Meet the entrepreneurial Leeds accountant who's capitalising on the huge success of social media stars

Aidan Fijalkowski, 27, has some of the industry’s biggest influencers on his books at Accounting4Creators, the business he launched last year.

The firm provides invaluable advice to the big names of social media, many of whom wake up in the morning to find they’ve gone viral overnight – and have earned thousands in the process.

But Aidan noticed that those same stars could be baffled by complex cash flow issues and stumped by taxes, as they’d never had to deal with money on a huge scale before.

“I thought to myself, there’s a business opportunity here,” explained Aidan, who lives in Holbeck. “It was a huge area that no one else was doing.”

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He founded Accounting4Creators in February 2023. Eight months later, he had enough of a client base to give up his full-time job in a pensions company.

Aidan, originally from Scunthorpe, now manages the finances of 50 clients, who include travel reviewers, cosmetic influencers and even producers of raunchy adult content.

He added: “They can make ridiculous amounts of money. One client we are connected with earned something like £200,000 through their content.

“Going viral on social media can be elusive. It’s not always something that you can plan in advance – but it can happen overnight. Another client made a single TikTok at the start of 2023, which saw him gain 200,000 followers and pretty much triple his monthly wage on OnlyFans.”

While many of the clients at Accounting4Creators are business-minded, it’s the admin that can trip them up. Aidan explained: “They know how to make money, but they don’t necessarily know how taxes work.

“Often, they’ve only ever had an employee relationship with tax, where it’s all done for them. Last year, HMRC sent out thousands of chaser letters to influencers because they hadn’t reported their earnings.”

Several of Aidan’s clients produce content for the adult industry. It’s something that has changed in recent years, as certain platforms limit the explicitness that’s allowed.

He said: “Quite a lot of them are turning to Fanvue, because OnlyFans doesn’t allow certain sexual acts. It can get very explicit for some – but for others, it’s just showing lingerie and things like that.”

He has plans to grow the client base over the next few years, as well as expand the services he currently offers.

Recently, he hired his first full-time team member in a move that gave him pause to reflect on his career.

“She was the first person to hire me nine years ago,” said Aidan. “So, it feels quite full circle that almost a decade later, I’ve hired her.”

Events make up a huge part of the industry, so Aidan is keen to start hosting his own. He has already attended numerous parties in luxurious Airbnb mansions and rooftop bars where the aim is to shoot as much video as possible.

And in an effort to dispel any myths about accountants being strait-laced and unexciting characters, he often attends as his alter ego - Neville. The character wears suspenders, a bow-tie and thick-rimmed glasses, while carrying a briefcase.

Aidan said that the aim was to poke fun at the stereotypical idea of how an accountant might look.

“When I’ve been talking to influencers, they often say that they see accountants as boring and dull people who, if they started speaking, they’d fall asleep.

“We took some nerdy ideas from films and TV shows for the costume – but we want people to see that it’s the complete opposite of how we actually act.”

The events are an opportunity to give in-person advice, but they’ve provided plenty of “pinch myself” moments for Aidan too.

He said: “If I mention to friends that I know some of these influencers with three million followers, they’re always surprised.

“They are the new celebrities. The 1990s was all about film stars, now it’s all about social media stars.”