Moore celebrates 25 years of business in South Australia
The South Australian branch of Moore has celebrated its 25th anniversary, originally opening its doors in Adelaide under the Hayes Knight banner at the dawn of the new millennium.
Established by current managing director Grant Miles and director Tim Sargent on the 1st April 2000, the small suburban accountancy turned out to be no joke, today boasting more than 100 staff members between its now central offices in Adelaide and Darwin.
Looming large over the launch of the new business however was the impending introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), the biggest overhaul of Australia’s tax system in the country’s modern history, which had been passed into legislation less than one year prior.
Ultimately, the fledgling company would turn the arrival of the GST to its long-term advantage, not just by supporting clients with meeting their new compliance obligations but in convincing them to adopt new tools and providing training, in a move the firm says consequently paved the way for real-time data analysis.
“Businesses had to shift from annual to quarterly or even monthly reporting, and manual accounting just wasn’t going to cut it anymore,” Miles reflects, adding of the technological evolution; “It meant we could sit down with clients every month, look at the live data, and talk about how to run their businesses better.”
Noting that the world had only just survived the millennium bug, Moore’s SA/NT origin story is a neat starting point and encapsulation of the accounting and advisory firm’s now 25-year journey, setting the foundations for what it says still drives its success today; genuine relationships, built on regular engagement and meaningful insights.
Growth story
Since its early days, the firm has steadily grown to more than a dozen directors and associate directors in South Australia and the Northern Territory (including recent additions Natasia Capaldo and Jackie Slarks), adding new services and industry practices along the way while building its professional headcount beyond the 100-mark.
Perhaps the firm's biggest turning point however came in 2016, when a series of splits and rapid consolidation reshaped the Australian accounting and consulting landscape to this day. In short, several state defections (including what is now SW in Melbourne) saw the Australian arm of international network Moore Stephens scrambling to save its local business.
Amid the chaos, the firm’s SA branch broke apart, with its business advisory division picked up by Bentleys and its assurance team jumping ship to Pitcher Partners, the Australian affiliate of rival global network Baker Tilly. Seeking to plug the gap, Moore Stephens managed to get Hayes Knight’s SA and NT practices on board, with the merger notably taking effect on the 1st of April, 2016.
Speaking as to the decision to align with a bigger network, Miles says; “We asked the question, how can we better serve our growing clients, and wanted to be part of a brand and a network that could match their ambitions. We saw that mid-market businesses needed more than just annual compliance; they needed a partner for their own journey.”
Moore in Australia
In line with the international network’s efforts toward greater unification, the local branch of Moore Stephens would ultimately rebrand to Moore Australia in mid-2020, once again during one of the most tumultuous periods in the country’s advisory sector history – or, more accurately, one of the most tumultuous in every industry in every country worldwide.
In response to the onset of the global pandemic, Moore’s leadership team made two key decisions, they would shield their staff and continue to support clients; “We suspended director dividends to protect cash flow, and not one person lost their job or saw a pay cut,” Miles says. “When our people were facing the greatest crisis in a generation, we wanted to remove as much pressure as possible.”
The firm also froze price increases and suspended fees altogether for clients in a few high-risk sectors (among its specialities are food services, retail, tourism & hospitality, and transport & logistics, all severely impacted by the global disruption). Miles; “We didn’t lose a single client to administration during Covid-19, and that’s something I’m incredibly proud of.”
Global network
Today, Moore Australia (SA/NT) is part of a global network generating collective revenues in excess of $5 billion, up last year by 13 percent, placing it on the periphery of the world’s top ten largest organisations of its kind, not too far behind the likes of Crowe, Baker Tilly, Nexia, and the recently-formed Forvis-Mazars.
Moore’s Aussie wing however is placed a bit further back in the local pecking order. While also growing on par with the global entity over its previous financial period to crack the $100 million revenue mark (with SA/NT contributing upwards of $15 million to that figure), Moore Australia sits just inside the Australian top twenty.
Still, like its mid-tier competitors, Moore Australia is banking on a mix of culture-building, closer cross-border collaboration with its global network, and technological innovation to propel the firm into its future, in what is shaping up to be another era of disruption defined by the proliferation of AI and automation.
The accounting world has radically transformed in the past 25 years, the firm says, but technology is only one part of the story; “The shift to live financial data has helped us educate clients, not just on what their numbers are, but what those numbers mean for decision-making. It’s allowed us to start playing a different, but much more effective role in their growth journeys,” Miles says.
He concludes; “Our connection to the broader Moore family is key. It’s how we keep learning, growing, and delivering the kind of service our clients need in an interconnected world. We’ve never seen ourselves as just accountants. From the start, we built this firm to be more connected – with our clients, our people, and the communities we serve.”
