Business Edge Advisors, Albury
Why we do this
A tax return tells you what already happened. Almost nobody starts a business to find out what already happened. We built this firm around the other conversation, the one about what is coming.
Nobody changes accountants over the tax
Sit in enough first meetings and you notice the same thing. The person across the table almost never left their last accountant because the numbers were wrong. The tax was usually fine.
They left because nobody rang. Because the invoice turned up without warning. Because the first time anyone mentioned the number was October, when the year had been over for months and there was nothing left to do about it. They were paying for an accountant and getting a historian.
You cannot fix that by working harder in October. You have to move the conversation to March, while there is still a quarter left to change the outcome. That is the whole idea, and most of how this firm is built follows from it.
How we got here
The firm opened in Albury in 1988, founded by Graham Fuller. It has been looking after border businesses ever since, which is long enough to have done the books for people who have now sold up and retired, and for their kids.
Clayton Wood took it over in 2013. What he inherited was a solid compliance practice with a good client base and a lot of loyalty in it. What it did not have was much of the forward-looking work.
In 2017 that changed properly, when Clayton and Celeste Peirce reshaped the practice around business development and education rather than lodgement alone. Free webinars, planning days, actual training for owners who had never been taught to read their own numbers. Some of it worked and some of it did not, and what survived is what we do now.
The name changed to Business Edge Advisors along the way, and the word advisors was the point of the exercise rather than a rebrand.
We put our money where our mouth is on the education
The training is not a marketing line. There are sixteen episodes of Business Edge Growth on our channel, free, covering the things owners actually get stuck on. This one is on cashflow, which is the problem underneath most of the others.
The whole series, plus our Xero sessions, is on our YouTube channel.
What we hold to
The price before the work
You get a quote before we start. No hourly meter running while you ask a question, and no invoice that arrives as a shock. If the job changes, we talk about it first.
March, not October
Tax planning happens while there is still time to act on it. Sitting down after 30 June to explain a number you can no longer change is not advice, it is reporting.
You leave with the notes
Most of our meetings are recorded, so you get a summary and a list of what happens next instead of a folder and a vague memory of what was said.
We say when it is not us
We are registered tax agents. We are not lawyers, lenders or licensed financial advisers, and pretending otherwise is how people get hurt. When it sits outside what we do, we say so and point you at someone good.
Small enough to know you, connected enough to matter
You will not be handed around. The person you meet is the person who knows your file, and you can get them on the phone. That is the advantage of a tight team, and we guard it deliberately.
What a tight team is not is isolated. Behind the six of us sits a network we have spent years building: lawyers, lenders, brokers, bookkeepers, specialists interstate, and where a client needs it, offshore. We are members of a national advisory community and we use it. When your question needs someone who does nothing else all day, we would rather make the introduction than have a go ourselves.
Locally, we are the ones you will see at the chamber events and sponsoring the sporting clubs. Nationally and further out, we know who to ring. Both of those matter, and neither is worth much without the other.
If you are looking for an accountant who is not only accomplished but also genuinely invested in supporting you to win in small business then look no further then the amazing team at Business Edge Advisors.
Recognised locally and nationally
Three wins, two highly commended, four finalist placings
We do not enter awards for the trophy. The applications force us to write down what we actually did and whether it worked, which is a useful thing to be made to do once a year. Sometimes the judges agree.
The one Clayton is quietest about is Outstanding Business Leader. He was a finalist in 2023 and came back and won it in 2024.
Winner
Excellence in Small Business
Albury Wodonga Business Awards
Winner
Outstanding Business Leader
Albury Wodonga Business Awards, awarded to Clayton Wood
Highly Commended
Excellence in Commercial, Professional and Business Services
Albury Wodonga Business Awards
Highly Commended
Excellence in Small Business
Murray Riverina Regional Business Awards
Winner
NSW Regional Small Business of the Year
The state level award, judged across every industry in regional New South Wales
Finalist
Outstanding Business in Professional, Financial and Business Services
Albury Wodonga Business Awards
Finalist
Outstanding Business Leader
Albury Wodonga Business Awards, Clayton Wood
Finalist
Outstanding Employer, Employer of Choice
Albury Wodonga Business Awards
Finalist
Regional and Suburban Firm of the Year
Australian Accounting Awards, the national program
Winner
New Practice of the Year
Australian Accounting Awards, the national program’s inaugural year. Won under the firm’s former trading name
Who we are good for
Owners. Trade businesses mostly, roofers and sparkies and builders and transport operators, plus the family businesses and farms that have been with the firm for decades. Sole traders who are about to become companies. People with staff, or about to have them.
We also do individual returns, and we are glad to. A lot of our best business clients started as a tradesman who came in for a return, went out on his own two years later, and needed someone who already knew the story.
Where we are less useful is if all you want is the cheapest possible lodgement and no conversation. That is a legitimate thing to want. It is just not what this firm is set up to do well, and you would be paying for something you do not intend to use.
Come and have a look at us
A first conversation costs nothing and commits you to nothing. Bring last year’s return if you have it, or bring nothing at all.
Level 1, 561 Olive Street, Albury NSW 2640. Monday to Friday, 8:30am to 5:00pm. Registered Tax Agent 20651000.