About Baker Tilly Staples Rodway

What it does: Business advice and accountancy
Staff stats: Around 35,000 globally, over 450 in New Zealand
The good bits: Good work-life balance
The not so good bits: Dealing with demanding workloads 

Baker Tilly Staples Rodway, while a separate and independent national network, is part of Baker Tilly International. Baker Tilly International is an accountancy and business advisory network comprising nearly 800 offices in 145 territories that was founded in 1988. In 2018, the global network had a total combined fee income of US$3.5 billion (NZ$5.5 billion).   

In 1945 Frank Rodway teamed up with Charles Staples, rented a small office on Queen Street, Auckland, and launched the accounting firm Staples and Rodway (later shortened to Staples Rodway). Over the subsequent decades, the firm grew steadily and formed a national network with firms in Christchurch, Hamilton, Hawkes Bay, Taranaki, Tauranga and Wellington. The firm is best known to the general public for the Staples Tax Guide, which has proved an invaluable resource for many Kiwi business owners.

Staples Rodway has been part of the Baker Tilly International network since 1989 and rebranded as Baker Tilly Staples Rodway in 2019. It offers the following services:

• Audit, assurance and risk
• Business advisory 
• Business recovery 
• Corporate advisory 
• HR
• Information technology 
• Investment management 
• Marketing
• Specialist services
• Tax  

The firm seeks to provide “practical, responsive and business-focused services to a broad range of clients from start-ups to significant businesses across all industry types” and “operate in a lean and efficient manner to provide excellent value”.

Baker Tilly Staples Rodway employees are expected to leverage their “in-depth knowledge and connections across local, national and international markets” to help the firm’s clients get the most out of their businesses.

The culture

Baker Tilly Staples Rodway doesn’t have a local diversity and inclusion policy but adheres to Baker Tilly International’s one. Baker Tilly International recently joined ‘CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion’. This a “collection of business leaders committed to sharing successful diversity and inclusion initiatives”. After joining, Baker Tilly International decided it would focus on gender, ethnicity and age and pledged to do the following: 

• We will continue to make our workplaces trusting places to have complex and sometimes difficult conversations about diversity and inclusion.
• We will implement and expand unconscious bias education.
• We will share best - and unsuccessful - practices.

Social contribution

The Baker Tilly Staples Rodway’s community motto is “people pursuing passions” and the firm’s directors and staff are encouraged to pursue any passions they have for philanthropy. Many of the firm’s more senior staff sit on the boards of charities and community organisations and provide access to free or low-cost accounting services to these organisations. 

Staff at the firm’s offices take part in fundraising initiatives such as Pink Ribbon Day, Steptember and Movember. The firm also provides extensive financial support to a wide range of organisations  including CanTeen, Life Education Trust, Nurse Maude, Police Managers’ Guild Trust and is the official accounting partner of Tri NZ, which encourages New Zealanders to take part in triathlons.  

The recruitment process

Baker Tilly Staples Rodway offers a three-year grad program. This is designed for those with an accountancy degree (grads are supported to attain CA ANZ or CPA qualifications). Those with business and law qualifications can also apply. 

Whatever role they are applying for, the firm aspires to hire individuals who “ love what they do and who have a strong desire to succeed, but who also have some perspective on the bigger picture and leave room in their lives for the other things that matter to them”. 

The firm promises grad employees the following:  

• CAANZ or CPA fees paid and study leave/support
• One-on-one mentoring
• Internal and external training opportunities
• Direct client contact
• An international network
• Social events and sports teams
• Access to partners and directors
• Exposure to a variety of work 
• Fair productivity targets
• Constructive feedback
• Opportunity to work overseas
• An individual development plan

The firm also assures grads they will be treated as “a valued member of a close-knit team” and get to work directly with big-name clients such as Burger Fuel, Turners Automotive, Beca and Southern Pastures. 

Remuneration

Graduates move quickly through salary ranges in their first three years, while completing their professional qualifications.

Career prospects

Baker Tilly International champions a “culture of growth”. Among other things, this means providing challenging and rewarding career centred on life-long learning to staff. Baker Tilly Staples Rodway promises grads “great relationships, great conversations and great futures, setting you up for now, for tomorrow”.

Grads receive networking, team building and national training opportunities as well as ready access to partners and directors. The firm states, “The support our graduates receive really helps kick-starts their career – with the opportunity to move up through the ranks fast.”

The vibe of the place

Despite being the sixth largest firm in New Zealand, Baker Tilly Staples Rodway still has something of a family business feel. Its corporate culture is friendly and relatively egalitarian with staff at all levels regularly interacting during social events, sporting activities and fundraising drives. While staff are expected to work hard when required, there isn’t the hard-driving, long-hours culture that some professional services firms encourage. If all that sounds attractive to you, you’ll probably be a good fit at Baker Tilly Staples Rodway.  

Star Rating: Not available 

From the employer:

"Now, for tomorrow

We are one of the leading accounting networks in New Zealand, with Member Firms in Auckland, Waikato, Tauranga, Taranaki, Hawkes Bay, Wellington and Christchurch. Having people and contacts across Aotearoa is important to us, because it's important to our clients.

Not only are we New Zealand owned and operated, we are also an independent member of Baker Tilly International. Our international network has firms in 145 territories, so when travel is an option again, we can offer potential opportunities for secondments, as well as relationships which help open doors around the world.

We can't wait to talk to you about starting your story with Baker Tilly Staples Rodway. Our Member Firms offer so many opportunities for you to build a career pathway that suits you, whether you're looking for a role in Business Advisory, Audit or Tax, or simply to discover what it's like to work for an accounting and advisory firm. 

The best place to follow us is on the socials: Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram or check out our website.

Our recruitment process

* To apply for a role in our Auckland Firm, you will need to undertake some additional testing. Some firms call this psychometric testing. It's an online assessment which will take approximately an hour and helps us understand more about you.

What do we offer?

• CAANZ or CPA fees paid & study leave/support
• One-on-one mentoring
• Internal and external training opportunities
• Direct client contact
• International network
• Social events and sports teams
• Access to partners and directors
• Valued team member
• Exposure to a variety of work, not too specialised
• Fair productivity targets
• Constructive feedback
• Opportunity to work overseas
• Individual development plan

Your career path with us

Year 1

• Attend grad induction in Auckland
  • Meet other grads
  • make new friends and contacts
  • Soft-skills training
• Intro to CAANZ & CPA
• On the job training
• Grow cross-team network & connections

Years 2-3

• Attend national technical training
• Soft skills/ non-technical training
• Annual performance & salary review
• Aim to be CPA/CAACNZ qualified by end Y3 (depend on your own study timeline)

Years 3+

• Opportunities to advance your career
• Opportunities for local or international secondment
• Opportunities for specialise your skillset

Our Service Lines

Audit & Assurance

To be effective, assurance work demands a deep understanding of a client’s business, its goals and the market in which it operates. Our client base is very diverse and we use technology to enable a “paperless” audit approach. Our sophisticated evaluation and analytical tools help us to identify the risks and opportunities that our clients face.

As an Audit & Assurance Graduate you will learn to:

• Understand and identify audit risks, audit evidence, laws and regulations
• Prepare audit workpapers and develop an understanding of financial statements and audit opinions
• Develop an understanding of key accounting and auditing standards
• Develop knowledge of key audit software and systems
• Understand client’s businesses and industries

Business Advisory

Business Advisory Services works with a broad range of New Zealand and overseas businesses including some of this country’s most successful companies. As a graduate, you will have the ability to work closely with, and be mentored by, team members who have achieved some outstanding accomplishments throughout their own careers.

As a Business Advisory Graduate you will learn to:

• Understand clients’ businesses and industries
• Understand the accounts function of a business
• Develop a knowledge of professional standards, compliance and regulatory requirements, including professional ethics
• Draft financial reports, including financial statements and tax returns
• Develop knowledge of assessable income and deductible expenditure
• Prepare electronic workpapers, GST, FBT, RWT and PAYE returns and reconciliations
• Use key software i.e. Xero, APS, Microsoft Suite, in particular Excel

Tax

If you enjoy keeping up with the play and thinking creatively, the constantly changing world of tax may appeal to you. Most business owners appreciate the importance of controlling costs and welcome advice on ways to legitimately minimise their tax. Baker Tilly Staples Rodway are well known as tax specialists with an experienced team who are happy to assist new tax team members to develop their tax skills. Our reputation in tax can be traced back to the publication of the Staples Tax Guide, regarded as the ‘tax bible’, which was originally written by founder Charlie Staples and is now in its 80th edition.

As a Tax Graduate you will learn to:

• Prepare GST, FBT, NRWT, RWT and income tax returns and reconciliations
• Compile complete income tax returns, cross referenced to financial statements
• Develop an understanding of tax journals of each tax entity
• Develop knowledge of assessable income and deductible expenditure
• Develop an understanding of provisional tax regime, tax pooling and UOMI
• Understand clients businesses and the industries they operate in
• Liaise with Inland Revenue
• Undertake some research including reading legislation and tax commentary
• Use tax software"