REACHING 30 years in business is the impressive achievement made on Thursday by Wingham Accounting Services led by owner and accountant, Warwick Gooch.
After many years of looking after people’s tax and money, Warwick says his business is not just a job to him.
“Because I’m a small practice we have a lot of clients, so it’s the social aspect I like. I enjoy seeing people year to year,” he said.
When Warwick was in high school his careers advisor said he was either suited to being a school teacher or an accountant. Knowing there was the potential to make more money in accounting, he chose that path. He worked for an employer for 10 years before moving to Wingham to set up his own practice.
He enjoys working in a rural environment and thinks he could never return to the bustle of Sydney.
When he first moved to the country, onto a property he has an itch to run cattle and have geese and partridge. However, this urge soon died out when it was realised how much work was involved outside his own business.
Warwick has experienced the beauty of the area having lived at Burrell Creek, Kimbriki, and Oxley Island. He now resides at Black Head.
Thirty years on, Warwick reflects on the many changes he was seen both in the industry and the town in which he has grown his business.
“There were no such things as computers, and now you couldn’t run a practice without one. Even the calculators are much different now,” he said.
The tax laws back then were far less complicated and a tax return would take five minutes to fill out on paper. But if you made one mistake, it would need to be started again from scratch.
The business started out with Warwick, another accountant and a receptionist book keeper. He now employs 10 people from the local community.
The team celebrated the milestone with a long lunch, and due to the wet weather, look forward to their postponed game of golf.
Warwick plans to stay in the business in the years to come and aims to retire when his youngest son is starting university.
He has an 83-year-old employee who he says is “still firing on all cylinders.”
Outside of work he enjoys spending time with his family, who live active lives playing golf, tennis, tenpin bowling and water
skiing on Sundays.
Warwick says Wingham definitely deserves the label of the friendly town. He remembers walking down the street in his first days in Wingham and people greeting him as went by.
“It’s natural in Wingham to say g’day, the town lives up to its name, the friendly town,” he said.
He is also pleased that the town’s heritage is being embraced and are people restoring the buildings to their original glory.
Warwick’s next goal is to see the businesses to its 40th birthday, but hopes to be in the throws of retirement before the 50th.
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