If you liked 50 Shades Of Grey….

…you may not be the biggest fan of my finance based blog. Not that I would make any assumptions about the readership of the Enterprise Britain or make any judgements as to its literary tastes. It is just that whenever I look in a bookshop now it seems that almost everything is boasting that if I liked 50 Shades Of Grey I would love (insert suitable title here). Maybe it would help if I actually read the damned thing….

I do however read a lot of Scandinavian crime fiction and therefore am used to the comparisons with that Lisbeth Salander trilogy that began with “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (although I think they should really say “If you didn’t manage to finish that Stieg Larsson book then you’ll definitely enjoy reading….”).

The desire to make comparisons with the latest hit product, be it in books or music or film, is nothing new. The 50^th anniversary of the release of “Love Me Do” is a reminder of what happened when The Beatles hit the big time. Having suddenly discovered that groups with guitars weren’t actually “on the way out”, record companies rushed out and signed virtually any young band with a six stringed instrument or two. If they hailed from that city on the banks of the River Mersey then so much the better.

Cashing in on the latest big hit is a proven sales driver albeit one with diminishing returns as another new craze or fashion emerges. In many ways it is a sign of laziness. The real talent is identifying that new craze at the right time and riding the wave profitably for a long as possible, while keeping a careful eye out for the next big thing.

Of course in our own businesses we never jump on the latest bandwagon to draw attention to our services do we? Everything we offer is totally original and in no way a copy of a much better product isn’t it?

Clearly we should be working harder on what makes us different rather than pretending to be the same as something that has worked before. If we don’t I guess we we will continue to be greeted with bookshelves groaning with “mummy porn” or “scandi crime” titles while doing our best to find something different and original.

Mind you if you can’t beat them, maybe you have to join them.

“If you liked the way your accountant prepared your statutory accounts and tax computation, then you’ll love the way your part time finance director takes care of all of your business financial management leaving you free to do what you like doing while making more money with less hassle.”

It’s catching isn’t it? Possibly needs a bit of work though…..

The British Swiss Marathon Challenge….

A little indulgence if I may. This Sunday I shall be running the Royal Parks half marathon in London. In three weeks’ time I shall be running another half marathon in Lausanne. Hence the British Swiss marathon challenge, one half of which will be run in the UK and the other half in Switzerland.

Why I am I doing this? Well clearly I would like to raise some money for a few charities that are dear to my heart and this is an excellent opportunity to do so.

Half of any money raised will be donated to Operation Smile, which exists to provide life changing facial surgery. My daughter was lucky enough to benefit from our NHS when she underwent her own jaw surgery earlier this year but children in other countries are not so fortunate and a remarkable transformation can take place for as little as £150.

The other half will go to two locally based charities. I have had a connection to  Shooting Star Chase  for many years and am pleased once again to have the opportunity to support the work that they do with children with life limiting conditions. Equally White Lodge is a long established charity that provides a range of creative activities for disabled people of all ages and their families and carers that I have previously supported through the amateur dramatics group I am involved in.

However I guess I am also doing it because I can. I may not be in the first flush of youth but I am reasonably fit and a half marathon is still within the boundaries of what might (laughingly) be called a “fun run”. OK I have had to work hard and train in order to be in the right condition to complete both half marathons, and it has not all been plain sailing, but once I decided that this was something I wanted to do, I have remained focussed on crossing both of the finishing lines, hopefully in a reasonable time.

I think that rising to challenges is at the heart of what we all do as members of Enterprise Britain. Whether personal or business it is the determination to overcome all obstacles in the pursuit of an achievable goal that is the key factor in how successful you are.

It is obviously in this sporting “annus mirabilis” that both cities have strong Olympic links, London having held an extremely successful event in the summer, as well as being the only city to host three Olympic Games, while Lausanne is home to the International Olympic Committee.

I know everybody is now inundated with requests for sponsorship, but as we all know in life, if you don’t ask you don’t get. If anything that I have written above strikes a chord, or you are feeling particularly generous, then please feel free to go to http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/britishswissmarathonchallenge where you can quickly and easily sponsor me. All amounts greatly appreciated.

Thank you for listening. Normal service will be resumed next week….

Taxing times…..

I don’t do tax. At least I don’t advise on tax matters. Yes I am an accountant but tax is a very complicated area now, and is something that requires a level of expertise and experience beyond that of some letters after my name.

Having said that, as a Finance Director, I have a keen interest in tax and I am aware of many of the ways that it affects SMEs, particularly those that are owner managed or wish to trade internationally. I work very hard to keep myself update, hence my attendance at a recent seminar concerning the new tax agreement between the UK and Switzerland. Remember I do this so that you don’t have to.

The agreement was described as a “perfect Swiss compromise”, preserving the confidential nature of Swiss banking whilst enabling HMRC to start collecting tax that had previously been difficult to track down. It places obligations on Swiss based financial institutions to administer and collect tax that make PAYE seem like child’s play.

What was particularly amazing was the number of ways available to people who had, shall we say, “forgotten” to inform the UK revenue authorities of their liability to UK tax on assets held in Switzerland to “regularise” their affairs. As well as the options provided in the agreement some tax advisors are suggesting that these people should be looking to use something called the “Lichtenstein Disclosure Facility” to get everything in order.

All well and good although I can’t help thinking that the truly all-embracing Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) legislation that is due to come into effect in the United States in 2013, and which places the responsibility of advising whether US citizens have taxable income or not squarely on the institutions that deal with that income whether they are based in the US or not, is a more realistic pointer as to where tax legislation is headed.

In spite of not being a tax consultant I am still frequently asked about tax issues or more pertinently how to pay less of it. Naturally I do look out for opportunities to keep the tax bill down by claiming all due reliefs and allowances, particularly R&D (research and development) tax credit, a gem of a tax opportunity that generously rewards companies that invest in the future of their businesses. The scope of this is considerably wider than you might think.   

I have also been made aware of a number of creative tax avoidance schemes by accountant contacts, and while I am probably duty bound to advise clients that they exist, it is not an area that I am particularly comfortable with, not least given that they are increasingly, and it has be said often successfully, attacked by HMRC.

Tax is a(n unfortunate) consequence of profit. One of the more obvious ways to pay less tax is to make less money. However this advice does not always go down too well…..

So maybe tax should ultimately be seen as a sign of success. If you are paying what you believe to be too much tax it is more likely that you have a good business rather than a bad accountant….

Send for the accountant…..

I see that the Secretary of State for International Development, accountant Justine Greening, has been causing a stir by using her accountancy background to scrutinise budgets and ensure that value is being delivered across the various programmes that she is now responsible for.

Of course, as an accountant, she is going through the department’s spending line by line. Using her accountancy skills and training, she has already identified a number of areas of waste (as well as the odd mismatched debit and credit no doubt) and she is clearly on track to ensure that all who are involved in international development will be accountable for their actions (or at least their expenditure).

Did I mention she was an accountant? Just checking…

I hope you all noticed the one key word in the above. No not the “a” word but the “v” word. Value.

Clichés come and go but it seems that accountants are still regarded as focussed number crunchers unable to look beyond a column of figures. However, good accountants, particularly those that become Finance Directors, spend their lives disproving Oscar Wilde’s comment about knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

Did I mention I was an accountant……?

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Talking of value, barely has the dust settled on another round of exam results, and the inevitable debate on standards that followed, than our coalition government have finally put egos aside and outlined a new “more rigorous” exam system for 16 year olds, the “English Bac”.

Meanwhile anybody who thinks that GCSEs are dumbed down and meaningless clearly has not been talking to the students whose D grade achievement in English, thanks to the boundaries being moved at the last minute, means that their lives are potentially blighted for ever.

Fortunately my daughters are too old to become guinea pigs in this latest Department of Education experiment re effective exams, although there seems to have been sufficient changes in course content and assessment processes during their years in the system for me to think that the education department clearly sees itself as one gigantic scientific laboratory.

The new “one exam takes all (but don’t call it an O level)” is due to be introduced in 2015 (so that it can no doubt be ditched as a result of the election due to take place that year). However I was extremely perturbed to read certain commentators suggest that there would need to be an alternative exam for “less able” students.

The cauldron that contained the Paralympic flame has barely cooled and already a term that we all hoped had been consigned to the waste bin is being bandied about without any thought for its impact or meaning.

These “less able” students, who in days gone by would have taken CSEs, could do things then with a football that I could only dream of (and no doubt now have DIY skills that my wife can only dream of).

The reality is that some students, through no fault of their own, are not suited to academic study. Most of them however will have talents in other areas that a high quality and rigorous education system would identify and nurture. This issue does not seem to be sufficiently addressed under the new proposals.

Education is a lifelong and varied process which individual people benefit from and value in different ways. There it is. That word value again. Send for the accountant….

The FD needs to know….everything…..

Many years ago when I was working for a Japanese conglomerate in their M&A department we purchased a German business based between Frankfurt and Cologne. A grand welcoming party was arranged, and my Japanese boss gave a speech in English, for which I provided a simultaneous translation into the language of our hosts. All was going swimmingly until my boss started to give a long rambling list of all of the business areas that the conglomerate was involved in. As he went on and on I became increasingly aware of the time, and the toll this list was likely to take on my German translation capacity. As he finished I took a deep breath and explained “The company does…everything!”

I was reminded of this when I gave a presentation on Social Media the other day. Yes, I know, an accountant talking about marketing. I can hear all those Twitter and Facebook gurus shouting at their screens “Why him? What does he know?” Well to put it simply Finance Directors are now expected to know, well, everything.

Because of their commercial business grounding and experience, most good FDs have come across many of the issues that companies have to deal with, be they legal, property, HR or operations. That a number of them make the transition from CFO to CEO is in no small part due to the diverse range of skills that they acquire throughout their careers.

As a part time or interim FD it is not uncommon for clients and contacts to seek my input on matters that go beyond the finance function.  Often it is because they value an opinion from somebody who has recent experience from outside of the organisation. Because of this I always look to keep myself updated in all areas relevant to my clients and contacts, and to this end I keep in touch with a number of individuals and organisations with the right level of expertise.

So back to last week’s presentation. As a professional person running my own business, I have had to be aware of a number of sales and marketing techniques, one of which in today’s world is definitely social media. Therefore I was in a perfect position to explain the subject to a group of people, many of whom may have been unsure about how relevant it all might be to them, and take them through my own social media voyage of discovery. This naturally included insight that I have gleaned from real experts in the field.    

So there you have it marketing bods and others. I am afraid the FD does need to know everything. However there is a ray of hope for you all. Most of all he or she needs to know where to find the expertise to provide the right advice to clients and colleagues at the right time. Demonstrate the relevant expertise and who knows….