India has the third-largest ecosystem for startups with over 1 crore small businesses. A study conducted by Google in collaboration with KPMG found that 85 percent of small businesses fail within the first five years and the most common reason is lack of financial resources. Small business owners often don’t understand cash flow or underestimate how much money they will need to get the business started. As a result, they are forced to close before they’ve had a fair chance to succeed. They also may have an unrealistic expectation of incoming revenues from sales. Moreover, not having proper systems and processes in the business, small business owners are constantly facing burnout and have no time to focus on scaling their business. Poor financial knowledge coupled with a lot of business responsibilities, small business owners struggle to scale their business and make it a success. Upon seeing this gap, Sonia Dawar founded Dawar & Co.

Sonia chose to go into business for herself after working for large accounting firms and a Swiss bank for five years and auditing several of the greatest brokerage houses, banks, and asset management organizations of the world while working in India and overseas. She was able to notice the difference in the quality of service offered by the big management consulting firmsto big corporates versus services received by small businesses from smaller firms. With over 65 million small businesses which form the backbone of Indian economy contributing 27 percent to the national GDP and exports, Sonia chose to provide services to small businesses and start-ups that aspired to achieve greater success. Engaging in an exclusive interaction with the Women Entrepreneur magazine, Sonia spoke about her entrepreneurial journey so far

What motivated you to foray into the field of accounting?

I grew up in Tier-II city in central India in Indore, and as a child, I always envisioned being able to live independently and support myself financially. Growing up, I was involved in a lot of money decisions taken by my grandmother and my dad. I was really fascinated with how my grandmother was managing money and ensuring there was enough for everything and everyone. Being good in analytical thinking and good with Maths in school, my uncle – Sunil Jain, who also serves as my mentor, encouraged me to pursue a career as a Chartered Accountant. And it has turned out to be an exciting professional journey for over 15 years now and counting. I passed the CA examination at an early age of 22 and was quickly approached by several prestigious firms with employment offers. I decided to join PwC and relocated to Mumbai in 2007, where I began my career in the field of business and finance.

What inspired you to establish Dawar & Co.? Give us a brief overview of Dawar & Co.

I set up Dawar & Co. in 2012 as a bridge between big management consulting firms who were providing services to big national and multi-national corporates in India and small firms providing services to small businesses, specializing in accounting and taxation for SMEs.

Having worked with some of the world's most prominent financial institutions in my corporate career where the systems are processes are already in place, we focused on providing better systems and technologies to small businesses early on. I focused on adopting cloud accounting platforms to provide better accounting and better reports to small businesses so that they can take better financial decisions for their business. Taxation is another area where many small businesses can save cost and build wealth. We provide tax advisory services to small businesses;be it direct taxation like optimising employee tax structures or indirect taxes like adoption of GST for an e-commerce business.

Having an online presence, we could leverage to provide services to clients not only based in Mumbai but pan India and even countries like Singapore, Dubai, UK and US. Over the last 10 years, we added partners to focus on other areas like taxation, transfer pricing, business valuation, finance and CFO advisory services and expanded to locations like Noida, Pune and Indore.

Dawar & Co. is now focused on becoming an enabler to help small businesses adopt new technologies to digitize their business to help India grow into a $5 Trillion economy.

Tell us about the various roles and responsibilities you shoulder as the partner at Dawar& Co. What are your primary focus areas in your current role?

At Dawar & Co., I focus on Taxation and audit, the areas in which I specialized professionally. However, we at Dawar & Co., are united as a team which comprises of Chartered Accountants, Company Secretaries, CFA, FRM, Valuation professionals, post-graduates, interns etc. We have other partners handling responsibilities like finance, transfer pricing, and so on. To put it in another way, we play a role in offering a one-stop-shop for all things related to taxes as well as accounting and business consulting for small enterprises. With an emphasis on technology, e-commerce, and the media/ entertainment sectors, we are well-versed in all of these fields. As the founder of the firm,  I’dfocus all my attention to constantly improve in the two most important aspect of service delivery – Employee experience and Client experience. It is my job to ensure that our employees are happy and always learning and growing within the firm so that they can then concentrate on providing the best possible service experience to our customers. In addition, I focus to constantly evolve our processes to improve our customer service delivery and financial education to our clients so that our clients can fully comprehend the complexities of finance and tax.

What are some of the most pressing challenges that you encounter as an accounting professional? How do you successfully mitigate these challenges?

One of the biggest challenges I have come across working with many small business owners especially women entrepreneurs is the lack of financial education in understanding accounting.

“Accounting is the language of business”- Warren Buffet.

Money is not the topic we are being taught in school nor have we discussed money freely while growing up at home. With education, one can learn how to earn money but many business owners don’t know how to manage their monies. Poor financial education, lack of right knowledge and a risk to ask a question for sounding silly has led to many small business owners face the issue of cash management in their business.

This results in not knowing which area to focus on to scale the business or to reduce the costs. We, at  Dawar & Co., realise this issue and we are working in fore front to save small business owners from losing their businesses. We launched 'Profit to Wealth Accelerator' a membership community for females and small business owners where every month they learn about a financial topic related to their business so that they can increase their revenue, reduce costs and taxes and maximise their wealth.

The membership platform also works as a no-judgement place where small business owners can ask their questions freely without having a fear of judgement and get support from experts. As a part of continuous education, we regularly provide updates on changes in taxation through our YouTube and Instagram channel.

In your opinion what are some of the most significant milestones that you have achieved throughout your professional journey? What has been the driving force behind your success as a business leader?

With accounting and taxation being my passion, I have successfully designed tax structures for various businesses to save them crores of rupees in taxes legally. Having years of experience in auditing gave me the eye to attention to detail and look for things in fine-prints. This gives me an edge to analyse the tax provisions and take advantage of the tax loop holes for our clients to save taxes. Having the trust of our clients with business analysis and tax support gives them financial peace that their business and money is safe with their trusted advisor and I feel it is my most significant milestone.

Leading a firm of the future, I always promote a culture of learning and sharing amongst us. We believe to educate, enable and empower a diverse talent pool which results in a group or team which can bring radical change.

How do you foresee the Indian accounting and auditing landscape evolving shortly? What steps do you take to keep yourself aligned with these evolutions?

The change in accounting landscape is rapid and driven largely by lightning-fast advances in technology. In many ways, the pandemic has accelerated that adoption. For example, wider adoption of cloud-based accounting software, as well as a move toward automation and artificial intelligence. As a leader, Iembrace technology, analyzing data, the need to automate the workflows and communicate effectively with clients. I am solely focused on embracing new technology so that we can serve all of our customers with a streamlined, highly tailored solution. Maintaining a state of constant education is essential if we have to stay ahead of the curve and remain relevant.

“As a leader, i feel that now is the moment to collaborate and come up with a solution that would make the client's life a little simpler”

Drawing from your experience as an experienced business leader, what would your advice be to young women and girls who also aspire to become business leaders and entrepreneurs in the future?

I think we live in privileged times, and I say this because we don’t face the same prejudices in terms of gender bias or indifferences as those of our previous generations or even as per that of our seniors for that matter. Women are getting more and more educated and earning more than ever. However, we still have a long way to go and I believe we can live in an equitable world if we become more and more financially independent.

Never stop learning and exploring your own gifts. Once you have identified your interests, make best efforts to enhance and develop your skills. Let your passion drive you. Whether it comes to building better career or building your wealth, remember 'hard work is the short cut'. Never be afraid to accept your mistakes and always be confident and humble to correct and learn from them. Believe in yourself first before others can believe in you. Be aware and agile, keep upgrading your skills and knowledge. Become financially independent. Learn to drive, travel alone, travel far, have an opinion, accept compliments, never compare, take part in financial decisions. You deserve a seat at the table – your perspective matters. Create the table if you need to.

Sonia Dawar, Partner, Dawar & Co

Having earned her CA certification in 2006, Sonia has a wealth of professional experience to draw upon. Compliance Reviews and Financial Due Diligence Reviews are some of the areas in which she specializes. Before launching Dawar& Co., Sonia worked for prestigious accounting companies such as Price Waterhouse, Credit Suisse Services, and S. R. Batliboi& Co. (EY).