# Penelope Allard

Penelope Allard provides bookkeeping and finance guidance to ambitious business owners through Wild Bookkeeping Ltd. Her posts describe using business numbers to help owners assess growth, profitability, hiring and risk.

- Profile: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/creators/penelope-allard/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/penelope-allard-ficb-pm-dip-the-wild-bookkeeper
- LinkedIn followers: 5,618
- Topics: artificial-intelligence, responsible-ai, bookkeeping
- Based on 11 dated posts, latest 2026-10-09

## Summary

Useful for explaining responsible AI use and how business numbers guide growth, hiring and risk.

- Best for: Accounting software brands seeking responsible AI thought leadership for practitioners and owners.
- Not for: Payments or lending brands needing short promotional posts with tracked links and incentives.
- Check first: Request LinkedIn analytics on job function, seniority, location and post engagement.

### Takeaways

- Bookkeeping should help run a better business, not just produce a correct tax bill.
- Scan receipts even when software only sends totals, to preserve evidence and context.
- Adopt AI one feature at a time and count its environmental footprint.

## Main ideas

- **The point of bookkeeping is a better-run business, not just a correct tax bill**: Allard argues that getting the tax bill right matters, but it is not the purpose of bookkeeping. The goal is to understand the business through its numbers and the story they tell, reading between the lines for trends, risks and opportunities. The questions they pose are operational rather than compliance-led: who to hire, whether a product or service line is profitable, which clients to take on, and why growth has stalled.
- **Scan receipts anyway, even when the software only sends totals**: Allard addresses a question business owners genuinely ask: is coding everything from a bank statement enough? For a cost to be tax-deductible, it must be wholly and exclusively for the business, and a receipt shows what was bought in a way a bank statement does not. Making Tax Digital software sends only category totals to HMRC, while receipts and line items stay in the software, so scanning is not strictly required. Allard still recommends it: an HMRC inspection can ask to see receipts for any transaction, receipts fade, filing systems fail and small receipts get lost. A scanned receipt, by contrast, is attached to the relevant transaction and immediately retrievable.
- **Adopt AI deliberately, one feature at a time, and count its footprint**: Allard argues that AI is hard to avoid in accounting because it is being built into everyday software, but users often still have a choice about switching features on. Before doing so, they suggest asking whether a feature genuinely adds value, whether the task could be done another way, and whether it produces the answers needed or creates more work. They also raise the environmental cost: data centres use large amounts of electricity and water; newer closed-loop designs use less water but still require significant energy; and existing sites draw heavily on water when supplies are under pressure. Allard points to a proposed data centre near Thurrock in Essex, on land significant to local wildlife. The Digital Accountancy Show session was a joint one with Robyn MacMillan, described as lecturing in AI at the Oxford School of Marketing.
- **Impact giving is built into the client relationship and the filing calendar**: Allard presents sustainability as part of how the business operates, not a separate campaign. Every new Wild Bookkeeping client is asked which UN Sustainable Development Goals they would like supported on their behalf through B1G1. Contributions are tied to routine milestones: bookkeeping and business education for women in Malawi and Uganda each time a VAT return, self assessment or corporation tax return is filed; monthly donations to conservation projects described as offsetting the firm's carbon footprint; and a square metre of rainforest protected for each newsletter sign-up. Allard publishes the running tally.
- **Explain it as a rule, then the exceptions, then a short checklist**: The posts follow a recognisable method: they open with a direct question or claim, state the governing rule, work through everyday exceptions and close with questions readers can apply immediately. A fixed company description sits in the sign-off, while Allard's own practice provides the examples, from the tech stack discussed on stage to the receipts process.

## Work to read

- ["Your numbers are trying to tell you something"](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/penelope-allard-ficb-pm-dip-the-wild-bookkeeper_your-numbers-are-trying-to-tell-you-something-activity-7512761362121510912-rqtK)
- ["Every AI query has a footprint"](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/penelope-allard-ficb-pm-dip-the-wild-bookkeeper_every-ai-query-has-a-footprint-data-centres-activity-7512108655387914240-AQn8)
- [Post-show recap of the responsible-AI stage session](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/penelope-allard-ficb-pm-dip-the-wild-bookkeeper_on-stage-at-the-digital-accountancy-show-activity-7514210167207383040-ifYB)
- ["Do you really need every receipt"](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/penelope-allard-ficb-pm-dip-the-wild-bookkeeper_do-you-really-need-every-receipt-or-is-it-activity-7513509540026343424-sQtB)
- [Impact giving through client-chosen causes](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/penelope-allard-ficb-pm-dip-the-wild-bookkeeper_my-clients-are-amazing-and-help-wild-bookkeeping-activity-7513166368997810176-ryy0)

## Brand relationships

- **Wild Bookkeeping Ltd** (disclosed_partnership)
- **B1G1** (mention)
- **Karbon** (mention)
- **Digital Accountancy Show** (mention)

## Partnerships

Allard's posts mention no paid partnerships, sponsorships, or advertising formats. They describe software and events as tools and appearances: Karbon is the firm's practice-management system, which they like because it lets the firm choose when to use AI; the Digital Accountancy Show is where they spoke on stage with Robyn MacMillan about responsible AI use. Wild Bookkeeping's giving programme through B1G1, which funds education and conservation, is presented as a client-facing commitment, not a sponsorship offer to brands. A brand considering a thought leadership partnership on responsible AI in accounting should approach Allard directly and ask about a bespoke arrangement; the posts show no packaged offer, rate card, media kit, audience specification, or partnership inquiry route.

## Alternatives

- Alan Oakes: Choose Oakes when the partner needs the bookkeeping workflow explained in named, concrete steps rather than a policy argument about AI. The posts describe what a clean system looks like end to end: expenses paid through Apron with the receipt attached at the time, Xero reconciled weekly rather than quarterly, invoices paid through Adfin with Xero updating automatically, and outstanding balances known today instead of at month end. The second post distinguishes a fractional finance director, a virtual finance director and a virtual finance office, and states the trade-off of each: a fractional FD gives experience but not a full finance function, a virtual FD service adds delivery and controls behind the senior person, and a virtual finance office is full outsourcing. For a software brand whose product sits inside that weekly routine, this is closer to the buying decision than an argument about whether to switch a feature on.
- David Safeer: Choose Safeer when the campaign shifts from AI governance toward cash flow, financing decisions or why owners disengage from their numbers. The posts work through the same kind of buyer problem with client detail: an auto repair shop owner who was turned down repeatedly for credit, approved for a $15,000 line in 15 minutes, then advised on which borrowing source should cover payroll and which should be held for bills with nowhere else to go. The other post argues that owners who avoid their financials are overwhelmed rather than indifferent, and builds a named framework around that idea, with mindset placed first in the Five Pillars of Cash Flow Mastery. A partner whose product consolidates payables, receivables and cash flow into one view has source material that speaks directly to adoption barriers.
- Buhir Rafiq: Choose Rafiq when the partner wants a single regulated sector rather than accounting generally. Both posts address pharmacy owners and set out the split between an in-house bookkeeper handling cash, invoices and document collection, and an outsourced specialist handling NHS statement reconciliations, VAT treatment, HMRC compliance, management accounts and tax planning, with a hybrid model offered as the usual answer. For a partner selling into community pharmacy or another compliance-heavy niche, that specificity is the closer match: the reader decisions are named, and the argument is framed around what changes as the business grows.

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AI-assisted summary of public posts. Audience demographics are not available. Engagement appears only where we checked recent posts. Method: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/methodology/