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Chris Downing

Chris Downing

Director for Accountants & Bookkeepers at Sage Group plc, former accountant in practice and top-100 firm partner.

Aug 13, 2026

31:16
Mm-hmm.
31:17
And they may have a certain query they need answering, but you may not have the experience.
31:21
So having the confidence that you actually have got a trusted accountant who may have a little bit more technical experience, which you can have that conversation with, is really important.
31:30
So going back to that question in terms of why I think bookkeepers are so important and why they should be more visible, is the fact that actually they are so much closer to the numbers.
31:41
Mm.
31:41
They actually have probably greater commercial acumen s- in some situations because they're living and feeling how that business is operating.
31:49
But also, they're having the regular conversations with the business owner, and therefore it's, it's that natural sort of golden triangle between the accountant, the business owner, and the bookkeeper, which always works best.
32:00
And I think what we're seeing is of- obviously a lot of accountants doing more data processing or bookkeeping, but I think when you've got those, uh, new themes called Making Tax Digital, which is naturally digitizing a lot of business owners, but also forcing a lot of change in terms of the accountant working.

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