The brand strapline of Fortus Business Advisors and Accountants is ‘Where knowledge, strength and courage deliver on ambition’.
With a strong company culture, and a dedicated and talented team, Fortus is sure that vision is a reality and the firm’s built a proven track record for delivering support and advice to ambitious business owners and their businesses.
The recent winner of the Professional Services Award at the Northamptonshire Business Excellence Awards, Fortus combines deep roots in accountancy, tax and business recovery with a people-focused passion to take the business to the next level as an outstanding multi-disciplinary team of advisors and accountants.
Drawing from its own owner-managed business story, and having entrepreneurial business owners as clients, ensures the team understands and delivers a client-focused business model.
Fortus has invested in broadening its service line offering and now has dedicated in-house service lines that include Accounts and Outsourcing, Tax Compliance, Audit and Assurance, Company Secretarial, Corporate Finance, HR, Innovation Reliefs, International Services, Payroll, Property, Service Charge, Tax Advisory, and VAT.
Along with Service Line Heads the firm has Sector Heads who are responsible for driving the strategy for specific key sectors including Construction and the Built Environment, Creative Industries, Sport and Entertainment, Academies and Education, and Not-For-Profit and Charities.
Stephen Watts, Midlands Managing Director, said:
“The fact is, our offering goes way beyond accountancy and tax services, because we know business ownership can be complex, demanding and encompass so much more than this. From the beginning, we challenged the traditional thought processes of a historical accountancy partner to bring a much more holistic business offering to individuals, SMEs and larger organisations.
“We believe that by developing new sector plays, based on passion and deep industry experience (including non-accountants), Fortus brings a new level of ‘advisory’ to the professional services industry. Our service line interaction with our market segments, overlaid with experience, has provided us with a faster route to sustainable growth and overall, an improved client experience.”
Behind these dedicated service lines is a growing team of talented individuals bringing a breadth of expertise that clients can benefit from. Fortus works with numerous training providers to ensure the training needs and desires of the team are met from both a technical and softer skills perspective.
Since 2020, in order to meet rising client demand, the number of employees has grown by 35% in the Midlands, and 30 apprentices have been taken on across all service lines and locations.
Stephen added:
“We continue to invest in and be proud of our Apprenticeship Programme, something we set up in our Northampton office seven years ago. Many of the original cohort are in senior positions now and continue to develop themselves within the business.”
Fortus’s inclusive people strategy is continually developing; encompassing fair and competitive pay, a healthcare and an Employee Assistance Programme, as well as other benefits and incentives including agile working and extensive training opportunities. The business currently enjoys a 4.4/5 star rating on Glassdoor from current and former employees, and has its own elected employee board, made up of future leaders who represent the interests of the wider team.
The Fortus team are a sociable bunch and place considerable value on their employed brand, which includes recognition of the teams’ achievements across social media channels. One such example being the ForUs Values Awards, an initiative with the sole purpose of acknowledging individuals across the business who ‘live and breathe’ one or more of the company’s core values of: distinctive, inclusive, valuable and courageous.
Chris Dell, Head of Brand & Culture, said:
“While it might be a cliché, our people are our business and we keep this at the forefront of all key business decisions we make. We’re big on culture and we want to have fun where we work and who we work with. We strive to be open and transparent as a business. All of our Senior Leadership Team work in the open-plan office and are all approachable. As a business, we also share business updates each quarter which also presents a great opportunity for the regional offices to get together in person.
“There’s an immense level of pride and respect in the Fortus brand too, as can be seen from the content the teams share socially. Our Brand Champions at Fortus not only ignite our ambition and help support our brand journey, they also have the opportunity to further their professional development and raise their profile, internally and externally with the business’s full support. Importantly, we empower our team to go the extra mile to deliver that client experience. The outcome is two-fold – clients are left feeling more than satisfied and our people feel proud, valued and motivated.”
Find out more about Fortus Business Advisors and Accountants or on 0330 818 1762. The Northampton office is situated at 1 Rushmills, Northampton, NN4 7YB
