Mayflower Compass Growth Programme
Our programme focused on strong growth, centred around commercial accountancy & tax advice
Open to business owners of all sizes from £0 to £10m – Centred around essential accounting and tax support – Scales with your size, keeping costs manageable – Focused around personal and professional goals – Focus on scalable business growth with financial and non-financial targets
Four years in the making, built with hundreds of clients, the Mayflower Compass Growth Programme is our unique platform designed to help business owners grow in a scalable way.
Open to ambitious business owners of all sizes, from sole traders starting out looking to do things right from day one, to established companies looking to take things to the next level.
The programme is centred around strong, commercially driven accounting advice and sound tax planning and preparation. Supporting this will be financial and non-financial targets to achieve, with support to achieve them. From day one, we will seek to understand your business and personal goals, and design everything around achieving those goals.
How it works
Step 1 – qualification
Our programme is open to business owners of all sizes, even to those starting out, but it’s not for everyone. We will hold a qualification call to explain the programme to you and understand what you’re looking to achieve.
If it’s not a fit, we may steer you towards our accounting and tax services designed for businesses where growth is not the primary focus but will keep you compliant and organised.
Step 2 – grading
We’ll evaluate your business against our financial and non-financial targets, and you will fall into one of four grades.
Our grades are designed to ensure you know what areas you need to focus on, whilst keeping our costs and involvement reasonable for where you are in your journey.
Step 3 – the proposal
Once we know where you stand, we will be able to build a proposal that gives you the exact services you need for where you are in your business journey. Clearer than ever, you will understand what you need and why you need it. Once the proposal is signed, we’ll on-board you and your business quickly, so we can get to work.
Step 4 –plotting your course – the plan
We’ll begin to go even deeper into where your business is. We’ll begin to build a tailored scorecard and set clear targets, designed to grow profits, improve your cash balances and achieve your goals. We will introduce you to some of our trusted partners who will be able to join you on your journey, if you wish to accelerate your growth.
On top of this, we’ll put in place systems and solutions so we can monitor your financials close to real-time. And we’ll work with you to train you from zero to eventually reading P&Ls and Balance Sheets as good as a well-versed CFO.
Step 5 – setting sail
You do your thing whilst we do ours. Our services will be designed to keep you compliant and organised. Meanwhile, you begin to execute on the plan, win customers and wow them, get your marketing underway, and begin to think with processes in mind, and goals to achieve on the horizon. We’ll work with you to ensure your accounts are
Step 6 – the check-ins
Our contact will be more than normal for accountants. You will have regular calls with us, designed to keep you focused on your targets, all with your end goals in mind. You’ll see what works and what doesn’t. We’ll guide, tinker, and talk you through your financial results in your finance system.
Step 7 – graduation, and going again
You will be constantly assessed against your KPIs, and if you meet all of your targets, we’ll be ready to up the support to the level needed. Whether that’s more frequent bookkeeping, cash flow monitoring, monthly or even weekly coaching calls, we will scale up as you scale up.
Costs
We aim for our accounting services to cost no more than 5% of your annual turnover, and are designed to grow in line with your growth. Our increases will be linked to your results. If your business doesn’t grow, our fees don’t grow.
What are the levels?
Every business is different, and you will be set unique targets throughout the way. However we work on four different levels.
| Level 1 | Level 2 | Level 3 | Level 4 | |
| Anchor – Starting Out | Waypoint – Challenging Growth | Navigator – Scaling & Thriving | Odyssey – Building Your Legacy | |
| You might be … | Starting out, new to business and wanting support. Ambitious to grow. Maybe time on your hands. | Have a business that is beginning to show growth, you’re busier now, but that is translating to financial and time pressures. Tax is becoming a bigger factor. | Your business is becoming sizable, but it needs to go to the next level. Growth is your priority, that has to be sustainable but noticeable. | You have a strong business, and you want to take it to the next level. That could be so it runs without you, it’s ready for an exit, or conquering further afield into services, sectors, products or territories, or even acquisitions |
| Staff (excluding owners) | 0 | 0-1 | 2-5 | 6-10+ |
| Turnover | £0k – £50k | £50k – £200k | £200k – £1m | £1m + |
| Your challenges | · Getting your right financial setup · Setting your goals and building your plan · Building your business, presence and brand · Getting your equipment and tools in place | · Navigating and planning for increasing tax liabilities · Beginning to cover overheads and preserve margin · Increasing your presence and ensuring consistent leads · Investing for future growth, managing demand | · Building strong, reliable revenues · Planning for taxes, business changes · Multiple lead sources · Growing, reliable team and recruitment strategy · Enhancing processes | · Building a management team · Impeccable financials · Preparing for your legacy (retirement or inheritance), exit, next steps · Expansion and growth, or setting up an EOT for a tax-efficient exit |
| Cash situation | Low to start off, builds as you grow, becoming comfortable as your business turns from ‘zero’ to a ‘reliable job’ | Impacted slightly as you hire, and navigate increasing taxes (VAT, PAYE); you begin to prioritise staff and subcontractors over yourself | Still tight but stable, taxes do grow, but so do profits | Stronger, larger investment including acquisitions, retirement planning, exits, all options now |
| Tax landscape | Income tax & corporation tax | + VAT, PAYE, CIS | + Inheritance tax, capital gains tax | |
| Main target | · To get a reliable turnover to serve as a foundation to prepare for the next steps of growth · Establish financial and non-financial systems that will be scalable · Set up your presence including a website, social media, networking | · Absorb the changes to cash flow through forward planning and reliable financials and keep up your tax compliance · Monitor and evaluate financials more thoroughly, so you keep your margins strong throughout · Consciously track and monitor your marketing efforts, continue to increase your presence | · Have strong financial discipline, with increased financial acumen, begin to see real strength, and have even more thorough targets · Have strong, and varied revenue streams as much as possible · Begin to build processes and procedures to extract yourself out of the business · Multiple marketing channels, with delegated marketing support helping drive your growth with minimal input | · Build up cash balances to begin the next phase of your journey, or expand the business further · Future-proof, robust cash flows, a business built to last for the long-term · No longer needed in the day-to-day, time for yourself, or for other ventures · Management team in place, remunerated on performance, and invested in the business |
| You will get | · Quarterly calls and active monitoring of your targets · The setting of a high-level annual budget · Quick query support · Initial structure and tax setup | All from before and: · Legal structure setup and review (and possible incorporation) · Further tax setup · High-level quarterly reforecast | All from before and: · Monthly calls and active monitoring of targets · Margin masterclasses | All from before and: · Weekly accountability calls |
| Essential services | · Accounting and tax returns · Accountancy software · High level tax forecasting | All from before and: · VAT returns · Payroll and CIS support · Bookkeeping · Company secretarial matters | All from before and: · Quarterly management accounts · Annual budget | All from before and: · Monthly management accounts · Cash flow forecasting · Payment management · Credit control |
| Strongly recommended | · Bookkeeping · Payroll (tax advice dependent) | · Quarterly management accounts · Detailed tax forecasting and mitigation advice | · Payment planning · Cash flow forecasting and management · Monthly management accounts · Quarterly reforecast · Credit control | · Valuation services · Finance Director services · Remuneration and commission design for leadership |
Our network
Through our established network of trusted suppliers, you can turbo-charge many areas of your business. We can support you with the following:
- Digital marketing services to build and grow your digital presence, centralised around an effective website that generates leads in a cost-effective way
- HR support to ensure you employ people without risk, have procedures for managing them, and can reward them
- IT support to establish a reliable infrastructure to manage your business
- Banking and finance services to help you get access to capital and banking facilities
- Complex tax advice, either provided in-house or through trusted partners including VAT and R&D specialists
We've Got You Covered
Whether you’re a sole trader, limited company or growing multi-site brand—we’ve got you covered.