Our Journey and Sage
In 2003 my entrepreneurial journey started when I set up my accountancy practice. I started my practice from a box room in Ashton under Lyne, with a diary, a phone and no clients. Today we have a team of eleven dedicated members. We market ourselves as “family accountants for family entrepreneurs with family values”. We invest in education and training. My son Adarsh Rajput also educated and trained as a Chartered Certified Accountant. Now, he is the head of operations at Sterling Finance. As a Head of Operation, he is a strong advocate and admirer of entire Sage software suit, in particular Sage Line 50.
In June 2019, Ceri Bates, Business Development Manager at Sage, encouraged me to consider applying for the British Accountancy Awards.
However after submitting the entry, we received the exciting news that we were shortlisted in the category of “graduate & non-graduate training programme”. We were nominated amongst the industry giants such as KPMG, Siemens, Moore Kingston Smith, MHA Macintyre Hudson and Frank Hirth. Soon we realised that as a small Accounting practice and unlikely to win. We thought it is impossible and to an extent a fantasy. Travelling to London to attend the ceremony seemed futile. Sage UK again took a positive outlook and extended invitation to my son Adarsh and me.
Evening of the Awards
On Wednesday 25 September 2019, my son Adarsh and I boarded a train from Manchester to attend the British Accountancy Awards held at the prestigious Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane, London. On the evening we sat on a table with Sage. When we heard our category, we suddenly heard our name with a loud bang and our logo flashing on the screen. We both froze. I nearly dropped my glass of wine and my son Adarsh remained in his seat staring at me in disbelief. The presenter repeated our name and we looked up again to check this wasn’t a dream. We both rose from our seat and walked onto the big stage and greeted by the comedian Sean Lock. He realised that we were in shock and said a few comforting words.
Most importantly it was a remarkable and memorable moment for us together with Sage UK team. One of the judges, Mr Michael Kreet, a CFO of BMW Group (UK) made a special effort to find us amongst the crowd of over 800 people. He said, “Sterling Finance deserves the award for its remarkable focus on employee education, training and development”.
Sage our Vision partner
In this sobering moment, I realised that during this 16 year of my entrepreneurial journey, I found Sage with me at every milestone of success. It has now become part of our business values system. We find Sage as a company takes time to understand the needs of their customers. Sage is unique in providing it flagship “Customer Telephone Support” which is the most valued and popular amongst its users and now Sage University is a new addition. As an Accounting Practitioner, we use the full suite of Sage software including Sage50cloud, Sage Accounting, Sage Payroll Bureau, Sage Accounts Production Advance, Sage Personal Tax, Business Tax, Partnership Tax and Sage Forecasting.
From our inception to the glitz and glory of success & recognition, Sage has been together with Sterling Finance and I would strongly recommend Sage to any practitioner existing or thinking to become one. Above all for any small business I believe you will find that Sage is a reliable and dependable provider. Sage is a world leading provider for bookkeeping, payroll, accounting and tax software.
Sterling Finance (UK) Limited and its staff continue to thrive in promoting “Excellence” in client care with our vision and culture partner Sage.
