Koppel gives you the space to figure out what works best

“Having drafted our business plan as a professional document, we were determined to find an equally professional consultant, as we knew that a moonlighting bookkeeper would simply not do,” says Tea Bar’s founder, Sara Verver-Gerritse, who continues by explaining that although Koppel has been involved in the business right from the start, “delegating all the paperwork to them might break the bank, apart from which I’m all for self-reliance and gaining an insight into the income and expenditure of the business. And so we decided to do the preparatory work ourselves and get Koppel to run quarterly checks.”

“We started out using Excel for everything, but found that things were getting overly complicated. We then switched to the system that Koppel itself uses. We can always rely on them to advise us on how things work or what approach would be best. They’re great at giving you administrative pointers.”

Sara continues: “Koppel also takes care of our personal financials. As it happens, Fenje’s life partner and mine both run their own business. The administrative accounts are correspondingly complex, but Koppel keeps on top of it all. I suppose we could have gone with different advisers for different types of advice, but we have come to know Koppel as a cracking tax consultant. And although it’s not exactly cheap, here too there are ways and means, such as payment in instalments. You can save a lot of money by tapping into Koppel’s intimate knowledge of (tax) structures. Their advice enables you to recover what they are costing you.”

Sara continues: “We need Koppel’s tax advice more than ever now that our web shop is increasingly taking centre stage. There are differences with a traditional shop when it comes to rights and obligations, to name but one area. What is also quite helpful is that we can count on Koppel to come up with suggestions as soon as they notice, say, that our cross-border wholesale volume has been expanding. We never have to draw their attention to this or that, because they’re way ahead of us. They are our strategic thinking sidekick … and one that digs deep.”

“Nico always tells us that it makes much more sense for him to be told in advance what our plans are so that he can anticipate, rather than his having to make all kinds of time-consuming tweaks afterwards. We meet up at least once a year to discuss Tea Bar’s figures for the year. We used to confine ourselves to discussing just that: the financials, but have found that the meetings have gradually moved towards our outlining our vision for the future and Koppel providing us with advice: what is it you are aiming for? What are your designated growth areas? Where can we help? You could say that the discussion of our figures for the year has turned into a strategy summit of sorts.”