Meet Harrison, CEO of HJL Accountancy

Since 2018, CIMA Chartered Management Accountant Harrison Louca has been meeting the accounting, business planning and strategic management needs of companies across the UK. His clientele spans near enough every industry you could think of, from construction and marketing to hospitality and fleet management – and he juggles it all with the help of Tide Plus.

Harrison uses his membership to make bookkeeping for his own business quicker and easier, which gives him more time to spend helping his clients. We spoke to Harrison to learn more about how he uses his favourite Tide features to help him get through the tax year smoothly.

Hi Harrison! We’re excited to get to know you and your business. What do you do and where did it all begin?

Myself and my business partner, Marah Hammed, have always had the drive to do our own thing and be independent. We want to add value to our clients’ businesses, have a good work-life balance, and positively impact the individuals we interact with. By setting up our own business and best practices, we’ve been able to continuously achieve these goals.

At HJL Accountancy, we provide statutory services such as bookkeeping, VAT returns, year-end accounts and payroll, as well as consultancy services such as business planning, management accounts and financial projections. We’re still striving to grow and to always satisfy our clients.

With us, it’s not just about our company’s financial growth, but also about getting to see our clients happy.

Well done, it’s great to hear about your achievements! 👏 On the other hand, what’s been your biggest challenge since starting your business?

Scaling up. It’s important that you find where your bottlenecks are (areas in your business that slow you down) and take steps to fix them. For me, as an accountant, my biggest bottleneck was the limited amount of work I could do alone. So, I’ve now scaled up to a team of 5. I’ve switched from doing everything myself to delegating work to people I trust.

“I wanted an online bank with an advanced app for categorising and Tide was top of the list.”

How has Plus helped you as your business grows?

I value the priority in-app support that comes with Tide Plus most. Cashflow Insights is another of my favourite Tide features, as it shows me what my cash flow is projected to be over the next few weeks.

Tide also gives me a quick oversight of the money coming in and out of my business, which is great. I use the accounting software integration to do my bookkeeping through Xero, too.

Using all of these features means I have less accounting admin to do for my own company and can spend more time concentrating on my clients.

Do you have any advice to help small business owners like yourself in the new tax year?

My biggest tip is to arrange all your files and folders containing finance-related documents into an organised structure that you can navigate simply. That way, if you or your accountant needs a receipt for tax purposes, you’re able to find it easily.

Tide’s accounting categories make it easy for me to categorise my transactions on the fly!

What do you love most about your company and being a small business owner?

I love the flexibility it gives me as well as being able to build upon my own success for the future.

Speaking of the future, what’s next for HJL Accountancy?

To keep up the momentum and continue building a solid team.

You can get in touch with HJL Accountancy on their website and Instagram.

We need you! 👉

We want to showcase more of our members’ businesses to thousands of fellow members in our Member Spotlight series. Register your interest, and we’ll be in touch if you’re shortlisted. 

If your business involves working with sole traders or limited companies like HJL Accountancy does, you could become a Tide Partner and enjoy extra benefits. Learn more on our Tide for Partners page.