Our Team

Jane Ascroft

Jane is a Chartered Accountant with over 17 years’ experience of working with small businesses and charities in north east England. She has overall responsibility for the quality of all work delivered by the business and for managing the team. Her work is varied but she most enjoys advising on financial strategy and preparing forecasts and budgets to assist with that.

Qualifications include a MA in Mathematics from Cambridge University (1994); Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (1999); Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (2009); Diploma in Charity Finance and Accountancy from London South Bank University (2010); ICAEW Women In Leadership (2018);

Jane lives near Barnard Castle with her husband, 7 year old daughter, dog and hens. She is Treasurer of the Pinnacle Club, a national rock climbing club for women. Her hobbies include fell running, mountain biking and rock climbing.

Emma Singh

Emma is a highly efficient bookkeeper with a demonstrated history of working across business, non-profit and charity sectors. She is skilled in Quickbooks, Xero, Pinnacle and other accounting software.

Emma is qualified with a Diploma at AAT Level 3 and is currently working towards AAT Level 4 professional diploma. She has worked with Jane since 2017 and they have a great working relationship which allows them to take on new clients and quickly turn around problem accounts. She enjoys sorting out messy accounts where things have been posted wrong so she can unpick it all and get it back to where it should be.

Emma lives in Darlington with her husband and two children and is very family orientated. If she does get any free time she reads as a good bit of escapism!

James Lynn

James is Jane’s husband and performs many useful roles in the business including collecting and returning records for clients, attending stocktakes and cash counts and consultancy on charity law and governance.

James has had many years managerial experience working in the engineering sector and holds an MBA from Durham University. James has held company secretarial positions, charitable company directorships and charity trusteeships in local County Durham based charities and is currently a governor of a local primary school. James is a qualified charity independent examiner. His hobbies are outdoor activities and railway modelling.

Julian Haynes

Julian has been working for Jane since 2017 and currently does bookkeeping and VAT return work as well as end of year accounts production. He is an AAT student member and having completed his AAT Level 3 Advanced Diploma in Accounting he is now in the later stages of the AAT Level 4 Professional Diploma in Accounting. Julian enjoys the challenge of taking a set of accounts from a pile of papers to end company accounts and identifying incorrect elements as well as presenting accounts in an understandable fashion.

Julian lives in Weardale and for many years has been the treasurer at a few local charities undertaking all accounts function including payroll, end of year accounts production and fund accounting. He is actively involved in running the local swimming pool, church and community transport and is also a school governor. Outside work, study and running charities, he plays badminton and walks when time allows.

Lisa Hutchinson

Lisa has worked for Jane for 10 years. She is a qualified affiliate member of the ACCA and a fellowship member of the AAT, with a licence to practice accountancy under the AAT. She specialises in Sage Accounts, Quickbooks and Excel however is trained and capable on most software packages.

Lisa carries out in bookkeeping, payroll and company accounts work and specialises in the Construction Industry Scheme. She enjoys book keeping and payroll for businesses and seeing how well they are doing and being involved on a week by week or month by month basis.

Lisa lives near Crook. Out of work she’s a hands on mum, then she likes crafting, making cards and small projects but with that professional touch.