Speaker: John Biggin OBE, Chief Operating Officer, The Forward Trust
What challenges were you facing before you started working with YRH Finance Team?
John Biggin OBE: Before we started using YRH Finance Team Forward Trust was in a position of growing fairly quickly but not having the infrastructure and capacity to effectively be able to deliver re-forecasting and to discharge our responsibilities at year end for financial reporting.
Describe the difference our support has made to your business and you personally
John Biggin OBE: Since starting to work with Rebecca from YRH Finance Team some 2.5 years ago now The response that we've had and our ability to quickly and accurately produce forecasts, um, has been tremendously improved. For the second time now, at year end, we have an unqualified auditor's report that's very much down to the hard work and effort that Rebecca has put into working with all of our teams across the business, to make sure that the accuracy of our reporting is first class. That's been recognised now twice by our auditors. So in that respect it's made a huge difference to our ability to report accurately and to track our progress.
How do you feel about working with YRH Finance Team?
John Biggin OBE: Working with Rebecca from YRH Finance Team is very much like working with a loyal and trusted member of my own team. Um, she's taken the time and effort to build relationships with all of our budget holders. She's taken the time and effort to really understand our business and over the course of the relationship is really become my go to person for any of the sort of big jobs around forecasting. And, certainly at year end the amount of anxiety that she takes away from me in terms of producing accurate first time, accurate annual reports and accounts is absolutely fantastic and the ability to have all that without having to invest in a permanent member of staff when, realistically, we didn't need a permanent member staff we just needed the focus of a true professional has been quite outstanding.