Article by Alice Armitage Photography by Indiana Chataway

When it comes to accounting, you don’t often consider there is an unlikely course to charter but Melissa Gray has managed to find one. Leading her to forge a progressive take on the role an accountant can play for a farming or agricultual enterprise.

Melissa Gray was never very interested in following the traditional path and from the earliest of days in her career she chose to take the unconventional route. As a freshly qualified accountant Melissa had the chance to take the traditional corporate route, having been offered an investment banking role with Macquarie Bank. Melissa wasn’t interested in giving up the lifestyle she loved to move to the big city, so instead she chose a role with a small suburban accounting firm. While this particular life choice is perceived to be far less glamorous than the alternative, it set the stage for the impressive career Melissa has had and laid the foundation for the kind of trusted advisor Melissa has become.

After learning the ropes working in a traditional accounting environment, Melissa ventured out on her own and started working successfully with her own clients at just twenty five but a desire to work with clients in the agricultural industry led Melissa to take a punt on a new job out west. Seeing her move to Goondiwindi in Queensland’s South East to take a job in a local accounting firm. A punt that seemingly worked well for Melissa as she worked with that firm for five and a half years. With exposure to some of the largest and most complex agricultural businesses in Australia, Goondiwindi was the perfect environment for Melissa to dive into the industry she was so determined to work in.

It was in Goondiwindi that Melissa really cut her teeth working with farming businesses and it’s where she started to truly understand the impact that an accountant can have on an agricultural operation. “I like being able to go out and spend time with clients, to see their properties and how they’re run. My time in Goondiwindi gave me a real appreciation of working with farmers particularly. I prefer working with people in the agricultural industry because they’re more communicable, friendly and more relatable.”

During her time in Goondiwindi, Melissa also saw a trend emerge across her client base that solidified her drive to continue working with farming and agricultural clients long after she left Goondiwindi. “Farming clients, agricultural clients, are more inclined to work with you to improve their business, more inclined to work collaboratively with their bank, which creates a working relationship that makes you feel like a real team. That’s when the best advisory and the best business development can take place. As an accountant you see all the ups and downs, you work with them through drought and floods, you learn about their hopes for the future, their succession planning and you become part of the family.”

In most instances agricultural clients also offer a unique accounting dynamic that allows for a more strategic and considered approach to their financial management that Melissa is drawn to. Working with big, high-value transactions that are often of a much lower quantity than a business in any other industry, less time needs to be spent tending to the day to day management of accounts and more time can be spent working on the longer term strategic elements and objectives. High turnover, high expenses and high potential earnings also allows for small strategic changes from an accountant that can translate into high value for a businesses overall accounting spend. In an arena where an accountant’s fees are nominal in comparison to the annual chemical bill, quality accounting and financial planning support can easily see significant return on investment for clients.

The desire to work with more clients in this way led Melissa to start Black Horse Advisory, a boutique accounting and financial advisory firm with a special interest in working with farming and agricultural businesses for the long term. Where most firms focus on managing all aspects of compliance such as the bookkeeping, BAS and tax planning, Melissa prefers to enable her clients to be involved in the compliance process as much as possible, allowing her clients to deeply understand their own financial position, empowering them to take control of their financial understanding. And when the day to day tasks such as payroll and tax returns are in hand, time is carved out to work on the longer term objective of the business which is particularly important in an industry prone to seasonal fluctuations and when you’re often dealing with multi- generational operations.

“Advisory work means you’ve got to know your client, without that you can’t possibly know enough to give them good advice about what they should be doing and you have to make time to know your client,” Melissa explains. “You can’t charge someone to get to know them. You can help a client far more by actually genuinely listening to them, and then you will still make money from that client, from that relationship. But you need to put in the work first for it becomes a real working relationship that both enjoy.”

Melissa shared the perfect example of how this philosophy translates to real value for clients. Speaking with a client one day about their plans for the Christmas holidays, Melissa learnt that two kids from this farming family had made the decision to move home to the farm. Without taking the time to ask her client about the small parts of their lives she never would have known that little piece of information. Melissa took that nugget and translated it into two first-time working grants, meaning this family could pay their kids a proper wage and have some financial support through such a transitional time for them.

When asked what sets her apart from others, Melissa had a very simple and genuine answer. “This is going to sound really obvious, but I genuinely care. I don’t have a huge business and I don’t want a huge business. I work with a handful of clients who want to help themselves and I take the time to understand them, their business, what they’re trying to achieve and it allows me the opportunity to offer them alternate ways of looking at things. A lot of my clients like the collaborative approach I take, we work out the answers together and step through the process of achieving their goals together.”

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