Accountants facing regulation overload
When it comes to regulation and compliance, a ‘them and us’ approach can only work to the detriment of practitioners, argues Steve Collings.
Accounting firms today are subject to increasingly burdensome legislation which has made making a living and ‘doing things right’ even more difficult for many practitioners. With revised and redrafted International Standards on Auditing (ISAs) coming in very soon, talks of IFRS for SMEs being introduced shortly and the constantly changing tax legislation, are practitioners (particularly the smaller ones) facing ‘regulation overload’? Crucially, will all this regulation force smaller practitioners (particularly sole practitioners) to throw in the towel?
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its probably true
are you saying that there should be. i would disagree that would be a waste of time money for all concerned
Regulation in the bookkeeping industry - non existent? con't...
I'd say in a perfect world that yes, there should be standards set for bookkeepers.
I'd be most interested in hearing your views as to why you'd consider it to be a waste of time & money. Thanks.
WHERE TO START
there is far too much regulation at present and to extend it further would be highly regressive
it would unnecessarily increase costs
most if not all bookkepers work is subject to further checking - accountants etc
i am also against proscribing the term accountant - they Institutes have far too much power as it is and suffer from institutionalised hubris
What do you really mean?
.... there are a number of bookkeepers 'in practice' performing tasks that accountants would normally perform, yet there doesn't seem to be any sort of regulation over bookkeepers' activities from what I can tell Posted by catherine.davis on Wed, 14/07/2010 - 13:29
Are you really talking about bookkeepers, or do you really mean unqualified accountants?
Either way, what is needed is far less regulation - not more. The time of the overbearing nanny state died when Brown scuttled back north of the border - hopefully this government will stand by its promise and get rid of much of the red tape and over-regulation.
we are as one c_d
well printers apart anyway
there is a small window of opportunity - probably one that will be missed by the Institutes - to lobby this coalition for less red tape in business - what are they doing about it - err nothing i think
what is the difference between an unqualified accountant and a bookkeeper
Regulation in the bookkeeping industry - non existent?
Agreed that the levels of regulation are at an all time high, and no prizes for guessing why this might be.
Interestingly though, there are a number of bookkeepers 'in practice' performing tasks that accountants would normally perform, yet there doesn't seem to be any sort of regulation over bookkeepers' activities from what I can tell (other than complying with the Money Laundering Act). Would that be a fair comment?