A top, 100 full-service accountancy practice, was struggling to recruit a replacement for their only VAT consultant. It isn’t an uncommon scenario within large firms to be reliant on a very small VAT team. The collaborative nature of VAT means larger VAT teams will, for many VAT consultants, have a greater appeal due to the desire to work as part of a team on solution-based advice.

The firm is very progressive and has ambitious plans within the market and requires strong, specialist teams to support their growth aims.

VAT Staffing Dilemma

With the departure of their only VAT consultant imminent, this £20m+ turnover practice would have had no specialist VAT support. For a firm with a strong client base within the construction, not for profit and education sectors, specialist VAT support is required on a daily basis- both for clients and to support the audit and accounts teams with issues such as partial exemption calculations, VAT liability queries and the like. The loss of the sole VAT consultant also coincided with the new rules regarding domestic reverse charge (DMC) for the construction industry, which clients needed to be guided through to make changes to their accounting systems.

The senior leadership team were concerned that their plans for growth could become hampered by just having one VAT consultant, but it seemed impossible with none.

Without the proper VAT support available internally to support the other services it would not be possible to ensure that clients received a full-service solution. This potentially threatened the integrity of audit and accounts work. Lucrative general tax projects would also be missing vital VAT technical input to arrive at the right overall solution for the client. Unless the firm were to state that it could not comment on the VAT treatment or impact, they run the risk of litigation if the VAT impact caused the advice to fail. This leaves the door open for other full-service accountancy firms to provide VAT advice, which is often a sure way to get an invitation to tender for other services for the client, significantly increasing the attrition risk for all services.

The VAT recruitment crisis potentially left this firm with a lack of specialist VAT support and an uncertain timeframe in which to be able to recruit a team with the appropriate level of experience to assist the growth aims of the firm. Indeed, we know of firms that have been attempting to recruit senior VAT staff for well over a year and others who have recruited only to have had that person poached by a larger firm only a few months later for a salary that could not be matched.

The Solution

Just a few days before the VAT consultant left the business, The VAT Team was engaged to pick up existing projects and identify new opportunities. A team of three specialist VAT consultants from The VAT Team were assigned to support the firm whilst it continued with its recruitment efforts. New communication channels were set up and within a week a “VAT helpline” was busy with new enquiries from around the firm. Lucrative new projects soon followed from client engagements. Less than 6 months later the firm was able to recruit a VAT leader into the team from a much larger firm. The incoming VAT consultant was keen to keep The VAT Team supporting the firm and feeding into the plans for growth of the VAT consultancy services for clients.

The Result

The VAT Team’s continued engagement with this firm, under the direction of the new VAT partner, has helped achieve a more than 400% growth in turnover and enabled them to grow the team again having just recruited another senior consultant.

By using The VAT Team, the firm has calculated a saving of 85% compared to resourcing the same level of experience and value inhouse. This has helped the internal VAT team stay profitable whilst growing and reduced the upfront investment costs whilst still be able to fully service and impress their client base with the level of VAT service on offer.

If you would like to explore how you and your clients could benefit from using The VAT Team’s specialist white labelled VAT support, please contact us.