Smart50 rank: 25
Revenue: $1.52 million
Growth: 48.64%
Founders: Adrian Raftery, 36
Based: New South Wales
Employees: 8
Industry: Finance and insurance
Website: www.1800taxman.com.au
When Adrian Raftery, 36, finished working as an options trader in 1999, a contact asked him what he was going to do.
"I flippantly said that I would travel around Australia and then probably setup my own accountancy practice," Raferty says. The next day he got a phone call from them saying "We are your first customer" and almost by default, he was in business.
"I started providing work for them the following day and still haven't had the chance to travel around Australia."
ARW's niche is providing accounting services for financial services companies. The company's revenue has grown at an average annual rate of 48.64% over the past two years, reaching $1.5 million in 2007-08. It was $940,000 last year. The company is based in Sydney but has offices in Granville, Campbelltown, Cairns and a part time presence in Melbourne.
A key element of the company success has been the acquisition of the phone number 1800 TAXMAN. "This created a competitive advantage over our competitors with an easy to remember phone number. By combining this smart number with a 24 hour call centre we provided a service greater than any other competitor in the market place."
The next goal for ARW is to build its network office to 12 within the next 18 months.
"We would like to be positioned within five years as one of the top 30 accountancy firms (in terms of fee turnover) in Australia."
