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Pandemic brings some good news for accountants

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The pandemic has been awful, but The Imprudent Accountant reminds us that it hasn't all been bad news for accountants.

27th Apr 2021
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It can be all too easy to review the last year and feel that it has been a period of unremitting disaster.

With 150,000 people dead in the United Kingdom, over half a million in the United States and millions of others around the world, that may not be an unreasonable analysis.

In addition, all of our lives have been changed, probably irreversibly, by measures such as lockdowns, masks, and dramatic changes to our travelling and shopping habits.

However, from the perspective of the profession, there have been a number of positives and it is healthy to look on the bright side occasionally.

The pandemic has made all of us review the ways in which we operate our practices, often for the better.

  1. I imagine that every firm is striving to make the optimum use of office space. Most will be considering downsizing if they haven’t done so already. Some may even give up on offices completely.
  2. In addition to cutting direct office costs, the general trend towards staff working from home should have significant benefits with longer hours worked combined with reduced commuting stress and expense.
  3. It may be a double-edged sword, but I would be willing to bet a significant sum that the majority of accountants will have seen a significant reduction in their entertainment budgets both for staff and existing or prospective clients.
  4. The jolt to our lives is also an opportunity to review staffing levels. In many cases, a combination of furlough and redundancy will have reduced the cost of support staff significantly.
  5. It may be unkind to suggest such a thing but some may have taken advantage of the changed working practices to say a quiet goodbye to inefficient members of professional staff as well.
  6. Due to the difficulty of meeting and bonding with others, I guess that there have been far fewer staff leaving voluntarily over the last 12 months. Stability is generally good, especially when it can be combined with the previous point where practices had a good excuse for cutting out dead wood.
  7. Once again, it might be something that you may not like to say out loud but many struggling businesses have closed and, in the longer term, that is probably good for our practices as otherwise we would have ended up supporting some of them.
  8. On a similar topic, the liberal provision of government loans and financial support to clients will help many of them to pay our fees. You can’t argue with that.
  9. There is still a big cliff for clients to negotiate when the financial support packages finally come to an end and loans are called in. That could be a real opportunity for any accountants running insolvency, recovery and reconstruction practices.
  10. I don’t want to sound too cynical, but the nature of both audit and taxation practices tends to be cyclical. Therefore, when a government comes along and offers a furlough scheme that allows employers to lay off staff during the quiet months at little or no cost, that has to be good for profitability.
  11. Last but not least, many of us have had a far greater opportunity to enjoy quality time with our families, relishing home-cooked food, watching the kids grow and being driven mad by their use of electronic gadgetry.

Despite all of that, I can’t wait to get back to the new normal.

Replies (2)

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By Paul Crowley
27th Apr 2021 19:35

' 10 I don’t want to sound too cynical, but the nature of both audit and taxation practices tends to be cyclical. Therefore, when a government comes along and offers a furlough scheme that allows employers to lay off staff during the quiet months at little or no cost, that has to be good for profitability.'
Disagree
Abuse of the system
Activity not reduced due to covid

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By Hugo Fair
28th Apr 2021 11:59

1. This is not intended as a political statement, but the article appears to be from a very middle-class (and somewhat smug) perspective. For instance, the majority of people (even if WFH) have not "had a far greater opportunity to enjoy quality time with our families" - as their overcrowded flats with no gardens weren't designed to also accommodate 1 or 2 people working throughout the day (let alone children home all day).

2. "when a government comes along and offers a furlough scheme that allows employers to lay off staff during the quiet months at little or no cost" ... aside of the dubious morality in that phrase, in what way does the author believe that any furlough scheme facilitated the "little or no cost" part of the sentence? Or is he completely non au fait with the terms that prevented exactly that?

3. "I would be willing to bet a significant sum that the majority of accountants will have seen a significant reduction in their entertainment budgets both for staff and existing or prospective clients." Well let's see the colour of your money.
Without carrying out a statistical survey (just like the author hasn't), I'd say that the majority of our clients who have offices ... have increased this type of expenditure (whether via deliveries during Zoom meetings, or get-togethers between lockdowns) precisely because staff need to feel part of a team (and supported and cared for etc).

I suspect that the author is writing in a deliberately controversial style ... but if not there may be shocks in store at her/his partnership when life returns to any semblance of normalcy.

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