From Bananas in Pyjamas to a serve of Hot Toast

When Sarah Lawrance found herself throwing up five times a day during pregnancy, she realised something had to give between her personal and professional life.

Since 2016, she had micro-managed all aspects of her accounting business Hot Toast, focused on “controlling everything” in pursuit of success.

“I was not one of those happy, glowy pregnant women,” she says. “I was not in a good place mentally.”

“It was the first time that I had no choice in working or not. I had to effectively let go of control, but for women especially that’s actually kind of hard.”

Letting go did not come naturally, but she believes that moment was a turning point in her business journey.

“That was the catalyst and we’ve been going strong since. It was a big lesson in getting over myself and trusting the people around me. I delegated to employees and nothing bad happened; they did some jobs better than I could.”

Indeed, what began as a solitary venture has now grown into a predominantly female team of 11 working remotely across the eastern states and in the Philippines. Hot Toast has become recognised for its bookkeeping, accounting technology and CFO services to creative businesses, advertising agencies and production companies.

Ms Lawrance attributes Hot Toast’s success to its unorthodox approach. She admits that Hot Toast is not your typical accounting firm and that she is not your typical accountant.

Although she was always a “numbers person”, studying accounting at the University of Newcastle and working in auditing, she made the switch to film and advertising companies to work in the “most interesting industry [she] could think of”.

Her credits include production accountant on children’s shows High Five and Bananas in Pyjamas, but one of her favourite jobs was working as a financial controller for Ewan McGregor’s television series Long Way Round.

“I was fresh out of Australia, I turned up on set and I was literally lost for words because Ewan was just so friendly … he came straight up to me and introduced himself, I was just gobsmacked,” she recalls when meeting the Hollywood star.

This experience in creative agencies is also what led to the Hot Toast name. With no apparent reference to accounting, it is a callback to the nonsensical company names ubiquitous in film and television.

“If you don’t get it, we don’t want you as our client,” she says. “There’s nothing deep or sentimental about the name, it represents who we are in that we don’t take ourselves too seriously.”

“You’re not going to make everybody happy at any given time. To hell with everyone else, to be completely honest.”

Ms Lawrance is “100 per cent certain” her approach has deterred potential clients, but she doesn’t mind.

“I’ve never toed the party line. I’m probably gonna come in, I’m probably gonna swear like a sailor, and I’m probably just gonna tell you what I f—ing think. I’ve been around long enough now that if a potential client sits in front of me, they know very quickly the value that I can add at a commercial level to their business,” she says.

Despite the success of her business, Ms Lawrance wants Hot Toast to stand for more than just numbers. As an example, she cites her pursuit of B Corp status from B Lab, a non-profit that certifies businesses that meet high standards for social, ethical and environmental performance.

She also mentions the availability of flexible work arrangements, informed by her own experience returning to work from maternity leave. “I want it to stand for something more … to give people opportunities.”

More broadly, Ms Lawrance wants to “make accounting sexy again”. Sitting on Xero and CPA Australia’s advisory committees, she says “it’s a real struggle to get people into this industry at the moment … in recent years people have taken their eye off accounting, and focus has gone off into data and finance instead”.

She believes accounting professionals can learn from creative fields.

“I’ve come from a very collaborative, innovative background in advertising and technology where everyone’s got a seat at the table,” she says.

“The next generation doesn’t want to sit there crunching numbers or doing boring stuff. We need to rebrand in a way that shows people the impact that you can have.”

She’s all about sharing knowledge and experiences too. “I tell people I meet: this is how I price, this is how I get clients, this is how I execute. It’s always been like that for me: community over competition.”

“I want to walk out of this industry and leave it in a better place than what it was like when I entered it.”