Steaks with Mo Qadar

Proudest moment?

Running a restaurant has its highs and lows. I would say out of all the events that have happened, my proudest moment was cutting the ribbon on the opening day of our restaurant and seeing a long queue of customers lining up at our door!

Challenges along the way?

I think for me it was the cash flow and the fitout. Dealing with the fitout was stressful and seemed like we were constantly encountering issues. Setting aside money for VAT, upcoming liabilities, Corporation Tax etc. was something that also worried me.

How did Valentis help?

To be honest more than being an accountant and just doing our accounts, Valentis played the key role of a Financial Controller very well. They had the difficult conversations for us with project managers, builders, and the landlord. They scrutinised the numbers and each invoice we received. £100K into the project and I realised how important it was to have someone on your team to have these conversations about budgets, costs, and timing.

They also helped immensely with organising our cash flow. They did this by drawing up cash flow projections and giving simple advice such as opening sub-accounts to store our VAT/Corporation tax funds to better manage our liabilities.

I believe it’s imperative that you speak to an accountant if you’re thinking about franchising, initial agreements, leases, fit-out costs, accounting systems, ROI and an exit strategy are just some of key things that you would need advice on. A specialist in the field saves you so much money and time along the way.