Chris Maslin (Maslins Accountants)

Summary

Maslins is a small, highly qualified family firm of accountants and tax advisers based in Tunbridge Wells, Kent.

We assist businesses from a wide range of industries with their tax and accounting compliance, and also using our expert tax knowledge to assist in more complex transactional work.

The Staff

The main staff are me (Chris), and my mother (Moira).

See above for my biography. Moira qualified as a Chartered Accountant more years ago than she'd care to admit. At the time of passing, she was the youngest person ever to qualify (assisted by being educated in Scotland where you tend to leave school a year earlier!)

Since then, she's predominantly worked in practice for small local businesses, so has a huge wealth of experience in all things small business related.

Work we do

Most people know what accountants do. We do all those things too.

Our main focus is providing streamlined low cost accountancy for the modern small business. We've teamed up with FreeAgent, an exceptionally easy to use online software package. It does your invoicing, bookkeeping, and can even chase debts. You've then got us to help with some of the more formal stuff, and to answer any queries throughout the year. Our systems enable us to help make accountancy easy, and, dare I say it, fun, for small owner managed businesses.

After graduating in Economics, I decided I could no longer fight the urge to follow in my mother's footsteps and become an accountant.

I found myself a spot on the graduate trainee scheme of Tenon, a modern top ten firm of accountants. Like most rookies, I was flung into audit, and spent my time checking other people's adding up and photocopying invoices...so the work wasn't fun, but I was enjoying my studies, passing my exams, and rapidly progressing within the firm.

Over my 3 years with the firm I managed to kick up enough of a fuss that I got to see most departments, how they were run, the kind of work they did, and the client's perception of said work. It was fairly apparent that most clients couldn't give two hoots about whether their accounts disclosures are correct, all they're really concerned about was their tax bills, and specifically, how they could be reduced.

With that insight, I decided specialising in tax was the way forward for me. I was lured by the flashing lights and big salaries of the City, and got a job in corporate tax for Baker Tilly. The lifestyle wasn't quite as glamorous as I imagined, so at the end of 2008 I quit and set out on my own.

Over my time in accountancy I have obtained not only the Chartered Accountancy qualification, but have also become a Chartered Tax Adviser. I'm a young guy working from a small basement office, but with the tax knowledge to punch well above my weight. This, along with my very down to earth manner, is helping me to gain an increasing foothold in the accountancy market, both locally and also nationally thanks to the wonders of FreeAgentCentral.