Over the past several months in Australia we’ve seen several things in the Australian compliance area: Australian compliance accountants are equally able to work from home as they are in the office, with little productivity losses. If anything, the time saved in long commutes to and from work has been a blessing. During difficult times, of which we seem to …
Australian tax and accounting compliance Outsourcing forecast to increase 75% from 2020 to 2022
Commbank released their June 2020 marketing pulse recently. Most interestingly Australian tax and accounting compliance Outsourcing forecast to increase 75% from 2020 to 2022. As a direct result of their coronavirus experience, 21% of firms responded that they would increase their use of contractors and outsourcing. Many firms had invested in cloud technology and made the transition to working from …
Australian Accounting firm: Which outsourcing model can work best for your business?
Outsourcing your Australian compliance work to overseas is an important undertaking. If done properly, it can greatly improve the way you do accounting business and give you a more competitive advantage. With the time, money, and resources you will invest, you need to ensure that you get your money’s worth. Let’s quick go through the checklist below to choose the …
Selling your accounting firm: who is responsible for the retention of documents for past tax returns
In this highly evolving and moveable world, we’ve seen recently several issues related to record retention involving tax agents who have moved to other software providers, moved from desktop to cloud, or sold their practices but then needed access to the data. Instances where tax agents needed access to the data included one accountants who had accepted the client after …
Australian accounting firm owners: It’s about managing Energy, not Time
A lot of the Australian accounting firm owners are hard pressed to manage the work they have inhouse, and come to talk to Odyssey when their growth is improving, or their resources shrinking in efficiency. And it may be that both may be happening at the same time. Earlier this week we spoke to an accounting firm owner whose bookkeeping …
Australian accounting firms: Firing clients the right way
We’ve all seen the silos of different client types: Type A – clients you love working with and are highly profitable, the kind of clients you’d go on holiday with.. Type B – clients you like working with and are profitable Type C – clients that are ok and you make some profit Type D – clients that cost you …
Zoomed out: Is digital signing and digital meetings eroding the relationship between clients?
COVID-19 has displaced workforces in Australia, more so in the more heavily populated capital and major cities of Australia. This has meant the rapid evolution and deployment of the new age of digital platforms supporting online collaboration. At the same time, there is a thinning of the traditional hierarchy of accounting firms, through disintermediation of the organisation. Timesheets are disappearing …
Australian tax compliance: Do 12 hour working days do anything more than blunt the edge?
There was a large accounting firm interviewing one of their junior partners the other day, and we were struck by the antique nature of the partner business model. Do your time, work hard, work up the ladder, and make it to partner. The female junior partner had taken 15 years to make it to partner level. “Fast Track”. As the …
Australian compliance: Working from home isn’t just about moving your office computer home
COVID-19 has displaced workforce around the world, including offshore locations where staff are usually working in a secure office environment. Many offshore providers note their security restrictions such as no iphones in the office, 24 hour security guards, restricted fingerprint access to office environment. The list goes on. What’s really interesting, is many of these have jumped on the internet …
Remote workers: Pulling the plug and impacts on profitability
We’ve previously touched on risks that offshore labour services providers like to gloss over when selling their “cheap and cheerful” full time labour resources. These risks include pushing the foreign exchange risk back onto the Australian accountant, wherein paying for the actual salary of a full time worker in foreign currency leaves the Australian accounting firm exposed to detrimental movements …