Empowering Financial Confidence: How Claire Rulton is Changing the Face of Accounting

Finding Purpose Through Education and Expertise

When Claire Rulton founded Addison Accounts & Training Ltd, her goal was simple but ambitious: to make high-quality accounting services more personal, practical, and empowering for small businesses.

After years of working in senior finance roles for major organisations like Mercedes and The Duke of Bedford’s Woburn Enterprises, Claire wanted to bring that same level of professionalism and insight to the people who needed it most: sole traders, startups, and growing limited companies.

Based in Bedfordshire, Addison Accounts & Training is a full-service accountancy practice offering bookkeeping, tax, and advisory support to clients across sectors. But what makes it stand out is its educational approach. By helping clients understand the “why” behind the numbers, Claire ensures they’re not just compliant, they’re confident.

Her mission has always been about empowerment: combining technical expertise with a genuine passion for teaching to help every business owner feel in control of their finances.

Building a Practice That Does More Than the Numbers

Addison Accounts & Training began as a traditional accounting firm, but it quickly became known for something more: making accounting understandable.

Claire’s idea for the business began while working in corporate finance, where she noticed how little people understood about their own figures. 

“We had department heads that would say, ‘Can the numbers just not reflect the hard work we put in?’” she recalls. “They just didn’t understand the background.”

She started delivering internal training to help colleagues make sense of their accounts, and later expanded that into external sessions for small businesses. Having seen a generational gap in financial literacy, particularly among women, she wanted to make accounting approachable, inclusive, and empowering. Her goal was to build a practice that helps clients take ownership of their numbers and feel confident in their financial decisions. Claire founded the business to support small businesses, limited companies, and sole traders who wanted clarity as well as compliance.

That ethos, combining professional accountancy services with financial education, remains at the heart of Addison Accounts & Training today. The firm supports clients across industries with bookkeeping, tax, and compliance, while also helping them build confidence in the financial side of their business.

One example stands out for Claire. A freelance florist came to her feeling completely overwhelmed after three years in business, unsure whether she was even making a profit. After a single review session, Claire and her team mapped out the florist’s costs, clarified her margins, and helped her identify where things were going off track. A month later, the client had raised her prices, started turning down unprofitable work, and told Claire she finally felt like a “proper business owner” instead of just winging it.

Wearing Every Hat: The Challenge of Going Solo

Like many founders, Claire’s biggest challenge was personal rather than technical. 

“There isn’t anybody to go to,” she says. “The buck stops with you.”

In the early days, she handled everything herself: client work, marketing, HR, and admin. Over time, she realised that growth required letting go of total control, learning where to focus her time and when to bring in others with different expertise. “It’s about working out what are your strengths and what aren’t your strengths,” she explains.

Even today, Claire meets plenty of new business owners who try to manage everything themselves, including their accounts. She understands why. Many are told by friends or software adverts that they don’t need an accountant, and in the early stages, spending money on professional advice can feel hard to justify. But Claire has seen the cost of that approach too many times to count. When businesses try to handle everything alone, they often miss crucial details or make avoidable mistakes. As she puts it, “It’s quite shortsighted, because you don’t know what you don’t know.”

Her advice applies as much to business owners as it does to her own journey: let experts do what they do best.

Trusting Instincts and Choosing the Right Clients

Reflecting on her journey, Claire says one of the biggest lessons she’s learned is to trust her instincts. Early on, she would sometimes ignore that gut feeling about a new client, something she’s since learned not to do. “Sometimes you have a feeling about a new client, and we all need to go with those gut feelings because they’re generally right,” she explains.

She’s also clear-eyed about a common challenge many new business owners face: the temptation to say yes to everyone or lower their prices to win work. From her perspective, that approach rarely pays off. 

“It’s very easy to get those clients in on a low deal, but it’s difficult to turn them into profitable clients later.”

Now, Addison Accounts focuses on long-term partnerships built on trust, transparency, and the right fit. Claire’s selective approach ensures that every client receives meaningful, tailored guidance that supports their growth and aligns with the firm’s values.

Navigating the Industry as a Woman in Finance

As a woman in accounting, Claire has witnessed the gender gap across different levels of the profession. Having previously worked with accounting students and young professionals, she noticed how many women enter the field compared to how few reach senior positions. 

“Around 80 to 90 percent of the students were females,” she says. “But at board level, that’s not reflected. Something happens between entry level and senior positions.”

While progress has been made, Claire believes accountancy still carries outdated perceptions. “There’s still this visualisation of what an accountant looks like,” she says. “People just expect it to be a male in a suit.”

Through Addison Accounts, she’s helping to challenge that stereotype. Her practice attracts a growing number of women entrepreneurs who value her clear, practical approach to accounting and the supportive relationships she builds. “I think females want to support other females,” she says. “They relate to each other’s way of working.”

Building a Sustainable and Values-Led Firm

Sustainability isn’t just a side project for Claire, it’s part of how she runs her practice. “We want to reuse things, we want to recycle things,” she says simply.

From switching to digital client portals to reducing paper use, Addison Accounts has integrated small but significant changes that reduce waste and improve efficiency. 

“It’s a no-brainer to go down the sustainability route because it’s not going to cost you more and it’s going to bring other benefits”

As a carbon-literate accountant, Claire also uses her platform to influence others in the industry, giving talks on sustainability and accounting, and showing how environmental action can align with business efficiency. She often shares practical examples from her own practice, such as switching to digital systems for VAT returns and client sign-offs. These changes have eliminated the need for printing and postage, making processes faster, more secure, and environmentally friendly.

Mentorship, Education, and Community Impact

Alongside her client work, Claire is passionate about sharing knowledge and empowering others to understand their finances. She regularly speaks at AAT branch events, delivers talks for organisations such as NatWest, and mentors aspiring entrepreneurs through Digital Boost.

Her sessions cover a wide range of topics, from Making Tax Digital and AI in accounting to sustainability in finance, reflecting both her technical expertise and her commitment to accessible education. Within Addison Accounts & Training, she also offers tailored sessions for clients who want to deepen their understanding of areas such as accounting software or financial reporting.

This combination of practical accounting and inclusive training helps build confidence across the business community, a contribution recognised when Claire was named among the Female Entrepreneur 100, celebrating women driving innovation in their fields. The result is a ripple effect: better-informed entrepreneurs, stronger businesses, and a more sustainable local economy.

Thinking Bigger: Breaking Barriers for Women Founders

When asked what she believes holds many women back from starting businesses, Claire doesn’t hesitate. In her experience, it often comes down to confidence, or rather, a lack of it. She’s seen countless women approach entrepreneurship as something small or temporary, rather than a long-term, scalable venture.

Too often, she explains, women frame their ambitions as a “side hustle” instead of a full-time opportunity. It’s a mindset she recognises from her own beginnings. When she first started Addison Accounts, she didn’t imagine it could grow into the thriving practice it is today, she simply wanted to earn a little extra on the side. That changed as her confidence grew, and she realised what was possible.

“I think women think too small… it’s a confidence thing,” Claire says. “I never had that hope or that dream. I never thought that big.”

She believes that visibility and support make all the difference. Having access to advice, mentors, and community early on can transform how women see themselves in business. “If you can get that support early on, it can really help you see the bigger picture,” she adds. Local networks, enterprise groups, and initiatives for women entrepreneurs are, she says, vital in helping founders build that belief. Once women connect with others on the same path, they start to see the bigger picture and what they’re truly capable of achieving.

Advice for Aspiring Women Entrepreneurs

Claire’s advice to women starting out is rooted in practicality and experience.

• Don’t wait for perfection. Progress matters more than polish, taking the first step is often the hardest but most important part.
• Find your people. Networking can make a huge difference, especially when running a business feels isolating. Surround yourself with others who understand the journey.
• Ask questions. Stay curious and proactive. Seek guidance from those who’ve been there, most people are happy to share what they know.
• Adapt quickly. Not every idea will work the first time, and that’s okay. Learn, adjust, and keep moving forward.

It’s a mindset that reflects how Claire has built her own business through courage, curiosity, and a willingness to grow.

A New Chapter: Niching for the Future

Claire’s newest venture, Balance & Bliss, is a niche accountancy brand for the beauty, health, and wellbeing industry, launched in partnership with another accountant (also named Claire!). “It was about future proofing the business,” she explains. “You can’t just rest on your laurels because it’s going well.”

The collaboration grew from a shared desire to apply what both founders had learned in their own practices and create something distinct. Their joint firm combines sector-specific expertise with Addison’s same ethical and educational ethos. Launched at the Professional Beauty Show at ExCeL London, the new business brings tailored financial support to a predominantly female-led industry.

Claire says the project has brought new energy and perspective, exciting precisely because it explores a different sector while staying true to the same values that underpin her work.

One Word: A Rollercoaster

When asked to describe her journey in one word, Claire pauses before smiling. “It’s a rollercoaster,” she says. “In a business that you’re running, it’s exhilarating and scary at the same time.”

From long days and late nights to mentoring others and watching clients thrive, Claire’s story captures the reality and reward of entrepreneurship. “It’s a big step, isn’t it?” she reflects. “And the problem is though, to do really well, sometimes you have to make those big steps.”

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