Marina Bowler was determined to become an accountant — and determined that her career would not interfere with bringing up her baby daughter Hannah.

In fact, she was so determined that, when she failed to find a job with the flexibility she wanted, she set up her own accountancy firm.

Now AMB Accounting has its own offices and seven staff — all women with young children who work flexible hours and share childcare.

Born in Iran, Ms Bowler had fallen in love with an English accountant while working in Australia. After the baby was born she was able to study by correspondence course, and when the family moved to England was among only 20 per cent of correspondence course candidates who pass the ACCA accountancy qualifications each year.

In her first job, she asked for flexible hours so she could collect her daughter from nursery twice a week. After a bit of negotiation, she managed to wring an agreement for an early finish once a week.

“After I got my full qualifications, I started looking for another job. At the interview, they said everyone worked flexi-hours and could take extra time off. Once I started, the story was different. The core hours were 10am to 4pm, which meant that I still could never pick her up myself from school.

“And the extra holiday turned out to be just five days, and you could only take them at certain times.”

She tried again, and again was promised the earth at interview, while the reality turned out to be different.

“My husband said ‘Why don’t we start our own company’?”

At first, AMB Accounting was a one-woman band, based in a back bedroom, with Ms Bowler’s husband, Neil, providing strategic advice. But as the work grew, they decided to recruit.

“We had no intention of employing just women, or mothers, but every time we needed to recruit, we discovered that the best candidate was another mum,” said Ms Bowler.

A fruitful encounter at the gates of Freeland Primary School provided a boost for the business early on. Fellow mum Allie Eggington turned out to be a business support expert. She had also set up her own business, Seamless Office Solutions, so that she could have some flexibility to care for her own three primary school-age children.

Ms Eggington set up management and office processes to allow sustained growth for AMB.

She said: “It is not plain sailing. We plan so that the office is manned at all times and people are prepared to be flexible. It’s done in such a way that it doesn’t impact on clients.”

The company’s small workforce now has a total of 12 children, most of whom attend Freeland Primary School. This means that during school holidays, they can share childcare. Another thing that AMB encourages is working from home, which Ms Bowler says big accountancy firms are surprisingly resistant to.

“We are in the 21st century and you can e-mail work to people at home, or fax documents.

“I feel that because their firms didn’t give these women a chance — accountancy firms are very old-fashioned — we have managed to get a team of very talented people.”

Ms Bowler said: “Our latest two employees were recruited because they were outstanding candidates at interview. They are extremely capable people who have been overlooked by other employers because they wanted to work part-time.”

The business expanded so much that last month it moved into its own offices in West End, Witney.

“We allow people to work from home when their children are ill or if it’s more convenient. We have an office, but it only has three desks because we are all here at different times.

“I set out to prove that you can have a healthy work-life balance and provide excellent customer service.

“Because I provide flexible working, my employees pay me back a million times in the flexibility they give back.

“Being all mums, they are very apt at juggling work and family and deliver miracles, and by the deadline.”

Most clients are small local businesses, with turnover from £40,000 to £3m. Each gets a personal accountant, and Ms Bowler says no-one has ever complained when told their accountant needs to leave to collect a child from school.

“We go out of our way to help our clients succeed and we offer free, unlimited advice – not just accountancy but advice and business and marketing support. Most of our clients come by word-of-mouth recommendation.

Ms Bowler added: “If it works for us, I can’t see why it can’t work for other people.”