A couple of years ago, I was asked by a business coach to write down my values. I thought to myself “oh that’s easy!”, but it was harder than I expected. He had some tools and suggestions to make it easier and after a few alterations, I settled on the ones below. The cool part was that when I did the same exercise with my team, we all had overlapping values. We didn’t share all of them, but there was definitely a theme going on.

Why Knowing Your Values Is Important

What this taught me is the importance of sharing the same values in life. Have you ever been in a situation or (work)relation where you keep running into the same “issues” or where you just can’t get your point across? For me, I very often can trace this back to a misalignment of values. Now, don’t get me wrong, I also believe that we all bring our own uniqueness to the table. If we were all exactly the same, there wouldn’t be room to grow, there would be fewer ‘aha moments’ and less looking at problems from a different angle.  Having the same values doesn’t mean that you are the same.

The definition of value:

1. the regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth or usefulness of something

2. a person’s principles or standards of behaviour; one’s judgement of what is important in life

How we use our Values at Day2Day Books

One of the easy parts of values is that you don’t really have to think about them too much in your day-to-day life. It’s just something that you do. Identifying them is the hardest part but once you have them you’re like “right, that’s me!”. How we use them at Day2Day Books is when we build new relationships with new team members. It’s important that they know who we are and what we value. If they feel aligned with our values, we know we are set for success!

Teamwork

“At Day2Day Books we believe in ‘we’ and ‘us’ – together we are able to do so much more! This relates to us as a team where we strive to communicate well, learn, ask questions and help each other do the best job possible. It also reflects on how we work together with our clients. We expect our clients to do the same and see us as part of their team.“

One characteristic bookkeepers tend to have in common is that they are introverts. They like their numbers, the paperwork (aka chaos) and they love ‘hiding’ behind their laptop and solving problems from their desks. And although we believe in authority, ownership, and we appreciate the process of learning, sometimes asking for help is the way to go. We know that there are other skilled and knowledgeable team members available to help find a solution or who can take over a project because something else took longer than expected or when you have to leave work early for personal reasons.

Especially with a hybrid team, this can be a challenge as we don’t always ‘see’ each other. At Day2Day Books, we have multiple tools like Google Chat, Asana and Teams or Zoom at our fingertips to accommodate this.

Passion

“When you are excited about something, you are usually better at it and you are more likely to enjoy what you are doing, and go the extra nine yards. Our team loves number crunching, organizing paperwork and we ensure you feel comfortable with your books.”

We are pretty nerdy when it comes to our profession and you can tell by how we do our job. We are detail-oriented and like to dive into it all! We are passionate about our profession and continue to educate ourselves regarding the latest technology and legislation. But that’s not all, we also share our passion for the mountains and outdoor activities. During team meetings, we often chat about which hikes we have done, mountains we climbed or bike trails we’ve ridden.

Balance

“As real beancounters we love to balance the books, but that’s not all! We love the right balance between being professional and cracking jokes. We don’t mind putting long days in when deadlines need to be met and taking time off during less busy times. We switch between working from the office to working from home. All to find the right balance that works for us and our clients.”

I think we all struggle with balance from time to time, but the biggest lesson I learned is as long as it balances out over time. Maybe this is within 24hrs, maybe this is within a week or a month or even a year. The people who know me a bit better know I have family in the Netherlands and in Australia. Both locations aren’t easy to visit and usually mean a trip of multiple weeks. This means that sometimes I have to work more to make that happen. I also believe that you’re the only one who can decide what balance is good for you. On our team, we have people who combine multiple jobs and some like to have more time for their families. The most important part is you are happy with it!

Honesty

“Open and honest communication is important to maintain good relationships, both between staff and clients. Being able to say that you don’t understand something, that you haven’t done something before or made a mistake and own it is hugely important. Besides this, we know we are all human beings and that sometimes we have a bad day, or things happen in our personal lives that affect how we show up. That’s ok and sharing this will help us all understand.”

This one seems a bit “overkill” – of course, we all have to be honest! As bookkeepers who are part of a professional association (CPB) we have a code of ethics to comply with. But it’s not that kind of honesty I am talking about, although I do value that honesty as well. I’m talking about the kind of honesty where you feel safe and secure to share your personal goals and expectations.

I’m goal-oriented, driven, flexible, from time to time impatient and always eager to learn new things. But back to where I started, we can’t all be the same. Not everybody has big personal ambitions, or maybe you want to work at Day2Day Books to make another passion come through! Please share this with me as I love to support you however I can.

What To Do Next

To truly ‘get’ all of this, having worked in the accounting industry beforehand, helps a lot. If this all sounds good to you and you’re interested in learning more about the jobs we offer, please reach out to Marloes directly or via hiring@day2daybooks.com!