An autumn statement of the obvious….

I don’t know if George Osborne is on the right track. I am sure that there are things that he could and should be doing that he is not. However I don’t have access to all the information that he has, or have to deal with his pressures and responsibilities, so maybe I am not best placed to criticise.

Taking decisions based on available information and resources. The stark reality of management. The true test of mettle. The real definition of loneliness. A situation that the 4.8 million business owners and managers making up Enterprise Britain find themselves in time after time.

Not so our friends in the fourth estate. As I was following the statement online I was struck by the constant carping, criticising and point scoring that accompanied each announcement. No contemplation, no reflection, just instant negativity.

If ever the phrase “power without authority” had any meaning this would be a prime example of how it works. The media chatterers and twitterers have the power to mock, to criticise, to nit-pick. What we never hear is what would they do if they were in a position to change things. I suspect that put in that position most would run away from such a prospect.

Yes they say but we have a duty to report the news and to question and hold those in power to account. True, but in business it is drilled into us that criticism should be considered and constructive. And the line between reporting news and creating it is growing ever thinner.

Sympathy for George is somewhat tempered by the fact that he himself is guilty of the sin of soundbite criticism. However for those of us at the coal face attempting to create the wealth necessary to get the economy moving, the constant self-aggrandising negativity of financial and business commentators is annoying. We are under no illusions as regards how tough it is out there. We don’t need it shoved down our throat day after day.

Having said that what was there for businesses in last week’s Autumn statement? Probably not a lot, but let’s face it, whoever stood up in parliament this week was going to struggle. Easier finance for SMEs and incentives to start up entrepreneurs are helpful. The challenge for all involved will be to direct it where it is needed most and where it can be productive. The announcements on fuel duty, infrastructure projects and red tape seem to be moves in the right direction.

The stark truth though is that the one thing business needs at present is confidence. The confidence to invest in the future. The confidence to lend. The confidence to spend. And that is clearly something that the Chancellor cannot deliver on his own….

An FD’s view of the Budget

Having been inundated with e-mails from various accounting firms providing both the highlights and the details of last week’s budget, I thought I would take a bit of time to digest them all before making any comment. That, and the fact that because of the Easter weekend, the last day to get anything done in the current tax year to mitigate the impact of the new 50% tax rate is actually April 1st.

Of course given that there is an election imminent, any thoughts that I might have could be totally redundant, as could the Chancellor and many of his colleagues. However, as this was probably one of the more SME friendly budgets of recent years, it is worth looking at some of the proposals put forward by the Chancellor last week.

The headline grabbers were the doubling of entrepreneurs’ relief, for those who sell their business, to £2mio, the cut in business rates from October 2010, and the doubling of the annual 100% investment allowance to £100,000. The latter is only a short term cash benefit rather than a subsidy, but very helpful if you were going to undertake that capital investment anyway. If you are only going to do it for the tax break, then the best advice is probably don’t.

There was an extension of the “time to pay” scheme in respect of business taxes for the lifetime of the next parliament (which in the case of a hung parliament may not be that long). This can be a very useful scheme, but its use needs to be used as part of an overall business restructuring plan, and not as a way of delaying the last rites of a failing business. Getting a scheme past the Revenue is also becoming more challenging.

There were a number of schemes aimed at providing loans and investment to smaller businesses, including a new national investment corporation, a new “green bank” and more money for university spin-outs. Reading the small print, many of these new funds are dependent on private sector and European Union funding as well as government money. However, assuming the application process is not too tortuous, these could provide useful funds to early stage businesses.

There will also be yet more pressure brought to bear on the banks to lend, including a “Credit Adjudication Service” who will deal with complaints from SMEs which have been refused bank loans, and who will have legal powers to “enforce its judgements” if credit has been “wrongly denied”. I can’t wait to see this in action, although I suspect the biggest business beneficiaries of this scheme will be the accounting and legal professions.

The elephant in the room for SMEs (and many larger businesses) remains the 1% increase in National Insurance that will kick in from April 2011. However you dress it up, it is a tax on employment, which seems perverse to me given that the economic confidence which comes from having a job will be a vital part of any recovery. 

So yes there were some very interesting proposals in the budget for smaller businesses and entrepreneurs but sadly, given the impending election, they are only proposals and will only be implemented if Labour is re-elected. So in the end the whole thing was possibly a waste of time, money and paper and maybe the government should have just enacted legislation to enable them to continue to collect taxes.

Personally I am looking forward, if that is the right phrase, to a proper budget once the election is out of the way, regardless of who wins, so I can start planning with some certainty. 
Antony Doggwiler

Credit where credit’s due…

Abbreviated accounts filed ten months after the year end.

“At last! What a horrible year it was, glad that’s out of the way. Well, that is all my accounting done for another year apart from a few other bits and pieces to keep the taxman happy. Still the accountant and bookkeeper take care of all that. Job done, next!”

“What’s that? Our main supplier has cut our credit lines? Why? Because our latest set of accounts as filed at Companies House aren’t very good and are out of date? But that was ages ago! What about those new orders we’ve just won in the teeth of the recession? A couple of them gave us some cash up front and we’ve just banked some large receipts on a profitable old job so we’re quite flush at the moment. However we really need those additional supplies. You want a set of management accounts? What are they when they’re at home?”

Genuine quotes from a small business owner? Maybe not yet, but they soon could be. Research by Graydon, the credit management specialists indicates that the lack of publicly available financial information could lead to many SMEs being refused credit by key suppliers. Therefore such businesses may need to have up to date financial information available to share with credit rating agencies. Indeed Graydon have teamed up with Validis to develop their own enhanced credit information service based around validated up to date management accounts.

The increasing number of financial reporting obligations that are likely to be imposed on SMEs don’t end there. Debate is raging within financial reporting circles as to when and how SMEs can be brought into the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) net. Indeed, if the Accounting Standards Board has its way, it could be that our much loved UK GAAP will soon be a feature of history textbooks rather than accounting textbooks, as companies will ultimately be expected to adopt either full IFRS, IFRS for SMEs or the FRSSE for smaller entities.

Funnily enough, during a recent clearout, I came across an old exam paper that posed the question as to whether the future should be “accounting for everyman” i.e. simple and understandable or a highly specialised profession. It seems to have gone in the direction at the latter, with accounts being increasingly detailed and complex and requiring an in depth study by experts in order to fully understand what they are actually saying. This was particularly brought home to me when analysing the accounts of a couple of quoted US companies for a client recently (although ironically the disclosure requirements for unquoted companies in the US would appear to be minimal).

Perhaps another anguished cry can be added to the list of quotes above. “International Accounting Standards? But we don’t do any export business! Help!”

Antony Doggwiler