AAT’s Accountex 2024 takeover

This year, AAT members were everywhere across the two-day conference.

Accountex London is the UK’s biggest accountancy conference. This year’s installation summoned thousands of accountants, vendors and regulators to the capital to network and discuss the industry’s most essential and controversial issues.

A number of AAT staff and members joined the crowds at London’s ExCeL centre on the 15th and 16th of May. This was our second year in a row exhibiting, and our first sponsoring a stage and acting as an accessibility partner.

AAT sponsored Theatre 6: Future Leaders, where we heard from many expert speakers, including regular contributors Becky Glover FMAAT and Rachel Harris MAAT. Presenters covered topics ranging from going digital to leadership skills, diversity and inclusion and acquisitions.

Taking the lead

Sarah Beale, CEO, AAT, appeared on four different panels across two days, including ‘The ultimate guide to credit control, cashflow and getting paid!’, chaired by AAT’s Claire Bennison, Executive Director of Customer, Partnerships and Innovation. Here she and fellow panellists Lucy Cohen FMAAT, Co Founder and CEO, Mazuma, and Lynne Darcey Quigly, Founder and CEO, Know-it, discussed strategies for managing credit control.

This is essential given that, according to Declan Leach, over half of all bankruptcies are attributed to poor credit management, and late payments are a known, existential issue for small businesses.

Beale also took part in the panel on ‘The apprenticeship Levy – maximising benefits for all practices, regardless of size’. Presenters talked about how non-levy employers can make use of apprenticeship levy funding to teach critical career skills and implement successful apprenticeship programmes.

Here, Beale highlighted that employers of all sizes can benefit from the levy. Smaller employees are eligible for government funding that pays 95% of apprentice training costs, while large employers can use their levy to pay for their apprenticeship training.

Separately, AAT’s Jonathan Gorvin, Senior Executive Director of Strategy and Compliance, led the panel discussion ‘Leadership is not a position it’s a disposition’. He, Yash Selarka, Vice Chairperson, AAT London Branch, Alexis Charkiw, CEO, Right Click and Grace Hardy, Founder, Hardy Accounting looked at effective leadership. The session considered the characteristics of effective leaders, and the changing expectations leaders must meet as culture shifts.

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