Sophie McDonald

Lucent advisory is leading the way in revolutionising the current Accounting and HR landscape. Passionate about Small-to-Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), we impact the lives of our business owners every day by providing outsourced Accounting, CFO and HR solutions that allow our clients to build the life and business of their dreams. Founded by the idealist, Rachael Turner, lucent advisory was created from her frustration with the “reactive approach” that accounting firms took with their clients. “Our clients [from mid-tier-accounting firm Rachael worked at prior to lucent] had headaches from archaic systems and processes, were working long hours and not spending time with their families, were stressed about upcoming bills and tax debt and deadlines, and had no insight or foresight into their business (clients would rely on their bank balance as an indicator of how they were performing) – they needed support. How could we help when we only met with our clients at the end of the financial year to prepare their tax return?”. By providing a completely outsourced Accounting, Bookkeeping, CFO & Tax solution to SMEs as well as being a firm that drives automation and the use of cloud based software such as Xero (proudly Xero’s very first Gold Partner!), lucent are positioned to take a proactive approach to Accounting and Advisory to add value to our clients – shining the light on everything business. For the next eight-years, lucent grew its legs and really took off running; leading the market in the outsourced accounting and the cloud-based software space… until Rachael put her visionary cap back on and decided she could no longer ignore the synergies between accounting and business owner’s number one asset – their Human Resources. “Over the years, I witnessed clients face problems recruiting and retaining talent, clients struggling with team morale and productivity, and even some facing lawsuits for unfair dismissal.” Rachael begun working side-by-side a like-minded Justine Pepper - a regarded HR advisor who at the time, owned her own successful business. Like Rachael, Justine is extremely passionate about technology and innovation, and above all else, an advocate for automation so that business owners can invest their time more wisely in strategic advice such as organisational culture and growth. The merge of these two businesses and services, was a perfect fit and happened soon after - Justine notes: “I am in the business of people, Rachael is in the business of numbers. Put the two together and we have a recipe designed to radically improve performance and productivity, breed happier employees and ultimately ensure our clients can enjoy their best business”. Both Justine and Rachael are lucky enough to do what they both love doing – managing and leading a fantastic team on Greenhill Road in Parkside, Adelaide, where they exercise their passion to impart their wealth of knowledge and skills on to their team, other business owners and managers. We can’t wait to see what comes next when these two decide to put the visionary cap back on…