The saga of WCL Storage Systems and Condy Mathias – A decade of flourishing partnerships in the Cornish Kingdom
WCL Storage Systems, founded in 2011, fit out warehouses that hold a range of storage equipment such as mezzanines, pallet racking, shelving, and partitions. Its ever-growing client base comes from a variety of sectors including retail and healthcare.
The company, which is based in Cornwall, predominantly cater to multi-branch businesses in the southwest of England and has found itself going from strength to strength in recent years.
Condy Mathias was involved with WCL Storage Systems from the outset when founder Craig Haggie incorporated the business into a limited company.
“We started off by doing all our accounts on a spreadsheet, which was an absolute nightmare,” says Craig Haggie Jr., who joined his father’s business in 2012. “I worked with Donna at the time. She helped me understand and get to grips with the accounts which was really helpful as the spreadsheets we were dealing with were quite daunting.
“As time has passed, Condy Mathias has introduced us to new accounting software and helped us move along with the times.”
As well as introducing WCL to modern accounting methods, Condy Mathias has been pivotal in transforming their day-to-day accounting processes.
“I used to do bits like pensions and payroll, even bookkeeping in the early days,” says Craig. “But come the end of the year, there was a lot of reworking to do. There is so much value in having Condy Mathias do this and checking everything monthly to make sure it is right, which it always is now thanks to them.”
Due to the nature of the services WCL provide, Construction Industry Scheme (CIS) tax is something Craig and his team have to carefully navigate, a problem Condy Mathias is particularly useful at assisting with.
“They do all our CIS returns,” says Craig. “When we might miss that something is a CIS job, they pick it up for us and highlight anything that doesn’t seem to be entered correctly.
“This makes our lives so much easier than having to do five amendments to tax returns from a year ago. They’re here for all our queries. Any questions we have, they come back to us, usually on the same day, with an answer.
“They’re always available to talk to on the phone, they are brilliant at rapidly responding to any quick queries we might have, and if it’s something more complex then they’ll go away and get us evidence to solve the problem.”
WCL Storage Systems have enjoyed much growth since 2011, and Condy Mathias has played an important part in ensuring that their growth has not only continued but has also been sustainable.
“As turnover has gone up, when we hit the movement from cash accounting over to accrual accounting, they’ve identified all these needs for us,” says Craig.
“It’s the volume of stuff as well, which is just the number of transactions as the turnover has gone up. So as the number of transactions increased, we’ve hired additional staff. We’ve grown from four staff at the beginning to 12 now. We continually need Condy Mathias more and more.
“They don’t push their services on us. They identify when they can see that we have a need for them.”
The relationship between WCL Storage Systems and Condy Mathias now spans over a decade, one of the main reasons for this enduring partnership is the trust placed in Condy Mathias.
“We have complete trust in them,” says Craig. “We’ve worked with a couple of their bookkeepers who have developed their careers over the time we’ve been with them, and our account manager is fantastic.
“You know that they understand your business. They’re not coming at it from a point of ‘well, what do you do?’ They know already. Right up to the top partners, we’ve got full trust in all of them.”
Craig’s support of Condy Mathias has led him to recommend other businesses to use their services.
“Condy Mathias is based in Tavistock and Plymouth,” he says, “and that is a big catchment area for a lot of our clients, so we’re always recommending clients to use them. I’d highly recommend them, which is why we’ve been with them for so long.”
Peering into the future, Craig believes that the relationship with Condy Mathias will continue in the manner it has done for the past decade.
“There have been occasions, as you’d expect in any relationship where I’ve thought, the grass must be greener somewhere else,” says Craig. “Surely, we can get this cheaper. But no, I can’t imagine going anywhere. I know they’re looking after us, I know they care. So yeah, we wouldn’t consider moving away from them.
“It is a real joy to deal with Condy Mathias. You can just pick up a phone or email them and they’ll get back to you relatively quickly and be there for you.”
