This Tuesday saw us on a jaunt from Glasgow to London for the much anticipated LUCA Awards hosted annually by the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers. The ‘Oscars’ of the bookkeeping world, the LUCAs are the biggest event in the bookkeeping and the awards themselves are the most highly prized.
We kicked the night off by being announced into the beautiful reception room at the historic Mansion House. After a glass or two of bubbly and some time catching up with friends and peers, we were ushered into the dining room for a three course dinner.
Dinner was followed by toasts and of course the awards ceremony itself. HRH Prince Michael of Kent was on hand to pass out the coveted statuettes of Luca Pacioli (the father of accounting and bookkeeping) to the winners.
It was clear to see the focus of this years’ awards (and this year in bookkeeping) has been cloud accounting and support software. Xero walked away with three awards and Receipt Bank with two.
We were shortlisted in two categories: Employed Bookkeeper of the year and Large Practice of the Year. Both highly contested categories with extremely strong competition. Tension was building in the room as the evening progressed and we lost out to Rahana Iqball-Raffell from Bookkeepers in Buckingham in the first category (congrats Rahana). When our next category was announced we certainly weren’t expecting to hear our name called out, so it took a good few seconds (and a nudge from our neighbours at the table) before the penny dropped and Michelle made her way to the stage to collect our award. We’re obviously over the moon to have won – especially with such strong competition.
Jennifer Warawa of Sage was awarded a special new (and much deserved) award for Thought Leader of the Year, most likely due to her rousing speech at this years’ ICB Summit. AccountingWEB, HMRC, Loud and Clear Accounting, R&R Accounting Services, Kaplan, Training Link and Ideal Schools and former student Terry Ramm also received awards on the night. A full list of winners can be found on the ICB website.
Following the awards we made our way to the Merchant bar to celebrate, LUCA in tow, and had a fabulous night with colleagues, friends and peers – many of whom had also been recognised.
As well as congratulating the winners we’d also like to offer our congratulations to all the other finalists, everyone thoroughly deserved to be there. And final thanks to the ICB team for their excellent organisation. We had a fantastic night and we hope those of you who were also in attendance did as well.
 
http://www.sbnn.co.uk/2016/12/08/ideal-schools-win-big-luca-awards/