RUGBY mates Rob Ward and Rene Pavlides are forging a new kind of teamwork after setting up a business together.

The pair created “ledgrr” to help business owners understand their profitability and cash flow and “give them the freedom to get back to what they love doing instead of worrying about the books”.

Rene said: “We help businesses grow.”

The Argus: Rob Ward and Rene Pavlides playing rugby

He and Rob met while playing for Hove Rugby Club as youngsters – they are still members.

Rene, 28, was born in Cyprus but, like Rob, who is 32, he grew up in Brighton and both live in the city.

They studied to be chartered accountants and ended up working at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) together.

Rene said: “A business wasn’t always top of our agenda together because we were team mates and friends but it sort of ended up happening as we were both in the same field and had the same ideas for how things could work better in the industry.

“We’ve been going for six months and are based out of Brighton, but we are cloud-based so we cover the UK – although we always have a soft spot for the local business we work with.”

The Argus: Rob Ward and Rene Pavlides

They launched during the pandemic but this has not been a problem.

Rene said: “Being cloud-based means that we don’t have an office or other costs we’d still have to pay.

“Because we actually launched during the pandemic, it’s been a big focus for us to try and help people adapt the way they think about their accounting and finance.

“The importance of having real-time financial information for decision making is more evident than ever and having that ‘live-or-die’ cash flow forecast, being able to see what cash you will need for the next few months to survive, and where that will come from has been a really important exercise we’ve done with a lot of our customers.

“We are not just ‘an accountant’ who you see once a year, we’re a fully functioning cloud-based finance team who will become part of your business to work together.

“We essentially have a three pronged approach: We make sure your compliance, ie all your taxes and filings, are perfect so you never miss a deadline; we provide advice and give you real-time information to make sure you can always make optimal strategic decisions and we use our technology and experience to help you scale.”

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At PwC Rene, 28, and Rob, 32, were working on some of the biggest companies in the UK.

Rene said: “We saw that these guys really had a lot of things right in the processes that they had, but there was definitely something missing in terms of that relationship between the business and the accountants.

“We also saw that small and medium businesses weren’t being provided with the same level of service that large companies are, and our aim is to fix that – while using some cool technology along the way.

“Our plans are to keep growing and helping as many businesses across the UK as we can.

“It’s been such a hard 12 months or so for so many businesses and we really believe that accountants have a role to play here, to help people out of a tough time financially.”

Their website is https://ledgrr.co.uk/