards‘ next Tuesday 15th May at 1pm.

If you are considering moving to AVN Advanced Membership…

Then we are running a webinar to help you on the 6th June at 12pm (this date has changed from the date originally advertised in the AVN Guide).  You can book this webinar here.

.

April 2018

Taxability 2018/19 has been released

The 2018/19 Taxability checklist and marketing material has now been updated and is available for you in System Builder.  You can find them here…

Taxability Checklist
Marketing System

Recap on our latest online training

If you missed the recent online training, you can watch the recordings below:

• Tips and techniques on attracting the clients you want
• Time’s Up! Pricing Software – an overview of the benefits of the software and how to customise it and it’s associated documents

Steve Pipe is retiring

You may have heard that Steve is retiring so that he can focus on building his Get and Give a Million Foundation, but the great news is that he has agreed to continue being a guest speaker at AVN events including the Masterclass.

He will still be our special guest speaker at the AVN 20th Year Conference too, and will be interviewing the AVN Category Award Winners on stage.

And talking about the AVN Awards…

If you haven’t already downloaded the latest version of the AVN App on your Windows machine to get access to your AVN Awards you can do that here – you will need to uninstall your version before instaling the new version.

And if you want help with your AVN award, then tune into the upcoming training event ‘Quick and easy tips to enter (and improve your chances of winning) the 2018 AVN Awards‘.

And to book your place at the conference you can do that here. Make sure to book your team in too, especially if you are entering the awards, as it would be great to celebrate together if you are a winner.

Your AVN Awards for 2018 are now being opened

Do you have what it takes to be an AVN Award winner?  If you are on a windows machine, then uninstall your version of the AVN App, and download a new version from www.avn.co.uk/software-downloads to get your personalised link on your app for entering the awards.  The 7 categories of award follow the AVN Roadmaps – even if you haven’t completed all of the roadmaps, there is no reason why you can’t enter all of the categories if you are doing great things in these areas already.  Or just enter one or two categories that you feel strongest with.

The PGE’s are here to help you with your entry – just book a call with us here and we will help to get you started. We will be releasing more guidance to help with your award entry in the next few weeks so look out for this.

The closing date for entries will be 31st July, and so you have plenty of time to complete your entry.

Upcoming events

There is plenty of training coming up for everyone in the team, so get booked on it by going to www.avn.co.uk/member-training.

AVN Roadmap events

24th April – Positioning – Covering how to target your ideal client and how to create the perfect pitch in order to turn more prospects into clients. This event is designed around the second AVN Roadmap – Positioning. It will continue your roadmap journey after completing the Clarity roadmap. If you have not yet completed the Clarity roadmap please go to bookacall.avn.co.uk to book a Clarity call to start you on your way.

13th June – Gearing – Gearing is about creating a team culture, getting your team much more focused on delivering high value services and interacting with customers in a way that continues to wow them, keep them engaged and inspired.  It’s largely around mindset – your mindset in terms of letting go and trusting your team to deliver the quality and accuracy you’re passionate about and their mindset to get them thinking more commercially. You must have completed the Value Roadmap in order to attend this event.

Online Training

18th April – 12pm – 1pm – Tips and techniques on attracting the customers you want
25th April – 1pm – 2pm – Training on how to use Time’s Up!

Did you miss the webinar about GDPR?

Too many people are using scare tactics to sell their GDPR Services.  Watch our webinar with Craig Parsons of Persolvo to get a simple understaning of GDPR.  You can watch it here if you missed it.

So, remember to start thinking about your award entries and get booking on the upcoming events.

February 2018

New updates to the Benchmark software and reports

This week we have released an update to the AVN Benchmark software, so that it now formats monetary values with commas to separate the ‘000s.  In addition to this it adds the SIC category you are reporting on to the standard reports, and it now also pulls your clients’ business name into the standard reports.

Come and have a gamble on us

We would love you to join us to celebrate our 20th Anniversary at our Gala Dinner on the 17th September, and to keep you entertained, we would like to give you £20AVN to spend at the AVN casino.  Every Gala Dinner guest will receive the starter funds.  You can buy more casino money on the night with all proceeds going to charity.  The lucky winner on the night will receive a special prize at the conference.

Tickets for the conference are just £197 plus VAT per person, which incudes your Gala Dinner place, overnight accomodation, breakfast, and your day at the conference.

Just click here to book your tickets.

Our Keynote Speaker…Will Whitehorn

Will Whitehorn is a non-executive director or Chair of several public and private companies including Purplebricks Group PLC, GVC Holdings PLC, Stagecoach Group PLC, the Glasgow SEC /SSEHydro, The Scottish Gallery.  He has also now joined the board of Clyde Space Limited, the UKs leading space satellite manufacturer, which was recently acquired in a groundbreaking £30 million by AAC Microtec.

Having learned to fly as a 16-year-old RAF cadet and completing an MA Hons at Aberdeen University, he has spent almost all of his working life in the transport and technology industries. Starting out as a helicopter crewman in the North Sea Oil Industry, he went on to become a graduate trainee with Thomas Cook and eventually joined Virgin in 1986 where he established a career as Sir Richard Branson’s corporate affairs advisor and Brand Development Director for the group globally. He helped develop Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Trains and Virgin Media, and went on to become the first President of Virgin Galactic taking the business from a dream to reality. In 2010 he left Virgin to embark on a non exec career and was a founder shareholder in Purplebricks Group PLC.

Will is going to be explaining how businesses need to change in the future, how to create that change, how the Virgin Group did things, and how AVN members can make the change that is needed.

To book your place at the conference just go to www.avn.co.uk/conference

New GDPR Resources in System Builder

You will have received in the post your AVN 2018 Guide – if you want a downloadable version you can download it here.  Along with this, we included a copy of the Guide to GDPR.  You can use this guide with your clients, either exactly as it is, or use the Action Resource in System Builder which has the wording in for you to create your own branded version.

You can find them here…

GDPR Brochure
GDPR Action Resource

If you found these resources useful, hop onto the AVN Facebook page – we’d love to hear your feedback!

How to take the stress out of January 2019

Hopefully January wasn’t too painful for you – if your January was still busier than you would like it, why not revisit the video below?  This is an interview with AVN member Marc Lawson from Business Vision showing you how to change the systems in your business to ensure that January is pain free.

https://youtu.be/bl-c67oyYuw

The future of Financial Performance Review

While AVN have a number of software tools, our primary focus is not as a software provider, and there are so many other software providers doing a great job of allowing you to report on your clients growth, that we have decided to discontinue developing our Financial Performance Review software.

Many members are already using products such as Spotlight, Futrili and Xero to produce this key information for their clients.  We are investigating plans to build some additional functionality into AVN Benchmarking in the future to report on your clients key financial numbers.

You will be able to continue downloading it as part of the Advanced Software download until 31st July 2018, and will be able to continue using it until 31st December 2018.

Is AVN GDPR compliant?

We hold your data, and data for your clients and as such have a responsibility to you to ensure this data is protected.

Where does our clients’ and our data reside?
Your client data resides on the Microsoft Azure platform and is based in Western Europe. What this means is that it is GDPR compliant and is located in either Ireland, Germany, London or the Netherlands. Your data is also stored on additional cloud based software that we use for emailing you and invoicing you that is already GDPR compliant or will be by the May deadline.

What IT security measures do you have in place?
As well as the Microsoft Azure firewalls, antivirus, malware protection, and backups that you would expect, we have paid for our systems to be penetration tested. This means that we have paid friendly hackers to try to break into our systems to ensure that they are as secure as they possibly can be.

Have a relaxing February.  Remember if you want to chat with the team about the next steps for your business you can give us a ring on 01246 571191, or email us, or book a meeting at a convenient time for you here

January 2017

Are you tapping into the full support of AVN?

Shane has just created a video guiding you through all the different ways in which AVN can help you on your journey.  It’s only 5 minutes long – just click the link below to watch it.

https://youtu.be/lXSlbUllj68

Do you have MOT days?

We had our MOT last week, and it was fantastic being able to take a step back and look at our business for 3 whole days and make changes to the systems that we have, deleting things that we don’t use, and generally just having a really good tidy up.  It’s amazing how great it can make you feel, having the whole team focused on the business rather than just the business owner.  We plan on having more MOT days in the future, so that we continue to work on our business and suggest that you consider having them too.

GDPR – are you prepared?

It’s the big scary thing of the moment, and with so many different people offering many different solutions it’s hard to know where to start.  We are creating a brochure that you can personalise and give to your clients and it will be in System Builder soon.

Have you booked your place at the AVN Conference yet?

We have some amazing speakers booked so far for the Conference, and the current AVN Firm of the Year Michael Hemme from MDH will be explaining the benefits that implementing and applying for AVN Excellence 6* made to his practice.

February training events for your calendar

Why not book your AVN training now, so that you are ready to kickstart the year working on your practice?  You can Book all of these here

Training at AVN House

• Clarity – Let’s get started – 27^th February – A practical workshop to help you improve your key numbers. This event is designed to complement and assist you completing the first AVN Roadmap – Clarity and help you on your first steps on your AVN journey.
• Gearing – Preparing your practice for a successful future – 8^th February – An interactive workshop designed to enable you to leverage your time, earn more and work less.  The Roadmaps so far have been focused around you – now is the time to start getting your practice to truly work without relying on you being there to manage everything, and allowing it to grow exponentially. This workshop is only available to advance members that have already completed the Value Workshop.

Online training

• Developing your KPI’s – 14^th February – 12pm – 1pm – Taking a look at the measures you should have in place in your practice, to enable you to make the decisions you need to.

Book all of these here

The Bottom Line

Have you noticed when you visited the loo at AVN Head Office that we support toilet twinning?  Each of our toilets has been twinned with another in a part of the world giving people somewhere safe to go to the toilet – the basic of our needs.  If you want to find out more, you can find out here.

Articles ready for you to use

Did you know that while ever you remain an AVN member (foundation and above) all of the content in the articles written by the AVN team which have been put on the AVN website https://avn.co.uk/blog/ can be taken by you and used in newsletters and on your website?  There are dozens of great standalone articles that can be used wherever you need.

Have you started working through the AVN Roadmaps yet?

Jay Chatwani of Lawrence & Co spoke recently to James Miller about starting the AVN Roadmap journey. Even though they have been with AVN for a number of years and have implemented many of the AVN tools and resources, he found the process incredibly valuable – highlighting areas of the business where they may have let some things slip or they can do even better.  Watch the 8 minute video here.  And if you haven’t started on the AVN Roadmap journey yet you can book a call here.

Why your online presence is important

Back in December Shane presented a webinar on the importance of having an online presence, and how you should do this. If you missed it, you can watch the recording here.

AVN MOT Week

As with our cars (and our bodies) every so often it’s a great idea to have an MOT, and as we are in our 20^th year we are taking a few days to take stock of where we are and have a bit of a tidy up and a plan.  We are doing this next week from Tuesday 9^th to Thursday 11^th January.  During this time we will only be responding to urgent phone calls and emails and will respond to all other communication on Friday.

December 2017

We would like to take this time of year to say ‘Thank You’ for working with us over the last year, and to let you know that rather than sending out Christmas cards, we have decided to provide 250 days of business training to women in Africa, via B1G1.

Our Christmas Opening Hours
We are out celebrating on the afternoon of Monday 18^th, and so the office will close at 11.45 on that day.  The office will officially close for Christmas on Friday 22^nd December and reopens on Monday 2^nd January. And so if you need any help from us then give us a ring before the 22^nd.

Join us for our 20^th Year Celebrations
In September 2018 AVN will be celebrating 20 years and we would love for you to join us to celebrate.  For those of you at the conference this year you will know we said it would be in London, but the feedback from you is that London is not the place to have the event and so we have managed to secure an amazing deal in Birmingham.

Come along and join us for an evening of fun on the Monday 17^th September at our Gala Dinner, and then at the conference on Tuesday 18^th September, for an all-inclusive price of just £197 plus VAT per person – that includes the Gala Dinner, your accommodation, breakfast, and your day at the conference.

Book your places here

New System Builder resources
We have reviewed the Lifetime Financial Responsibility resources and the B1G1 Action Resource in System Builder.  To see new resources that are in System Builder, just open the software and click the ‘What’s New’ button on the home page.

New AVN App Suite
I am delighted to tell you that we have released OnTrack on the AVN Dashboard/Apps Suite (Windows versions only today – keep an eye out for the release of the MAC and IPad versions coming soon).

Uninstall and reinstall
An email yesterday explaned that to get OnTrack on your own Windows Dashboard you will need to uninstall the existing version and then install the new version, which can be found here…

avn.co.uk/software-downloads.

The reports have been reviewed and updated in light of recent changes to tax legislation, and the templates for the reports are in System Builder (just like Time’s Up! and BenchMark) in case you want to change the report template and put on your logo, or change the standard wording that appears on the reports.  (Don’t change anything in the )

All of your clients already on the dashboard will be there.  Just select to add a new questionnaire, complete the questions and produce the reports.  It will automatically save the data against your client.

Other new things on the Dashboard

Book a call – You now have a link to book a call with one of the PGE’s, so you don’t need to worry about storing the booking link anywhere.  Just click the link, choose who you want to speak to and select a date and time that works for you.

What’s new – there is a new link to the What’s New at AVN page on the AVN website – so you can see at a glance the new training resources and tools that have been released.

Coming in the new year…

Membership benefits – so that you can at arrange benefits to use with your team, and offer these same benefits to your clients

SSTW – Web based, so that you can invite your clients to use it and don’t have to worry about copying files onto CD’s or USB’s for your clients.

November 2017

Welcome to our New Members

Last week was another amazing week at AVN and we would like to take this opportunity to welcome the newest members to our community.

Thanks to everyone involved but especially to Phil Ellerby and Andrew James for sharing their amazing journeys so far at the event. You are Inspiring Accountants.

Remember, if you would like your team to energised and enthused, then bring them along to the March Masterclass.

Following on from the AVN Masterclass we have supported the following projects as our commitment to the UN’s Global Goals.

We have…

• provided in Cambodia, 52 families with enough seeds for them to grow their own food for a year. This will have allowed the girls in these families to attend school rather than having to search for food.
• supported 39 families in rural villages with access to clean and safe water for a year. This not only gives them clean water, but also provides them with financial security and ongoing health.
• helped by providing extra tuition to 13 girls for a period of one year, this allows them to pass their exams and to move on to the next year of schooling which would normally not be accessible for them.

And also special thanks to AVN’s very own Victoria, who managed to find a charity to donate the left over food to so that it didn’t go to waste.

AVN Apps Update

Keep an eye out for the new AVN apps update, which includes OnTrack in the cloud, a link to book your calls with us, and a link to keep up to date with what’s new at AVN.  We will send an email to let you know when this is released.

Have you started your AVN Roadmap Journey Yet?

We now have almost 70% of members on the AVN roadmap journey, some taking great leaps, and others smaller steps, but they are moving their practices forward on the journey they want to take.  Have you started your journey?  If not you can book a call to get started here…bookacall.avn.co.uk.  Remember the roadmaps aren’t just for new members – they are a great way to take a fresh look at your business.

Updated Bank Videos in System Builder

We have updated the bank videos in light of new legislation with regard to promoting advanced tax planning, and have removed the section where Remuneration Tax Planner shows an option of a tax strategy.  The new videos can be found in the ‘what’s new’ section in System Builder.

Updates for Remuneration Planner and Incorporation Tax Planner

As you know the world of tax changes constantly, and so we have decided that the time is right to stop updating Remuneration Planner and Incorporation Tax Planner and leave the technical calculations to the experts, and so we will not be updating the calculations for the tax year 2018/19.  You will still be able to use the software for the whole of 2018, for the tax year 2017/18, and continue to be able to see any calculations already done for your clients.

In the coming weeks we will be removing the advanced tax planning option from Remuneration Planner, so keep an eye out for this change.

Shane’s message to stakeholders

If you didn’t attend the conference (or even if you did and want a refresher on what Shane covered) and want an update on Shane’s message to the key stakeholders in AVN, you can find it in the link here.

Online training just for you

You may see the emails coming out from us letting you know of the different training that we offer. If you want a refresher of the content, we put many of the videos on YouTube.  Just subscribe to the channel to get updates from YouTube as they are uploaded.

The most recent were

• 10 cloud technologies you should know about
• Create a business that works like clockwork without you
• Engaging the younger generation

Our quarterly planning day

On Monday 4th December the AVN team will be having our quarterly planning day, and so if you need help from us, drop us an email or leave a voicemail and we will come back to you on Tuesday 5th.

And remember the AVN Facebook community is always there on hand to help. Recent topics in the facebook group include how to price bookkeeping, and which practice management software to use.

October 2017

And the AVN Firm of the Year is…

MDH

Congratulations to Michael and his team.

Online Training

• Engaging the younger generation – In this 50 minute training session Andrea Higginbottom talks to Sarah Cripps MD from Salad Skills about her experience in recruiting millennials and how to engage apprentices. She answers many of your common questions and looks at many misconceptions.

September 2017

Online Training

• Tools to engage your clients and enhance your business – Tools and strategies to engage your clients and demonstrate how you can provide services that enhance their business. In this session Emma Slack of AVN shows how you can start with the things you already know and are comfortable talking about as an Accountant and develop the conversation into business advisory work. How your team can spot opportunities and use the AVN tools to change you clients perceptions of you and your services and see how you can really help them and their business grow.

August 2017

Online Training

• Have you created a practice image that attracts your ideal client? –

 July 2017

Updated System Builder resources

• Updated videos for working with bankers and other referral sources

June 2017

Online Training

• Connect, Engage, Earn!  Join Emma Slack of AVN as she explores how to connect and engage with prospects and clients in order to show them the value of the services you can offer them to help them get from where they are now to where they want to be. And how connect that value to their investment in your services.

May 2017

Online Training

• Developing a practice that works for you 

AVN Facebook Member Community Group:

We set up the AVN Member Community Group as a forum to help you progress on your AVN journey and create connections with other AVN members helping you to set and reach your goals. It has been incredibly popular and allows AVN members to post questions to the AVN team but most importantly to their peers. There is always a steady stream of new conversations and people have found it valuable to have direct access to other AVN members to air their views, ask questions, share their advice, successes and experiences. There are currently 122 members of the group and that number is steadily increasing. It is a closed, secret group for AVN member firms and their teams only so if you would like to be given access, simply email members@avn.co.uk.

New Action Resource in System Builder:

In a recent query in the AVN Members Facebook community about purchasing another practice, the member who asked received some amazing advice which we wanted to bring to the rest of the membership…so we have!

We have created a new Action Resource – Key things to consider when buying a practice/fees. This is a combination of ideas from AVN members and AVN team.

It includes –

Questions to consider / ask when buying a practice or block of fees

You can use to prepare your self before any meeting with potential sellers

You could also ask yourself these questions before you enquire about any sales

If you are planning to sell any fees or your own practice you may want to prepare for such questions.

We hope you find it of value as you grow your business. We would like to thank all our active members on the AVN Facebook Community as your contributions helped us create this resource.

April 2017

Software in the cloud:

As you know, the AVN App suite is designed to be the first port of call for the main software resources and updates from AVN.

The AVN App Suite Dashboard currently looks like the screenshot below.

The five cloud-based pieces of software (Time’s Up!, System Builder, BenchMark, Remuneration Planner and Incorporation Tax Planner) can be accessed from their respective icons.

There is also an icon to access upcoming live and online training sessions from AVN for you and your team.

The software downloads icon allows you to download the latest version of the AVN software (including Mac, Hosted Desktop and iPad versions of the App Suite).

The UK’s Best Acc entry form’ icon allows you to complete an entry to feature your practice in ‘The Business Owner’s Guide to the UK’s Best Accountancy Practices’

There is also a ‘New Feed’ within the dashboard to give an overview of the latest updates and developments from AVN and the wider community.

New AVN Toolkits:

• Building a Team That Works Toolkit – This toolkit is designed to guide you through using the TeamMatters software, building a team culture, recruitment of new team members and engaging your team.
• AVN Roadmap Toolkit – This Toolkit will guide you to the supporting documents to help you achieve your actions and progress through all the AVN Roadmaps. It is designed to help you navigate the tools and resources to embed within your practice and work towards AVNExcellence

Online Training:

• Build a customer service experience that everyone is talking about

March 2017

BenchMark in the Cloud:

The new AVNBenchmark software is now in the Cloud and on your AVN App suite (the AVN Dashboard).

The software works in a very similar way to the old version but you should find the screens cleaner and easier to use.

The software shares client details with any other AVN product on the App Suite/Dashboard so if you are already using Time’s Up! your clients will already be there for you to BenchMark.

As you requested, the reporting function now allows you to select data by SIC code, Activity code, Geographical Area, and selected date ranges.

We have also made it simple for you to add your own logo and create your own templates (with a simple drag and drop function).

You can also use AVNBenchmark anywhere and on any device that has an internet browser and internet access by just going to benchmark.avn.co.uk and log in using your System Builder password.

And to support you using this tool we have updated the BenchMark Toolkit in System Builder to show you clearly how to use the software and the reports it produces. Click here to take a look.

AVN Toolkits updated:

• Benchmark Toolkit – to give you everything you need to systematically roll out BenchMark throughout your practice with Clients and Prospects.
• Time’s Up! Toolkit – to help you to get started with using and customising Time’s Up and implementing the pricing theories and policies it advocates.
• System Builder Toolkit – to give you everything you need to systematically roll out System Builder throughout your practice with Clients and Prospects.

Online Training:

• Are you creating the biggest impact with your current client base?

February 2017

Online Training:

• How to position yourself as a credible expert to attract the clients you really want

December 2016

Online Training:

• Great ideas to take you forward into 2017
• How to find the time to do the important things 

November 2016

Updated AVN Toolkit:

• BBF Toolkit – This toolkit is an overview of what BBFs are, objectives of BBFs, a list of the resources included and the timings for BBFs. There is a library detailing every title, what type of subject is covered, if it is a top 10 BBF and a link straight to the BBFs individual checklist of resources in Systembuilder.net. There is a resources page that has links to the supporting resources in Systembuilder.net

October 2016

The New AVN Roadmap Journey Launched at AVN Conference!

We have designed 7 Roadmaps to help guide you and your team to take action to create the practice you desire. Each Roadmap is a printed workbook to track your progress, write your ideas, and point you to the AVN resources that will best help you to complete your actions.

The 7 Roadmaps are designed to guide you through the process of achieving 4,5, and 6 Star AVNExcellence Accreditation.

The Clarity Roadmap is designed to start you on your AVN Roadmaps journey. Based on your firm’s specific circumstances, the Clarity Roadmap workbook is tailored to help guide you to take action to create the practice you desire. Along the way there will be actions which you can involve your team members with which will develop their skills and promote a strong team culture within your firm – not to mention free up your time to work on the more important things.

If you haven’t yet started on your Clarity Roadmap journey Click Here to book an initial 30 minute call with one of the PGE Team.

Once you have completed the Clarity Roadmap workbook, for each of the subsequent Roadmap stages, (beginning with the second Roadmap ‘ Positioning’) there is an accompanying Implementation Workshop to kickstart each new step of your journey. You will spend the day at the AVN Head office with like-minded peers – it will be interactive, hands on, in-depth training designed to allow you to hit the ground running and give you the momentum to continue when you go back to your practice.

Roadmap online support sessions. These start after your attendance at the Positioning Roadmap Implementation Workshop. Facilitated by one of the PGE Team, these are 3-weekly online group sessions and are designed to support you as you work through your current Roadmap with focus on the AVN tools and resources that can help you along the way.

Online training:

• Getting and converting prospects
• Pricing for maximum profit
• How to sell without feeling like a salesperson

Updated Toolkit:

• Marketing Toolkit – The objective of this toolkit is to give you everything you need to systematically roll out the marketing systems throughout your practice with Clients and Prospects.

September 2016

Time’s Up!:

A new version of Time’s Up! will be released on Monday 14 September. Time’s Up! 1.3 is packed full of new features and benefits for you:

1. Speed – We’ve dramatically increased the sync speed.
2. Cross group items – You can now see items that appear in multiple categories and amend the order in which they display.
3. Default optional extras – You can now choose what appears first in your quotes – for example, PMI, TAS or Optional Extras.
4. Locking down a quote – You can now lock down a quote so it can’t be changed accidentally once it’s been signed off by a client.
5. Navigation – It’s now much easier to navigate to other pages within a quote.
6. Printing – New Print Proposal facility on the Quote Settings screen.
7. Syncing for Terminal Services users – Improved compatibility for Terminal Services users.

New AVN Toolkit:

• Time’s Up! Toolkit – to help you to get started with using and customising Time’s Up and implementing the pricing theories and policies it advocates.

Online training:

• How to differentiate yourself from your competitors
• 3 secrets to delivering really valuable business advice

Your On Demand 24/7 online training:

To support you and your team’s learning we have improved the On Demand training platform within System Builder. We have redesigned this platform to better help your team to understand how AVN can be of use to them. (It would be a great step in your induction programme / training programme). Our newest AVN members can also gain an understanding how the AVN tools and resources can help in the many areas that can help to transform your practice.

The four sections within the training platform are – Introduction to AVN, Quick Wins, Cultivate and Grow and Making it stick. They all have supporting resources, user guides and pre-recorded training videos to help engage, enthuse and get your team on board to achieve your business goals.

All the training platforms can be accessed within System Builder. Click here to find simple instructions to add your team members to System Builder.

October 2018

So…How far are you prepared to go to get great training?

At the masterclass last week we had delegates from as far as Canada and the USA, and the feedback from one of these delegates from Chicago was as follows…

“It’s probably the most impactful professional development workshop I’ve ever attended, including my Masters Degree”

You and your senior team can come along to the Masterclass as part of your AVN membership – you just need to book here.

We would also like to welcome the new members that joined us following the Masterclass – it’s great to have you part of the community.

Another great opportunity to get training for your team

The feedback from the conference was some of the best we’ve ever had, with Will Whitehorn getting amazing scores.  The 2019 conference will have workshops for your team to attend  – while you are in the main presentation – with the theme for the day being ‘Engage’.  Engage your brain, engage your team and engage your clients.  And we’re in the final negotiations with a keynote speaker for that conference who will prove to be a huge inspiration but look out for more info.

We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN.

In light of this announcement the SustainAbility resource and it’s related documents will be updated in System Builder in the next few days.

Check out these two links for more information.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45775309
and
http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15/

This system can be used by you and also your clients, it will help you demonstrate your commitment to saving the world from “climate catastrophe”.

Making Tax Delightful: How to thrive in the age of digital tax

In the dark about MTD? Many accounting professionals are. Join QuickBooks’ for their webinar and find out how to build your practice strategy and get your clients ready in time for April 2019 deadline.

In this 45-minute webinar you will:

– Hear about QuickBooks’ MTD Beta and what’s next from HMRC
– Learn how to overcome the challenges facing your firm during the digital transition
– Develop a seamless plan to onboard your clients to cloud accounting software
– Have your questions answered to start Making Tax Delightful

AVN representing accountants at SME Live

Did you know that AVN will be representing you at the SME Live event next week at the NEC Birmingham?  We will be there handing out the book “The Business Owners Guide to the UK’s Best Accountancy Practices”.  Do you feature in it?  If you didn’t meet the deadline, why not put your entry in now in preparation for next time.  You can find the link on the AVN Dashboard.

September 2018

The date for the webinar to find out all about Bitcoin and crypto currency is the 23rd October.  Whether you have clients currently making transactions in crypto currency or not, it is something that you should be aware of (Even Coronation Street are covering it!)

Find out all about it at this webinar where former AVN Member Steven Briginshaw will share his insights, and at the same time create us a BBF for you to use with your clients.  If you have specific questions send them to us in plenty of time so that Steven can bring them into his presentation.

August 2018

Everything we do here at AVN is orientated around helping accountancy practices achieve the best standards in practice that you possibly can! That is why we have completed a brand new-tool and we would love to see how you perform.

This tool is a practice diagnostic which will give you an understanding of what might be holding your practice back from experiencing the level of growth, profits and general enjoyment in running your practice as you could have.

It’s a series of questions about you, your practice and your goals that if answered open and honestly will give you an understanding of your strengths and weaknesses. It Includes strategies and recommendations that our clients have tried and tested.

We are hoping to do some analysis of the membership as a whole based on the results, and if you could spare 5 minutes to answer the questionnaire it would be appreciated.

You can find it here.

At the end of it you will get a comprehensive report of your strengths and weaknesses and suggested ways to improve.

Changes to event dates

We’ve changed some of the dates of our events, including moving the August online training to September. Check out the new dates here.

AVN MOT Days

We are taking some time out of the business mid August to work, as a team, ON the business, and so on the 14th – 16th August the answerphone will be on and we will be replying to phone calls and emails periodically during the day.

Have you booked your conference place yet?  Rooms are running out so book now to avoid dissapointment!

We have nearly reached our allocated limit of rooms at the Belfry for the evening of the 17th September so if you are planning on coming along to the conference, then book your place now, or you may find you need to stay in a different hotel or pay the hotel directly which will be much more expensive.

You can book your places here.

June 2018

We are so pleased to announce that Guinness World Record Holder, mother of four, International Speaker and award-winning author Shonette Bason-Wood is joining us at the 20th Anniversary Conference in Spetember, and also at the Gala Dinner on the evening before the conference.

Shonette is not a motivational speaker but an experience.  Her message, performance, political satire and precision timed delivery, smattered with eye watering humour and unrivalled passion truly empower the audience to take hold of their life now and live it.  She will have you in stitches as you enjoy your dinner, and laughter in the morning could help relieve the hangover.

Book your place here.

Thinking of taking on an apprentice or already have one?

Well, you definintely need to come to the webinar on Wednesday 13th June at 12.00. The webinar covering the field of apprenticeships in Accountancy and will be led by Andrea with Sarah Cripps as a Guest Speaker. Sarah is an expert in apprenticeships and will share her knowledge of the changing qualifications with members. You can book your place here.

Are you ready for positioning your practice?

Book your place and come along to AVN House on 24th July.  Covering how to target your ideal client and how to create the perfect pitch in order to turn more prospects into clients. This event is designed around the second AVN Roadmap – Positioning. It will continue your roadmap journey after completing the Clarity roadmap. If you have not yet completed the Clarity roadmap please go to bookacall.avn.co.uk to book a Clarity call to start you on your way.

May 2018

Who will you be making a beeline for at the conference?

So far, we have…

Who else would you like to see there? Drop Victoria an email and she will contact them (victoria.walton@avn.co.uk)

If you haven’t yet booked for the conference you can do that on the conference page of the website.

Would you like to be an award winner?

If you want help and guidance on completing your AVN Award entry then tune into the webinar ‘Quick and easy tips to enter (and improve your chances of winning) the 2018 AVN Awards‘ next Tuesday 15th May at 1pm.

If you are considering moving to AVN Advanced Membership…

Then we are running a webinar to help you on the 6th June at 12pm (this date has changed from the date originally advertised in the AVN Guide).  You can book this webinar here.

April 2018

Taxability 2018/19 has been released

The 2018/19 Taxability checklist and marketing material has now been updated and is available for you in System Builder.  You can find them here…

Taxability Checklist
Marketing System

Recap on our latest online training

If you missed the recent online training, you can watch the recordings below:

• Tips and techniques on attracting the clients you want
• Time’s Up! Pricing Software – an overview of the benefits of the software and how to customise it and it’s associated documents

Steve Pipe is retiring

You may have heard that Steve is retiring so that he can focus on building his Get and Give a Million Foundation, but the great news is that he has agreed to continue being a guest speaker at AVN events including the Masterclass.

He will still be our special guest speaker at the AVN 20th Year Conference too, and will be interviewing the AVN Category Award Winners on stage.

And talking about the AVN Awards…

If you haven’t already downloaded the latest version of the AVN App on your Windows machine to get access to your AVN Awards you can do that here – you will need to uninstall your version before instaling the new version.

And if you want help with your AVN award, then tune into the upcoming training event ‘Quick and easy tips to enter (and improve your chances of winning) the 2018 AVN Awards‘.

And to book your place at the conference you can do that here. Make sure to book your team in too, especially if you are entering the awards, as it would be great to celebrate together if you are a winner.

Your AVN Awards for 2018 are now being opened

Do you have what it takes to be an AVN Award winner?  If you are on a windows machine, then uninstall your version of the AVN App, and download a new version from www.avn.co.uk/software-downloads to get your personalised link on your app for entering the awards.  The 7 categories of award follow the AVN Roadmaps – even if you haven’t completed all of the roadmaps, there is no reason why you can’t enter all of the categories if you are doing great things in these areas already.  Or just enter one or two categories that you feel strongest with.

The PGE’s are here to help you with your entry – just book a call with us here and we will help to get you started. We will be releasing more guidance to help with your award entry in the next few weeks so look out for this.

The closing date for entries will be 31st July, and so you have plenty of time to complete your entry.

Upcoming events

There is plenty of training coming up for everyone in the team, so get booked on it by going to www.avn.co.uk/member-training.

AVN Roadmap events

24th April – Positioning – Covering how to target your ideal client and how to create the perfect pitch in order to turn more prospects into clients. This event is designed around the second AVN Roadmap – Positioning. It will continue your roadmap journey after completing the Clarity roadmap. If you have not yet completed the Clarity roadmap please go to bookacall.avn.co.uk to book a Clarity call to start you on your way.

13th June – Gearing – Gearing is about creating a team culture, getting your team much more focused on delivering high value services and interacting with customers in a way that continues to wow them, keep them engaged and inspired.  It’s largely around mindset – your mindset in terms of letting go and trusting your team to deliver the quality and accuracy you’re passionate about and their mindset to get them thinking more commercially. You must have completed the Value Roadmap in order to attend this event.

Online Training

18th April – 12pm – 1pm – Tips and techniques on attracting the customers you want
25th April – 1pm – 2pm – Training on how to use Time’s Up!

Did you miss the webinar about GDPR?

Too many people are using scare tactics to sell their GDPR Services.  Watch our webinar with Craig Parsons of Persolvo to get a simple understaning of GDPR.  You can watch it here if you missed it.

So, remember to start thinking about your award entries and get booking on the upcoming events.

February 2018

New updates to the Benchmark software and reports

This week we have released an update to the AVN Benchmark software, so that it now formats monetary values with commas to separate the ‘000s.  In addition to this it adds the SIC category you are reporting on to the standard reports, and it now also pulls your clients’ business name into the standard reports.

Come and have a gamble on us

We would love you to join us to celebrate our 20th Anniversary at our Gala Dinner on the 17th September, and to keep you entertained, we would like to give you £20AVN to spend at the AVN casino.  Every Gala Dinner guest will receive the starter funds.  You can buy more casino money on the night with all proceeds going to charity.  The lucky winner on the night will receive a special prize at the conference.

Tickets for the conference are just £197 plus VAT per person, which incudes your Gala Dinner place, overnight accomodation, breakfast, and your day at the conference.

Just click here to book your tickets.

Our Keynote Speaker…Will Whitehorn

Will Whitehorn is a non-executive director or Chair of several public and private companies including Purplebricks Group PLC, GVC Holdings PLC, Stagecoach Group PLC, the Glasgow SEC /SSEHydro, The Scottish Gallery.  He has also now joined the board of Clyde Space Limited, the UKs leading space satellite manufacturer, which was recently acquired in a groundbreaking £30 million by AAC Microtec.

Having learned to fly as a 16-year-old RAF cadet and completing an MA Hons at Aberdeen University, he has spent almost all of his working life in the transport and technology industries. Starting out as a helicopter crewman in the North Sea Oil Industry, he went on to become a graduate trainee with Thomas Cook and eventually joined Virgin in 1986 where he established a career as Sir Richard Branson’s corporate affairs advisor and Brand Development Director for the group globally. He helped develop Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Trains and Virgin Media, and went on to become the first President of Virgin Galactic taking the business from a dream to reality. In 2010 he left Virgin to embark on a non exec career and was a founder shareholder in Purplebricks Group PLC.

Will is going to be explaining how businesses need to change in the future, how to create that change, how the Virgin Group did things, and how AVN members can make the change that is needed.

To book your place at the conference just go to www.avn.co.uk/conference

New GDPR Resources in System Builder

You will have received in the post your AVN 2018 Guide – if you want a downloadable version you can download it here.  Along with this, we included a copy of the Guide to GDPR.  You can use this guide with your clients, either exactly as it is, or use the Action Resource in System Builder which has the wording in for you to create your own branded version.

You can find them here…

GDPR Brochure
GDPR Action Resource

If you found these resources useful, hop onto the AVN Facebook page – we’d love to hear your feedback!

How to take the stress out of January 2019

Hopefully January wasn’t too painful for you – if your January was still busier than you would like it, why not revisit the video below?  This is an interview with AVN member Marc Lawson from Business Vision showing you how to change the systems in your business to ensure that January is pain free.

https://youtu.be/bl-c67oyYuw

The future of Financial Performance Review

While AVN have a number of software tools, our primary focus is not as a software provider, and there are so many other software providers doing a great job of allowing you to report on your clients growth, that we have decided to discontinue developing our Financial Performance Review software.

Many members are already using products such as Spotlight, Futrili and Xero to produce this key information for their clients.  We are investigating plans to build some additional functionality into AVN Benchmarking in the future to report on your clients key financial numbers.

You will be able to continue downloading it as part of the Advanced Software download until 31st July 2018, and will be able to continue using it until 31st December 2018.

Is AVN GDPR compliant?

We hold your data, and data for your clients and as such have a responsibility to you to ensure this data is protected.

Where does our clients’ and our data reside?
Your client data resides on the Microsoft Azure platform and is based in Western Europe. What this means is that it is GDPR compliant and is located in either Ireland, Germany, London or the Netherlands. Your data is also stored on additional cloud based software that we use for emailing you and invoicing you that is already GDPR compliant or will be by the May deadline.

What IT security measures do you have in place?
As well as the Microsoft Azure firewalls, antivirus, malware protection, and backups that you would expect, we have paid for our systems to be penetration tested. This means that we have paid friendly hackers to try to break into our systems to ensure that they are as secure as they possibly can be.

Have a relaxing February.  Remember if you want to chat with the team about the next steps for your business you can give us a ring on 01246 571191, or email us, or book a meeting at a convenient time for you here

January 2017

Are you tapping into the full support of AVN?

Shane has just created a video guiding you through all the different ways in which AVN can help you on your journey.  It’s only 5 minutes long – just click the link below to watch it.

https://youtu.be/lXSlbUllj68

Do you have MOT days?

We had our MOT last week, and it was fantastic being able to take a step back and look at our business for 3 whole days and make changes to the systems that we have, deleting things that we don’t use, and generally just having a really good tidy up.  It’s amazing how great it can make you feel, having the whole team focused on the business rather than just the business owner.  We plan on having more MOT days in the future, so that we continue to work on our business and suggest that you consider having them too.

GDPR – are you prepared?

It’s the big scary thing of the moment, and with so many different people offering many different solutions it’s hard to know where to start.  We are creating a brochure that you can personalise and give to your clients and it will be in System Builder soon.

Have you booked your place at the AVN Conference yet?

We have some amazing speakers booked so far for the Conference, and the current AVN Firm of the Year Michael Hemme from MDH will be explaining the benefits that implementing and applying for AVN Excellence 6* made to his practice.

February training events for your calendar

Why not book your AVN training now, so that you are ready to kickstart the year working on your practice?  You can Book all of these here

Training at AVN House

• Clarity – Let’s get started – 27^th February – A practical workshop to help you improve your key numbers. This event is designed to complement and assist you completing the first AVN Roadmap – Clarity and help you on your first steps on your AVN journey.
• Gearing – Preparing your practice for a successful future – 8^th February – An interactive workshop designed to enable you to leverage your time, earn more and work less.  The Roadmaps so far have been focused around you – now is the time to start getting your practice to truly work without relying on you being there to manage everything, and allowing it to grow exponentially. This workshop is only available to advance members that have already completed the Value Workshop.

Online training

• Developing your KPI’s – 14^th February – 12pm – 1pm – Taking a look at the measures you should have in place in your practice, to enable you to make the decisions you need to.

Book all of these here

The Bottom Line

Have you noticed when you visited the loo at AVN Head Office that we support toilet twinning?  Each of our toilets has been twinned with another in a part of the world giving people somewhere safe to go to the toilet – the basic of our needs.  If you want to find out more, you can find out here.

Articles ready for you to use

Did you know that while ever you remain an AVN member (foundation and above) all of the content in the articles written by the AVN team which have been put on the AVN website https://avn.co.uk/blog/ can be taken by you and used in newsletters and on your website?  There are dozens of great standalone articles that can be used wherever you need.

Have you started working through the AVN Roadmaps yet?

Jay Chatwani of Lawrence & Co spoke recently to James Miller about starting the AVN Roadmap journey. Even though they have been with AVN for a number of years and have implemented many of the AVN tools and resources, he found the process incredibly valuable – highlighting areas of the business where they may have let some things slip or they can do even better.  Watch the 8 minute video here.  And if you haven’t started on the AVN Roadmap journey yet you can book a call here.

Why your online presence is important

Back in December Shane presented a webinar on the importance of having an online presence, and how you should do this. If you missed it, you can watch the recording here.

AVN MOT Week

As with our cars (and our bodies) every so often it’s a great idea to have an MOT, and as we are in our 20^th year we are taking a few days to take stock of where we are and have a bit of a tidy up and a plan.  We are doing this next week from Tuesday 9^th to Thursday 11^th January.  During this time we will only be responding to urgent phone calls and emails and will respond to all other communication on Friday.

December 2017

We would like to take this time of year to say ‘Thank You’ for working with us over the last year, and to let you know that rather than sending out Christmas cards, we have decided to provide 250 days of business training to women in Africa, via B1G1.

Our Christmas Opening Hours
We are out celebrating on the afternoon of Monday 18^th, and so the office will close at 11.45 on that day.  The office will officially close for Christmas on Friday 22^nd December and reopens on Monday 2^nd January. And so if you need any help from us then give us a ring before the 22^nd.

Join us for our 20^th Year Celebrations
In September 2018 AVN will be celebrating 20 years and we would love for you to join us to celebrate.  For those of you at the conference this year you will know we said it would be in London, but the feedback from you is that London is not the place to have the event and so we have managed to secure an amazing deal in Birmingham.

Come along and join us for an evening of fun on the Monday 17^th September at our Gala Dinner, and then at the conference on Tuesday 18^th September, for an all-inclusive price of just £197 plus VAT per person – that includes the Gala Dinner, your accommodation, breakfast, and your day at the conference.

Book your places here

New System Builder resources
We have reviewed the Lifetime Financial Responsibility resources and the B1G1 Action Resource in System Builder.  To see new resources that are in System Builder, just open the software and click the ‘What’s New’ button on the home page.

New AVN App Suite
I am delighted to tell you that we have released OnTrack on the AVN Dashboard/Apps Suite (Windows versions only today – keep an eye out for the release of the MAC and IPad versions coming soon).

Uninstall and reinstall
An email yesterday explaned that to get OnTrack on your own Windows Dashboard you will need to uninstall the existing version and then install the new version, which can be found here…

avn.co.uk/software-downloads.

The reports have been reviewed and updated in light of recent changes to tax legislation, and the templates for the reports are in System Builder (just like Time’s Up! and BenchMark) in case you want to change the report template and put on your logo, or change the standard wording that appears on the reports.  (Don’t change anything in the )

All of your clients already on the dashboard will be there.  Just select to add a new questionnaire, complete the questions and produce the reports.  It will automatically save the data against your client.

Other new things on the Dashboard

Book a call – You now have a link to book a call with one of the PGE’s, so you don’t need to worry about storing the booking link anywhere.  Just click the link, choose who you want to speak to and select a date and time that works for you.

What’s new – there is a new link to the What’s New at AVN page on the AVN website – so you can see at a glance the new training resources and tools that have been released.

Coming in the new year…

Membership benefits – so that you can at arrange benefits to use with your team, and offer these same benefits to your clients

SSTW – Web based, so that you can invite your clients to use it and don’t have to worry about copying files onto CD’s or USB’s for your clients.

November 2017

Welcome to our New Members

Last week was another amazing week at AVN and we would like to take this opportunity to welcome the newest members to our community.

Thanks to everyone involved but especially to Phil Ellerby and Andrew James for sharing their amazing journeys so far at the event. You are Inspiring Accountants.

Remember, if you would like your team to energised and enthused, then bring them along to the March Masterclass.

Following on from the AVN Masterclass we have supported the following projects as our commitment to the UN’s Global Goals.

We have…

• provided in Cambodia, 52 families with enough seeds for them to grow their own food for a year. This will have allowed the girls in these families to attend school rather than having to search for food.
• supported 39 families in rural villages with access to clean and safe water for a year. This not only gives them clean water, but also provides them with financial security and ongoing health.
• helped by providing extra tuition to 13 girls for a period of one year, this allows them to pass their exams and to move on to the next year of schooling which would normally not be accessible for them.

And also special thanks to AVN’s very own Victoria, who managed to find a charity to donate the left over food to so that it didn’t go to waste.

AVN Apps Update

Keep an eye out for the new AVN apps update, which includes OnTrack in the cloud, a link to book your calls with us, and a link to keep up to date with what’s new at AVN.  We will send an email to let you know when this is released.

Have you started your AVN Roadmap Journey Yet?

We now have almost 70% of members on the AVN roadmap journey, some taking great leaps, and others smaller steps, but they are moving their practices forward on the journey they want to take.  Have you started your journey?  If not you can book a call to get started here…bookacall.avn.co.uk.  Remember the roadmaps aren’t just for new members – they are a great way to take a fresh look at your business.

Updated Bank Videos in System Builder

We have updated the bank videos in light of new legislation with regard to promoting advanced tax planning, and have removed the section where Remuneration Tax Planner shows an option of a tax strategy.  The new videos can be found in the ‘what’s new’ section in System Builder.

Updates for Remuneration Planner and Incorporation Tax Planner

As you know the world of tax changes constantly, and so we have decided that the time is right to stop updating Remuneration Planner and Incorporation Tax Planner and leave the technical calculations to the experts, and so we will not be updating the calculations for the tax year 2018/19.  You will still be able to use the software for the whole of 2018, for the tax year 2017/18, and continue to be able to see any calculations already done for your clients.

In the coming weeks we will be removing the advanced tax planning option from Remuneration Planner, so keep an eye out for this change.

Shane’s message to stakeholders

If you didn’t attend the conference (or even if you did and want a refresher on what Shane covered) and want an update on Shane’s message to the key stakeholders in AVN, you can find it in the link here.

Online training just for you

You may see the emails coming out from us letting you know of the different training that we offer. If you want a refresher of the content, we put many of the videos on YouTube.  Just subscribe to the channel to get updates from YouTube as they are uploaded.

The most recent were

• 10 cloud technologies you should know about
• Create a business that works like clockwork without you
• Engaging the younger generation

Our quarterly planning day

On Monday 4th December the AVN team will be having our quarterly planning day, and so if you need help from us, drop us an email or leave a voicemail and we will come back to you on Tuesday 5th.

And remember the AVN Facebook community is always there on hand to help. Recent topics in the facebook group include how to price bookkeeping, and which practice management software to use.

October 2017

And the AVN Firm of the Year is…

MDH

Congratulations to Michael and his team.

Online Training

• Engaging the younger generation – In this 50 minute training session Andrea Higginbottom talks to Sarah Cripps MD from Salad Skills about her experience in recruiting millennials and how to engage apprentices. She answers many of your common questions and looks at many misconceptions.

September 2017

Online Training

• Tools to engage your clients and enhance your business – Tools and strategies to engage your clients and demonstrate how you can provide services that enhance their business. In this session Emma Slack of AVN shows how you can start with the things you already know and are comfortable talking about as an Accountant and develop the conversation into business advisory work. How your team can spot opportunities and use the AVN tools to change you clients perceptions of you and your services and see how you can really help them and their business grow.

August 2017

Online Training

• Have you created a practice image that attracts your ideal client? –

 July 2017

Updated System Builder resources

• Updated videos for working with bankers and other referral sources

June 2017

Online Training

• Connect, Engage, Earn!  Join Emma Slack of AVN as she explores how to connect and engage with prospects and clients in order to show them the value of the services you can offer them to help them get from where they are now to where they want to be. And how connect that value to their investment in your services.

May 2017

Online Training

• Developing a practice that works for you 

AVN Facebook Member Community Group:

We set up the AVN Member Community Group as a forum to help you progress on your AVN journey and create connections with other AVN members helping you to set and reach your goals. It has been incredibly popular and allows AVN members to post questions to the AVN team but most importantly to their peers. There is always a steady stream of new conversations and people have found it valuable to have direct access to other AVN members to air their views, ask questions, share their advice, successes and experiences. There are currently 122 members of the group and that number is steadily increasing. It is a closed, secret group for AVN member firms and their teams only so if you would like to be given access, simply email members@avn.co.uk.

New Action Resource in System Builder:

In a recent query in the AVN Members Facebook community about purchasing another practice, the member who asked received some amazing advice which we wanted to bring to the rest of the membership…so we have!

We have created a new Action Resource – Key things to consider when buying a practice/fees. This is a combination of ideas from AVN members and AVN team.

It includes –

Questions to consider / ask when buying a practice or block of fees

You can use to prepare your self before any meeting with potential sellers

You could also ask yourself these questions before you enquire about any sales

If you are planning to sell any fees or your own practice you may want to prepare for such questions.

We hope you find it of value as you grow your business. We would like to thank all our active members on the AVN Facebook Community as your contributions helped us create this resource.

April 2017

Software in the cloud:

As you know, the AVN App suite is designed to be the first port of call for the main software resources and updates from AVN.

The AVN App Suite Dashboard currently looks like the screenshot below.

The five cloud-based pieces of software (Time’s Up!, System Builder, BenchMark, Remuneration Planner and Incorporation Tax Planner) can be accessed from their respective icons.

There is also an icon to access upcoming live and online training sessions from AVN for you and your team.

The software downloads icon allows you to download the latest version of the AVN software (including Mac, Hosted Desktop and iPad versions of the App Suite).

The UK’s Best Acc entry form’ icon allows you to complete an entry to feature your practice in ‘The Business Owner’s Guide to the UK’s Best Accountancy Practices’

There is also a ‘New Feed’ within the dashboard to give an overview of the latest updates and developments from AVN and the wider community.

New AVN Toolkits:

• Building a Team That Works Toolkit – This toolkit is designed to guide you through using the TeamMatters software, building a team culture, recruitment of new team members and engaging your team.
• AVN Roadmap Toolkit – This Toolkit will guide you to the supporting documents to help you achieve your actions and progress through all the AVN Roadmaps. It is designed to help you navigate the tools and resources to embed within your practice and work towards AVNExcellence

Online Training:

• Build a customer service experience that everyone is talking about

March 2017

BenchMark in the Cloud:

The new AVNBenchmark software is now in the Cloud and on your AVN App suite (the AVN Dashboard).

The software works in a very similar way to the old version but you should find the screens cleaner and easier to use.

The software shares client details with any other AVN product on the App Suite/Dashboard so if you are already using Time’s Up! your clients will already be there for you to BenchMark.

As you requested, the reporting function now allows you to select data by SIC code, Activity code, Geographical Area, and selected date ranges.

We have also made it simple for you to add your own logo and create your own templates (with a simple drag and drop function).

You can also use AVNBenchmark anywhere and on any device that has an internet browser and internet access by just going to benchmark.avn.co.uk and log in using your System Builder password.

And to support you using this tool we have updated the BenchMark Toolkit in System Builder to show you clearly how to use the software and the reports it produces. Click here to take a look.

AVN Toolkits updated:

• Benchmark Toolkit – to give you everything you need to systematically roll out BenchMark throughout your practice with Clients and Prospects.
• Time’s Up! Toolkit – to help you to get started with using and customising Time’s Up and implementing the pricing theories and policies it advocates.
• System Builder Toolkit – to give you everything you need to systematically roll out System Builder throughout your practice with Clients and Prospects.

Online Training:

• Are you creating the biggest impact with your current client base?

February 2017

Online Training:

• How to position yourself as a credible expert to attract the clients you really want

December 2016

Online Training:

• Great ideas to take you forward into 2017
• How to find the time to do the important things 

November 2016

Updated AVN Toolkit:

• BBF Toolkit – This toolkit is an overview of what BBFs are, objectives of BBFs, a list of the resources included and the timings for BBFs. There is a library detailing every title, what type of subject is covered, if it is a top 10 BBF and a link straight to the BBFs individual checklist of resources in Systembuilder.net. There is a resources page that has links to the supporting resources in Systembuilder.net

October 2016

The New AVN Roadmap Journey Launched at AVN Conference!

We have designed 7 Roadmaps to help guide you and your team to take action to create the practice you desire. Each Roadmap is a printed workbook to track your progress, write your ideas, and point you to the AVN resources that will best help you to complete your actions.

The 7 Roadmaps are designed to guide you through the process of achieving 4,5, and 6 Star AVNExcellence Accreditation.

The Clarity Roadmap is designed to start you on your AVN Roadmaps journey. Based on your firm’s specific circumstances, the Clarity Roadmap workbook is tailored to help guide you to take action to create the practice you desire. Along the way there will be actions which you can involve your team members with which will develop their skills and promote a strong team culture within your firm – not to mention free up your time to work on the more important things.

If you haven’t yet started on your Clarity Roadmap journey Click Here to book an initial 30 minute call with one of the PGE Team.

Once you have completed the Clarity Roadmap workbook, for each of the subsequent Roadmap stages, (beginning with the second Roadmap ‘ Positioning’) there is an accompanying Implementation Workshop to kickstart each new step of your journey. You will spend the day at the AVN Head office with like-minded peers – it will be interactive, hands on, in-depth training designed to allow you to hit the ground running and give you the momentum to continue when you go back to your practice.

Roadmap online support sessions. These start after your attendance at the Positioning Roadmap Implementation Workshop. Facilitated by one of the PGE Team, these are 3-weekly online group sessions and are designed to support you as you work through your current Roadmap with focus on the AVN tools and resources that can help you along the way.

Online training:

• Getting and converting prospects
• Pricing for maximum profit
• How to sell without feeling like a salesperson

Updated Toolkit:

• Marketing Toolkit – The objective of this toolkit is to give you everything you need to systematically roll out the marketing systems throughout your practice with Clients and Prospects.

September 2016

Time’s Up!:

A new version of Time’s Up! will be released on Monday 14 September. Time’s Up! 1.3 is packed full of new features and benefits for you:

1. Speed – We’ve dramatically increased the sync speed.
2. Cross group items – You can now see items that appear in multiple categories and amend the order in which they display.
3. Default optional extras – You can now choose what appears first in your quotes – for example, PMI, TAS or Optional Extras.
4. Locking down a quote – You can now lock down a quote so it can’t be changed accidentally once it’s been signed off by a client.
5. Navigation – It’s now much easier to navigate to other pages within a quote.
6. Printing – New Print Proposal facility on the Quote Settings screen.
7. Syncing for Terminal Services users – Improved compatibility for Terminal Services users.

New AVN Toolkit:

• Time’s Up! Toolkit – to help you to get started with using and customising Time’s Up and implementing the pricing theories and policies it advocates.

Online training:

• How to differentiate yourself from your competitors
• 3 secrets to delivering really valuable business advice

Your On Demand 24/7 online training:

To support you and your team’s learning we have improved the On Demand training platform within System Builder. We have redesigned this platform to better help your team to understand how AVN can be of use to them. (It would be a great step in your induction programme / training programme). Our newest AVN members can also gain an understanding how the AVN tools and resources can help in the many areas that can help to transform your practice.

The four sections within the training platform are – Introduction to AVN, Quick Wins, Cultivate and Grow and Making it stick. They all have supporting resources, user guides and pre-recorded training videos to help engage, enthuse and get your team on board to achieve your business goals.

All the training platforms can be accessed within System Builder. Click here to find simple instructions to add your team members to System Builder.