By the Book: Dave Sellick, Sidgrove

Sidgrove’s Dave Sellick does accounting differently.

For one thing, his office is more reminiscent of the bridge on Star Trek than how you’d imagine the HQ of a financial professional.

But more than that, a conversation with Dave is overflowing with passion and a keen desire to do things differently.

At his finance consultancy and practice Sidgrove, Dave champions the power of tech to shake up the established order.

Even more than that, he’s all about using tech to solve problems for his scaling start-up clients.

Problems like expenses.

That’s how Pleo first caught his eye when he stumbled across an ad for our card on social media.

It resonated instantly.

“When I saw the advert, straight away I was like: This is the solution that I’ve been looking for.”

The pain points of traditional expense management were very familiar to Dave.

“Loads of admin, disengaged employees, disengaged people in finance – and it just took up a hell of a lot of time.”

Given Dave’s commitment to doing the right thing – something he references on his always-active LinkedIn page – it’s not a huge surprise he also connected with other aspects of the Pleo message.

“From the off, I was like: These guys aren’t just selling a product that I want… they’re talking about values and they’ve got an energy that I want to see in this space.”

“I believe [Pleo] is the most engaging fintech software that’s currently out in the space.”

Our user experience was also a big selling point for Dave, something that he says helps him sell it to his clients.

“You make the purchase on Pleo, it goes through to your phone. It’s ultra-intuitive, it’s beautiful.”

“Getting it reconciled is quick, it’s easy… straight into Xero.”

“Anything other than doing expenses via the Pleo way is just disproportionately inefficient.”

We love connecting with accounting partners who are as excited about Pleo as we are. Dave is definitely one of those.

Just as exciting is hearing how he pitches it to those businesses he works with.

So what does he tell them about Pleo?

“I know that you’re going to love it in six months’ time and if you get used to working this way, you’re going to have a better relationship with me and with finance in your business moving forward.”

Thanks Dave. We might have to steal that one.

Be sure to check out the rest of our By The Book series, profiling the accountants changing the industry.