Old Mill’s accountants top the score board once again

Old Mill is celebrating for the second year running after one of its young farm accountants topped the leader board in his chartered exam.

Philip Kirkpatrick, who joined the farm accounts team in 2008, scored the highest mark in the South West region for his Business Change paper, qualifying him as a chartered accountant. He follows in the footsteps of Dan Knight and Venetia Morris, who topped the scoreboards in their business exams last year.

“We are absolutely delighted with Philip’s success, and are proud to have such exceptional young members on our growing team of rural accountants,” said associate director Andrew Vickery. “Old Mill places great importance in training staff to the highest professional standards – but we also value our team’s passion and experience in agriculture. Many of our 50-strong farm accounts team have a farming background, which helps them to fully understand the needs of our rural clients.”

Mr Kirkpatrick is no exception: Brought up on a mixed family farm near Yeovil he has always had an interest in farming. “Unfortunately my father sold the farm 10 years ago, so instead of pursuing a practical farming career I decided to go into agricultural accounting.” After studying for a degree in Maths atExeterUniversity, he joined Old Mill in 2007 to begin his professional training.

“I love working at Old Mill – I started at the Yeovil office and then moved to theExeterteam. Agricultural accounting is a very broad area, so there is always something different to tackle. But you can also delve into very specialist aspects – it’s great to be able to forge a career like this while still working with the farming community.”

For more information contact Alan Stone on 01749 335032.