A Seamless Transition to Working Remotely

Like most businesses in New Zealand, shifting to remote business operations was not without its stresses and challenges.  However, we have all been quietly impressed with how seamless the change has been for our team at Rural Accountants.

As soon as we were told that we were going into lockdown, the team worked together to make sure everyone was set up and supported through the relatively quick transition to working from home.

Everyone became comfortable with using Zoom meetings fairly quickly, and the addition of Tuesday night drinks added some fun to the working week too.

Managing director, Shannon Harnett, was especially impressed with the uptake of their remote office systems, “It has forced people who love paper to adapt to online platforms which would not have happened if we were still in the office.” 

“Personally, working from home has been great,” continues Shannon. “I’m spending more time with my family and my pets. I’m connecting with friends more often. I’m able to have time for myself to exercise and do some much needed cleaning/tidying. And I’m even getting to projects that I thought I’d never get to before!”

Aside from our wonderfully supportive team, we have some excellent online systems in place which have helped make this transition so smooth and successful, including:

  • Zoom - conference calling
  • Xero – accounting
  • Figured – farm accounting and forecasting
  • OneDrive – file management
  • Trello - project management.
  • Spotlight – non-farming reporting and forecasting

 

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What Our Customers Think

Great local Accountants. They provide an excellent service with great explanations for the layman. They provide accounting services for non rural clients too.

Quinn Wilson, Restaurant Owner, The Wagon
What Our Customers Think


Rural Accountants is a real asset to our business.

The team at Rural Accountants pretty much manage all our administrative tasks for the group including payroll and tax planning, ensuring we don’t pay any more than necessary. They are at the forefront of technology and have helped us get up and running with Xero and Figured which is much more efficient than the way we used to work.

Sam Jones, Managing Director, Sybton Farm Ltd Partnership
What Our Customers Think


Christine is very knowledgeable, great to deal with and knows our business well. She is also a sheep & beef farmer so knows the industry really well and understands our needs.

Rural Accountants keeps us on track through strategic and forward planning meetings throughout the year. Christine knows our business inside out so she can deal with our questions instantly.

Mathew & Gemma Barham, Hawke’s Bay Farmer of the Year 2012
What Our Customers Think

What Our Customers Think

I used to work out my GST and process it manually which would take me at least a full day every two months. The team set up reconcilliation rules and other quick tools, and showed me how to do all my reconcilliations and process my GST returns through Xero which now takes me no time at all!

Mike O'Neill, Financial Services Northland Ltd
What Our Customers Think


As a farmer, Christine understands our business and how farmers and growers operate.

We use Rural Accountants to provide a full accounting service to an orcharding partnership which operates a number of orchards with a wide spread of varieties and management systems. Rural Accountants are always timely and accurate, and their annual financial accounts are extremely easy to understand and very grower-friendly.

Paul Jones, Orchardist