Alaska Kortrijk: history
BK&Co was founded on 20 November 1992 by Johan Bamelis and Stefaan Kindt. Both of them had a tax or a tax law background. Johan Bamelis as a civil servant with the Federal Government Service for Finance and as a Tax Consultant with Moores Rowland Fiduciary, and Stefaan Kindt as a Tax Consultant, first with Coopers & Lybrand in Antwerp and then with Moores Rowland Fiduciary in Roeselare. It was at this last company that both met and conceived a plan to try their luck as self-employed consultants in this sector. Because neither of them had an accounting background, they initially opted for trying to start out as a ‘legal and tax consultancy firm’, targeting bookkeepers and accountants. The idea was to work for the latter, handling their tax-legal questions as subcontractors. During this pioneering phase, they worked from home, using no more than a PC and a fax machine each.
However, it soon became clear that this enterprise was not meant to last. People did not know them, something which is essential in this line of business, where trust is one of the most important keys to success. In addition, many self-employed professionals and business managers outside the big cities are used to their bookkeeping and the corresponding consultancy services being handled by the same organisation.
The solution was to extend the number of partners. This materialised in a first phase with Dominique Berteloot, an accountant who was also working at Moores Rowland Fiduciary and a few months later with Rudy Stubbe, a bookkeeper who worked for Ryckeman Fiduciary in Bruges. This way, the service package could be expanded with bookkeeping and accountancy. They also rented a terraced house in the Aalbeeksesteenweg in Courtrai. That was the end of an impractical organisation.
So although their ambitions reached further, Bamelis, Kindt & Co really started out as a bookkeeping firm. This was a necessary step – they needed to create a solid ground to build on.
On 3 May 1995 the first employee was hired.
While growing steadily, we were faced with a lack of space and we decided – although the results did not really allow it yet – to move to a new building in Engelse Wandeling. The building permit was granted on 9 April 1999 and the move took place at the beginning of 2001. We will leave the question whether it had anything to do with our moving unanswered, but it cannot be denied that since then the organisation has not stopped growing.
And 2001 was an important year for another reason as well. One of the founders, Johan Bamelis, decided to leave the organisation. Fortunately, this happened at the time when there was cooperation with Koen Debeuf, who decided to take over Johan Bamelis’s shares.
In 2005 we spread our wings to two more or less adjacent provincial towns: in Ypres a cooperation agreement with a takeover option was signed with a local bookkeeper and in Oudenaarde we moved into the local business centre.
2007 was, without a doubt, a pivotal year in our history.
The efforts of years of avoiding being perceived as a bookkeeping firm in the strict sense of the word and to be seen as a solid organisation companies and self-employed professionals can turn to with most of their questions related to company management, were finally rewarded in 2007. That year, both the consultancy for non-profit organisations VZW-huis and Bamelis, Kindt & Co financial architects were established. Both were intended to provide an answer to a growing demand for advice, present both in the non-profit sector and in the sector of highly specialised tax, financial and legal advice.
That same year, we also revived the idea with which this whole undertaking started in the first place, namely the provision of services to bookkeepers and accountants. Numerous events were organised in order to make us visible to colleagues. It is a well-known fact that smaller companies often struggle with a whole range of questions but are hesitant to ask a colleague for advice. The reason for this is the widespread fear that their client might be snatched away from them. The challenge, if we want this initiative to become a success, is to gain these people’s trust.
To top all of this off, we decided to establish an ‘economic interest grouping’ called ‘Alaska’ with Fidulemco, a similar organisation in Hamme, with the intention to set up a network of independent accountancy and consultancy firms distributed throughout Flanders. This may well be the most drastic decision in the 15 years of our company’s existence, if only because our name, which we have worked on for 15 years, will completely disappear after a 3-year transition period.
Thus BK&Co, initially conceived as an accountancy firm, has grown into an organisation of 22 people capable of offering solutions in a large number of areas which surpass accounting.