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Tasnim Mustafa started his finance career in the public sector at the National Audit Office. In 2012, he founded Barnes & Scott, a London-based accounting firm specialising in servicing clients in the technology sector.
During our chat, Tasnim shared how he launched his practice as a side hustle and has since grown it to employ over 14 team members who work fully remotely.
Servicing London’s Burgeoning Technology Sector
Nick Levine: Can you give me an overview of Barnes & Scott and how you stand out in the market?
Tasnim Mustafa: We are a traditional accounting firm, but we work in a very tech-focused environment, and our main focus is working with tech startups. We were one of the first chartered accounting firms to specialise solely in tech. We work mainly with companies in London who are pre-revenue through to exit. I decided to start the business because I could see a demand for an accounting and tax advisory firm that could better serve this [technology] niche.
Nick Levine: What are your core services?
Tasnim Mustafa: There are two sides of the business, but we act as one integrated service. There is the compliance work, consisting of regular accounting, bookkeeping, VAT, payroll, etc. The other side of the business is tax advice. This is more complex and strategic, and can add a lot of value to a fast-growing startup.
Starting Barnes & Scott as a Side Hustle
Nick Levine: You started Barnes & Scott as a side hustle while you were working your full-time finance job. What advice would you have for others who may be seeking to do the same?
Tasnim Mustafa: I had no experience working in an accounting practice. Doing so would have probably been the sensible thing to do before I started out on my own. However, I took a shortcut and started my practice by working with friends and family, and people from my own network. It’s important to get some experience in those crucial early days!
Nick Levine: How were you able to hold down your day job and grow Barnes & Scott at the same time?
Tasnin Mustafa: I started off learning, trialling, and testing [Barnes & Scott] on friends and family while keeping my nine-to-five job—it involved a lot of late nights and working weekends. I did get my employer’s permission to set up the business and was transparent with both them and my clients from the outset, which I think is very important.
Nick Levine: How did that conversation go?
Tasnim Mustafa: My employer said yes, but they gave me very strict conditions. I was allowed to spend a certain number of hours per month working on Barnes & Scott. After twelve months, things were getting busy, so I left that employment to work at a company that allowed me to work part-time, whilst continuing to grow the business. Eighteen months after that, I went full-time at Barnes & Scott.
Running a Fully Remote Accounting Firm
Nick Levine: You started running a fully remote business well over a decade ago, prior to this trend catching on after Covid. What tips do you have for others who may be looking to do something similar?
Tasnim Mustafa: You have to be careful in recruitment. I tend to pick people who are experienced. We learned quickly that you can’t really pick juniors in a fully remote organisation. And you have to employ people who are outgoing and have a life outside of work, as opportunities for social events at work are very limited in a remote-first company.
Nick Levine: How do you interview for this?
Tasmin Mustafa: You have to gauge it. Asking about outside interests is on the list of things we ask for. You have to use judgment on whether [interviewees] are people who don’t have any outside interests or hobbies, as this creates a risk of them going down a rabbit hole of only doing work and never leaving the house.
Nick Levine: One of the benefits of remote working is widening the talent pool, often across different geographies. This can create issues around time zones. How do you set company policy around this?
Tasnim Mustafa: We prefer that the team not contact clients outside of UK business hours. Internally, Slack [which we use across the firm] has a filter that turns off notifications at night. Anyway, we don’t expect people to be always on and allow people to work comfortably within their own time zone. Generally, there is at least some part of the working day that will overlap. We send a lot of Loom videos and voice notes to each other, too.
Automating Client Payroll
Nick Levine: To grow the firm and support a tech-focused client base, you’ve had to embrace automation. Can you give me an example of a client project where you introduced new automation processes to boost efficiency?
Tasnim Mustafa: We have a longstanding client who is an online pharmacy that is experiencing high levels of growth. They have a team of around 60 people. Until last month, the director was paying each staff member himself manually, which took him several hours. He also had to make payments on payday, which sometimes fell on weekends.
Nick Levine: Going to the company’s online banking provider and paying staff members individually?
Tasmin Mustafa: Yes. We suggested a tool that would automate [payroll payments], and obviously, there is a cost implication, but he jumped on it. We switched over, and it was a relatively quick and easy implementation.
Nick Levine: How does this work in practice?
Tasnim Mustafa: We use the [payroll] software to send the pay run through to the client to click approve and pay, which then makes the payments using open banking. All of the employees’ bank details are saved in the system, and a future pay date can be set to ensure everyone is paid on time. This saves the director a couple of hours a month and increases the speed and accuracy of his payment process. He’s now considering rolling out the software for the wider accounts payable function of the business, which should save a further few hours each month.
Getting Your House in Order from Day One
Nick Levine: You help startups at every stage of their journey, from pre-seed funding through to exit. What are your top tips for getting investment-ready, as well as sale-ready?
Tasnim Mustafa: The answer from my perspective is the same for both ends of the journey. You have to be absolutely water-tight on all of your paperwork, ensuring that key decisions, like issuing shares or options, are documented properly.
Nick Levine: Why is this so critical?
Tasnin Mustafa: Potential acquirers and investors look at paperwork from day one, and they often find instances where founders transferred shares to each other without taking proper advice or documenting the transaction. This will often come up during a fundraising event or exit scenarios, when it is harder and more costly to resolve.
If you’ve enjoyed Tasnim’s journey of growing his side hustle into a thriving technology-focused accounting firm, check out the other posts in our Next Gen Finance Leaders series.
