As a firm, we value effort and believe it is important to celebrate success. Arran Anders, an Online Accounts Specialist in our Outsourcing and Cloud Accounting Department, talks about his career path within Thomson Cooper, recent achievements and his ambitions for the future.
How did your career in accountancy begin?
It really started all the way back to S3 accounting and finance at Dunfermline High School with Miss Campbell, which was followed by Mr Wilson at higher level. After passing my standard grades in accounts I had already made my mind up that accounting was the career path I wanted to take.
After leaving school I went onto university where I graduated from The University of Edinburgh’s renowned Business School with joint Honours in Accounting and Finance. During my time at university, I worked part-time in a local, small accounting practice in Dunfermline. This was great as I was putting what I learned at university into practice. Upon completing my degree, I was offered a full-time contract with the local firm and signed up to ACCA in order to obtain Chartered status. A few years later I joined Thomson Cooper.
What was your first role at TC?
When I joined Thomson Cooper in March 2017 as a trainee accountant I was part qualified. Having previously worked with Xero I soon became the “Xero guy” and moved to use that speciality within the Business Support Services team.
Career highlight so far
Passing my ACCA exams and becoming a fully qualified accountant. This was a proud moment as I had achieved one of my long-term goals.
What do you enjoy about your role?
Now I have the official job title of Online Accounts Specialist. I deal with our clients’ online accounts solutions. My role can involve a number of things: consultations with clients to assess which software best suits their needs as we are a software diagnostic practice; training clients; looking at new tech; pre-Covid19 involved presenting both to staff and clients at training days and more recently even the odd video recording. My role is great as I can communicate with our clients and it lets me get a better understanding of not just what they need, but how they run their businesses. Plus, I get to play around with new software before rolling it out!
Goals for the future?
Thomson Cooper has a wide array of staff who are highly trained and specialise in their own niche. This is a great environment to work in as I can learn from my peers, as I want to be the best accountant I can be.
I will continue to try out new software. What is best practice just now might not be in the future, so it is important to always seek to do things better and be at the cutting edge of technology.