Go Fi8ure are mobile bookkeepers. They educate business owners and offer a financial warrant of fitness for our prized Wellington firms. Jane Lawrence sat down with the managing director to discuss why they’re the superheroes of the accounting world and reveals where she puts her pennies… PHOTOGRAPHY BY CLIVE PIGOTT

Capital Questions with Lisa Martin

-DSC_2979Go Fi8ure gets in and takes care of the grunty num­ber-crunch­ing, enabling busi­nesses to earn more money doing what they do best. With 25 years of fin­an­cial and account­ing exper­i­ence behind her, Lisa Mar­tin and her Cuba Street com­pany could be just what you’re look­ing for.

For a decent cuppa… Dix­on Street Deli does really nice Supreme cof­fee, as do the boys on the corner at Mem­ph­is Belle. I wouldn’t trek for ages in search of a cof­fee, so I’m lucky to have those places on my doorstep.

When I dine out… it’s usu­ally only on Cuba Street or Cour­tenay Place. Wherever it is, it’ll have to be steak. I totally love steak. I’ve always been a fan of Logan Brown and, inter­est­ingly enough, the Fly­ing Burrito Broth­ers right across the road.

My idea of cul­ture is… com­edy. I’ll head to things like Chop­per and 7 Days when they have shows down­stairs at the Opera House. I love Broad­way pro­duc­tions; I wish we had more of that here.

My most mem­or­able moments on the job… are assist­ing busi­nesses that have been defrauded. Often, they feel totally viol­ated after hav­ing someone in a pos­i­tion of trust take advant­age of them, so we help them rebuild and show them that not every­one is awful. It’s not exactly pos­it­ive, but it still sur­prises me how low people can go. There are some really good people out there and some really bad people. If you’ve had a bad time, we can help.

Go Fi8ure is inspired by… Rod Drury and Richard Branson.

Every­one who is in busi­ness needs… someone who knows what they’re doing with money and accounts. You must have sound people and money man­age­ment, a strategy and the abil­ity to execute these things, oth­er­wise all you’ve done is build your­self a job. It doesn’t need to cost a bomb, but it will if you do it poorly for years.

Lots of people think… they’ll save them­selves some money and do it all them­selves. But did they go into busi­ness to be a book­keep­er? No, they’re prob­ably a really good archi­tect or pho­to­graph­er. It’s just a game, learn the rules. Let’s play it! It doesn’t need to cost a lot — let’s do it right from the start.