From agriculture to accounting: Elaine McKilligan CA
By CA magazine
7 December 2023
Elaine McKilligan CA hails from an agricultural family, but had an early ambition to be an accountant. Now with her own practice and two farms, she is combining both – and thriving, writes Ryan Herman
Back in the late 1990s, ICAS introduced a new route to becoming a CA via the Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT). This meant aspiring CAs could begin paid training straight from school. One of the first to benefit from this more flexible approach was Elaine McKilligan CA.
“I wanted to be an accountant from when I was at primary school – it was a seed sown by a teacher that grew over the years,” Elaine recalls. “I specifically wanted to go down that ICAS route because my dad, a farmer, never said he was off to see the accountant – it was always ‘I’m off to see the CA’. So if I was going to pursue that career I had to be a CA – and the AAT route allowed me to go straight from school into the profession.”
Some 25 years later, she runs Elaine Financial, which has been on an upward trajectory since it was founded in autumn 2020. Being her own boss was also a long-term objective for Elaine, having spent 14 years at Johnston Carmichael. “I didn’t want to be lining somebody else’s pockets forever,” she says. “I was also craving flexibility because I had a young family – my daughters were almost one and four.”
It was, however, a spur-of-the-moment decision to go solo, partly brought on by the pandemic, which allowed Elaine to start the business with lower running costs. “Everybody was working from home,” she says. “So I didn’t have that pressure of having to find office premises or anything like that. I simply started off from a spare room in the house that was already kitted out as an office anyway.”
Risk taker
Elaine already had prior experience of taking on a far riskier proposition and making it work when she and her husband Graeme bought Coxton, a 135-acre working farm, back in 2009.
“It was both daunting and exciting,” she recalls. “We took on a mountain of debt. I was only 26 at the time and we were also having to hold down full-time jobs. There would be times when you start to question yourself whether you’ve done the right thing. We knew it would take time to see any sort of return on our investment but we learned so much from the experience.”
Elaine adds: “I was born into a farming family, as was my husband. But both the family farms were quite small. Neither of us was encouraged into farming by our parents either and we would always be told, ‘No, go and find another job – you’ll be much better off.’
“Yes, if you want an easy, nine-to-five life, to have every evening or weekend free, you’re certainly not going to go down the farming route. But farming is in our blood. That means I totally appreciate the practical realities and the challenges of farming, but also the opportunities as well.
“I know the difference between breeds, ages of livestock, grazing seasons and the difference between a ewe and a gimmer, and that’s where an accountant without a farming background can struggle. And, of course, there are lots of tax rules to consider.”
McKilligan Financial has also benefited by starting from scratch: “My eyes were well and truly opened in the summer of 2020 when I looked into how we could use tech and become a wholly digital practice. The only paper we have is my notepad.
“I attended the ICAS Digital Practice Conference earlier this year. That made me realise we’ve got a head start on other firms who have been around longer when it comes to going digital. It is much easier to start with a blank sheet of paper than trying to change existing systems.”
Both the firm and the farm are now thriving. “We bought a second farm in 2019,” says Elaine. “So we’ve expanded livestock numbers considerably over the past 14 years.
“The practice is currently a team of six, but we have team member number seven starting in February. We’ve grown a hell of a lot since we started and want to continue growing. But only in a way that means we’re delivering both the right level of service for our clients and in a way that works for the whole team here as well.”
