Sunderland accountant treats her team to trip of a lifetime

Small business owner Lorraine Ellison was flying high after scooping a top award'“ and thought her staff deserved to as well.
Lorraine Ellison (second left) and the Simply Additions team in the USA.Lorraine Ellison (second left) and the Simply Additions team in the USA.
Lorraine Ellison (second left) and the Simply Additions team in the USA.

Lorriane, who runs Wearside accountants Simply Additions, flew her team more than 5,000 miles to celebrate their success.

The company, based at the Evolve Business Centre in Rainton Bridge, were runners-up in accountancy software giants QuickBooks’ global Firm Of The Future competition and awarded a $2,500 prize in the final held in London.

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But instead of doing what most accountants would do – tot up the money – Lorraine decided to splash the cash by treating Simply Additions’ four-strong team to a trip to QuickBooks’ enormous annual international conference at their headquarters in California.

“We love QuickBooks online and we have become ambassadors for it – adopting it as our main bookkeeping software and promoting it across the North East – it’s simple to use but very clever,” she said.

“We entered their Firm of the Future competition which was looking to highlight companies that made the best use of their technological innovations and were thrilled to be among 15 runners-up globally – not bad for a small company operating from Houghton.

“After the awards ceremony in London, we’d enjoyed the experience so much, I thought it would show a real passion for the product if we used the prize money to go to this big conference and look to learn as much as we could.

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“We combined business with pleasure, but it was great for us as a company, and QuickBooks made us really welcome, even though they struggled to get their heads around the four of us having made our way there under our own steam from Rainton Bridge.”

The four-day trip saw Lorraine along with Chartered Certified Accountant Helen Adamson, accounting technician Alison Giblin and QuickBooks co-ordinator Lynn Baker taking part in conferences, workshops and seminars alongside sight-seeing trips and meeting guest speaker Tyra Banks

“It may have been a bit of a madcap idea on the face of it, but it really got us noticed by QuickBooks and helped promote the business,” said Lorraine.

“Accountants sometimes have a reputation for being boring. but San Jose was anything but dull – and we came back with plenty of new business ideas for our clients.”