I started this firm at my kitchen table in 2004.

I had spent eleven years at a big practice in Leeds, and I kept meeting owners who were frightened of their own accounts. Nobody had ever sat down and explained them.

So I set up on my own, with two clients and a second-hand filing cabinet. There are nine of us now, my daughter Hannah included, and we still look after the joiner who was my very first client.

If you cannot explain the numbers to the person who earned them, you have not finished the job.

That is still how we work. You get one named accountant, a phone number that reaches them, and a plain-English summary with every set of accounts.

Ruth Ashworth

Founder, Ashworth & Daughter, Harrogate