Member Article

Bristol Businesses Encouraged to ‘Go-it-alone’

Management Accountants in Bristol with an entrepreneurial streak met last night at The Hilton Hotel to hear how to successfully set up on their own in business. At the event, organised by the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), attendees learnt the best way to follow a self employed route, even if they are still in the process of gaining professional qualifications.

With 16 per cent of workers in the South West being self employed and numbers rising*, Fiona Bevan, ACMA, BA(Hons), CIMA Member in Practice and Director and founder of Bevan Financial Management Ltd, was on hand to provide advice to those management accountants thinking of setting up on their own.

Fiona went on to start her own company providing management accounting and business planning services to SMEs six years ago so was ideally placed to give insight into the world of self-employment as a CIMA accountant.

Fiona said “In this current economic environment there has never been a better time to be a management accountant and businesses need the skills of CIMA qualified and part-qualified management accountants to guide them. I don’t ‘sugar coat’ the reality, as those going it alone need to build a bank of clients and work on generating an income, which can be challenging. But, by putting in hard work and maintaining the necessary skills it can be a very rewarding way to operate.”

Her talk covered the reasons why it can be great to be self employed and how to go about setting up on your own. This was followed by an interactive discussion where those attending the event were able to quiz Fiona and other members in practice from around Bristol, who are experts in this field, to find out more information.

Attendees were also given practical help in the form of a handout giving the information given in the talk and guidance to sources such as the practitioners toolkit.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by CIMA UK Regional News .