Peter Runacres FCA ACMA Cert PFS

After qualifying aged 21 I spent 15 years in industry working for a number of household names, helping to introduce computers into their accounting departments. Armed with my experiences I decided to return to the profession, setting up my own accountancy practice. Using the very first IBM desktop computer I offered computerized bookkeeping, accountancy and audit services. This grew into Thornton Springer LLP, a professional firm of Chartered Accountants and Business Advisers based in South East London. Thornton Springer LLP now has over 30 years experience in providing quality, value for money and excellent customer service. We provide expert financial, tax and business advice to private clients, businesses and business owners, whatever the size and complexity.

In the course of our work with corporate customers I became aware of an increasing requirement for goods and services to be accompanied by foreign language versions of documentation for legal, regulatory and sales purposes. However, there were several recurrent problems. The first was that companies did not identify translation as a cost centre and hence were unable to negotiate on the basis of total cost. They simply did not know what they spent. The second was the difficulty of assessing the reliability and effectiveness of the products and services on offer. The third was the difficulty in comparing prices and verifying claims for payment. It goes without saying that if we cannot speak the language we cannot determine if the service supplied is “fit for purpose”. In a sense if we do not speak the language we are “flying blind”.

As we examined the translation industry in more detail things became further confused. Some of the most basic elements of business seemed to be missing. This major industry with an annual global turnover in excess of US$10 billion charges by the word but cannot agree on a standard way of counting the number of words in a document! Unlike pretty well all other measuring devices, governments the world over seem to have ignored the need to certify the word count features of software.

A holiday in Argentina and a chance encounter with the owner of one of the very few purpose built ISO 9001:2008 certified translation facilities I have ever encountered started me thinking. During a visit to the facility my experience of auditing literally hundreds of companies convinced me that what I saw demonstrated that accountability really is possible in the translation industry. This persuaded me to become part of the solution. I created Goodshelter Translations Ltd and entered into an agreement to act as the exclusive representative in the EU of the Argentine company Linguistic Services SA.