Introducing The Valley Swim School
Kate is the founder of Valley Swim School in Christchurch, a growing business that reached a point where its old accounting setup simply wasn’t keeping up anymore.
As the business became more structured and more complex, Kate realised she needed more than just basic accounting software.
“One of the biggest reasons I chose Afirmo was that it includes the accountant. All my GST returns, income tax returns, and everything like that is included. It’s like a bundle deal.”
Before switching, Kate found that traditional accounting software required her to manage multiple tools and also pay for a separate accountant on the side. The setup felt fragmented and time-consuming.
With Afirmo, everything is handled in one place.
“The automatic tax returns and GST returns make life so easy. It gets done for me, and I just get sent the amount I need to pay. That’s all I have to do.”
A smooth transition
Moving systems can often be stressful, but Kate’s experience transitioning to Afirmo was straightforward and fully supported.
“My transition from my previous accounting system to Afirmo was very, very easy. They were very supportive setting me up, and any questions I had were answered within minutes.”
That support was especially important as Valley Swim School was incorporating and moving into a more formal business structure.
“Incorporating and becoming more of a business structure was probably the biggest reason I moved to Afirmo. My previous system just no longer worked for me.”
Simple, automated tax
For Kate, one of the biggest wins has been how easy GST and income tax returns are inside Afirmo.
“The GST return and income tax return process is really easy, especially the GST. All I have to do is make sure my expenses are connected and matched, and it just does it for me.”
Instead of dreading tax time, everything is prepared in the background throughout the year.
Everything in one place
Afirmo has become the central hub for running Valley Swim School’s finances.
“Afirmo is basically everything all in one. All my invoicing, all my bank transactions, everything. I just log in and sort it all out really quickly.”
The biggest time saver?
“The bank transaction matching feature is the biggest thing. It saves me money and saves me time.”
Local support that understands NZ businesses
Being a New Zealand business, Kate also values having a local support team that understands the NZ tax system and responds quickly.
“The New Zealand support is right there. Emails get responded to almost immediately, and they really understand small businesses here.”
Final advice
Kate’s advice to other business owners who are thinking about improving their systems is simple:
“Just jump into it. You never know what will happen.”
For Valley Swim School, switching to Afirmo meant less stress, less admin, and more time focusing on growing the business – with the confidence that tax and compliance are taken care of.