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Whanganui Accounting Firm understands the multiple bottom line.

21st Jun 2021, by Amotai

Silks Audit Chartered Accountants

Talia Tiori Anderson -Town (Ngā Wairiki, Ngāti Apa, Ngā Rauru, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi, Ngāti Kahungungu, Ngāti Maru, Te iwi Mōrehu) says that when she moved to Palmerston North for university, it was like going to the big smoke.

Talia grew up in the little smoke. Rātana’s a tight-knit community which is more than a just small town. It is a ground-breaking Māori religious and political movement. The locality was the farm of Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana, the founder of the Rātana Church and it continues as the centre of the Rātana Church today.

It’s a place Talia maintains strong ties with, from serving her community through board work at Whanganui District Health, to sponsoring the under 8’s rugby team. Talia and her husband, Cameron Town, are the proud owners of Silks Audit and Chartered Accountants in nearby Whanganui.

Silks is a town fixture founded in 1904 by Edwin Martell Silks. The National Library holds a cartoon of Silk; he’s a dapper man wearing a waistcoat, smoking a pipe, and holding a snooker cue.

The Local Factor

The business is embedded in its community, the legacy of more than a century serving the people of Whanganui and beyond. When others folded or fled to the major centres, Silks remained.

“Many firms have merged, and older chartered accountants are retiring,” Talia says. “A lot of the work has been picked up by Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, so for us to continue the firm and continue to offer opportunities to auditors and chartered accountants who want to remain in Whanganui is important to us.”

That doesn’t mean Silks offers its services only to the locals.

“Being regionally based, we have a low-cost structure, but many of our clients are using cloud-based accounting systems, so no matter where they operate, no matter where their head office is, we can still carry out their audit.”

Talia is proud that Silks is the only regional practice to hold a Financial Markets Authority licence.

“Everyone else is either in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, Hamilton or Tauranga,” she explains. “It means that despite being in a regional town, we can still do the highest level of audits and our staff have every opportunity to work on clients of very high quality, get experience, and still live in Whanganui.”

The Competitive Advantage

In 2010, because of the global financial crisis, Cameron made the courageous decision to focus the business on auditing, dissolving the advisory part of the company.

“There was a lot of legislation being enacted around financial markets, accountability, and independence of auditors, so Cameron decided to focus on audits,” says Talia. Taking this direction helped Silks move from strength to strength, thriving in a time when accounting practices were under scrutiny because of the financial collapse.

As an audit specialist, Silks reviews clients’ financial statements, across industries stretching from large corporates to small community and charity groups – many of which are Māori businesses and organisations. Silks boasts 26 staff, small for a business in Auckland and Wellington, but significant for a Māori business in Whanganui.

“We employ graduates,” Talia notes. “We offer an intern programme for students that gives us access to graduates, and we try to recruit or promote internally. The people who become managers have usually always worked for us; it’s very rare that we appoint from outside.”

Talia knows this first-hand. She joined Silks after graduating from Massey University in 2005, and in under a decade, she was running the place.

Talia’s story is exceptional, but this husband-and-wife team have designed the business to pursue excellence and encourage more Māori to follow a career in financial services.

“We're always trying to get Māori into audit,” she says. “It's probably an area that doesn't have many Māori pursuing a career but there are lots of Māori clients out there.

“It's all about creating opportunities, and we offer a pathway for graduates to go all the way to potentially being a director or audit partner like I did.”

Silks, Te Ao Māori And Te Tiriti

Talia is determined that Silks embraces the principles of te ao Māori.

“I came into auditing to learn the craft,” she says, “but once I got the opportunity to lead the firm, that was my chance to bring te ao Māori into the business.”

The company’s commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi is evident; from its day-to-day practice, to the values proudly displayed on Silks’ website: kāwanatanga, tino rangatiratanga and ōritetanga. Silks is committed to clients retaining mana motuhake over their finances. In practice, this ensures Silks’ clients are considered partners with a common goal to retain access, governance, and rights over their own financial assets, including control over what they want to disclose in their financial statements.

“As auditors we must comply with financial reporting standards,” says Talia, “but there’s also an opportunity for clients to express themselves outside those standards. A lot of the iwi we audit put together a booklet that has financial information but also what they’re trying to achieve: the benefits, the aspirations and everything that encompasses the Treaty, and we encourage them to tell their story. It’s important because for Māori especially, it’s not just about money, it’s about the outcomes. It’s good to express those because the financials don’t always do justice to what people are trying to achieve.”

Talia has simple advice for others who want Kaupapa Māori and tikanga to be part of their businesses.

“Be true to yourself,” she says. “Don’t do it because you think it’s going to get you more clients or you’re trying to be deemed culturally welcoming. People know when you’re being authentic, so do what you want to do. That’s what you'll be most passionate about.”