The Federal Parliament has finalised the legislation for Crowd Funding Companies and Early Stage Innovation Companies.  This is a great opportunity for accountants to get ready to service a brand new emerging market.

Crowd Funding Companies are public companies which will have:

·                a maximum investment in assets of $5M;

·                turnover is restricted to $5M per annum; and

·                they will be available to raise capital of up to $5M every twelve months.

The maximum investment for a “retail investor” is $10,000 and there is no restriction of investments by a “sophisticated investor”.  A “sophisticated investor “is a person who has net assets of $2.5M or has a gross income of $250,000+ per annum.

Each company will need to appoint an intermediatory who holds an Australian Financial Services Licence who will act as the “gatekeeper” under the legislation.

Early Stage Innovation Companies must be formed in the last three years and have:

·                expenditure of less than $1M;

·                income of less than $200,000.

The companies will need to pass a 100 point test to be eligible.  That test involves:

·                a review of their expenditure in research and development;

·                Whether they have received an Accelerating Commercialisation Grant;

·                whether they have participated in a Accelerator Program;

·                whether the company has already raised in-excess of $50,000 from arms’ length investors;

·                whether the company has registered any patents or plant patents over the last five years;

·                whether the company has registered any innovation patents or registered designs; or

·                the company is generally focused on developing for commercialisation one or more new or significantly improved products, processes, services or marketing or organisational methods.

“Retail Investors” will be able to invest up to $50,000 per annum per company and there will be no limit for “sophisticated investors”.

Investors are going to be very interested in these companies because they will be able to obtain a 20% tax rebate up to a maximum of $200,000 for investments they made to a company each year.

There is also a Capital Gains Tax exemption from the end of year 1 to the end of year 10.

In both cases these companies are going to need material such as:

·                Business Plans;

·                Budgets and Cashflow Forecasts;

·                Marketing Plan;

·                Intellectual Property Strategy;

·                Commercialisation Strategy;

·                Perhaps some Government Grants;

·                Calculations of share price.

These companies are going to be very much in need of accountancy services.  Accountants are going to be needed to act as Chief Financial Officer, Company Secretary and Directors.  Remember, the Crowd Source Funding Companies have to be public companies so they need a minimum of three directors.

This is a significant opportunity for accountants to tap into a brand new stream of corporations.  We are going to conduct a special webinar of Tuesday, 17 May 2016 at 2.00pm on “Investment Readiness For Capital Raising”.  This webinar is restricted to 1,000 registrations, so please get in quick because I believe there is going to be a lot of interest in this subject.

If you have any questions on any aspect of the new companies that the Federal government has legislated for relative to Crowd Funding Companies or Early Stage Innovation Companies, please do not hesitate to contact us.

We will be releasing our new product packages on both of these companies in two weeks’ time and we look forward to being able to talk to you and to help you on this exciting new aspect of Business Advisory Services that you will be able to offer.

Peter Towers

MANAGING DIRECTOR – ESS BIZTOOLS PTY LTD

+61 7 4724 1118 | 1800 232 088

[email protected]

www.essbiztools.com.au | www.essbizgrants.com.au

Business plans are like maps for tourists.  If your client doesn’t know where they’re going, how are they going to know when they get there?

Having a business plan enables the business to periodically check where they’re at, as compared to the original forecast contained within the business plan.  If they’re not on target, the business plan gives them the opportunity to make some corrections in what’s happening in their businesses.

Most small businesses would not prepare a business plan on their own.  This is a great opportunity for accountants to establish your worth to your clients beyond taxation.  There’s not much gratitude from clients relative to taxation work, however there is from business plan work.  Don’t hold back.  Every small/medium enterprise needs a business plan.  Your role should be to act as the facilitator.

Where do you start?

Scope the job with your client.  Identify who is going to prepare some of the components of the business plan, which probably have to be performed by other people:

·           Marketing

·           Intellectual Property (IP) reviews – will be done by patent attorney or a trademark advisor

·           International Marketing

·           Working prototypes to get the product ready

You will need to prepare a proposal and a quotation.  Then have a conversation with your client and get them to sign off.  You’re then able to get started.

The first major activity should be the “think tank” meeting.  This enables you to conduct a review of the business.

Look at financial analysis:

·           Identify the objectives.

·           Where is the business now?

·           What resources does the business have?

·           What products and services does the business provide?

·           What is the business’ industry?

·           What is the state of the industry?

·           Undertake an analysis of the market experience of your client.

·           Who are the customers and clients of the business?

·           A wide range of other matters will be discussed at the think tank meeting.

A think tank meeting is an ideal opportunity to have all of the team present, to get their input as to what should be happening within their business.

You will then be able to follow up with other organisations such as:

·           local government councils

·           Chambers of Commerce

·           Austrade if your clients are proposing exporting to overseas market

·           Australian Bureau of Statistics for information on trends and other public information (most of these are free, they have a wide range of information to assist)

You will then be able to prepare a draft document and submit to your clients.  Have a discussion with your client.  Make any amendments and then, within the final document, you will be able to incorporate the reports prepared by the other consultants so that you have an overall business plan for your client.

Remember, business plans are like maps for tourists.  People need to know where they’re going and know that they have the opportunity of comparing their original plan back to where they are so that corrective action can be taken.  A business plan should be a “living” document.  It should be a document that has a detailed action plan and an encouragement that, at least on a monthly basis, directors or key management will review the document to ascertain any changes that are necessary.

A complimentary article, “Planning Your Business – Small Businesses”, is attached with this transcript.

ESS BIZTOOLS is presenting a webinar on Thursday 12th May 2016 at 12pm AEST, featuring “Business Planning”.  You’re invited to attend this webinar, free of charge, which will look further into the matters mentioned in this edition.  Click here to register to attend.

Alternatively, we can arrange a one-on-one webinar for you and your colleagues.  Please contact us with your preferred date and time for the webinar and we will do our utmost to accommodate your preference.

If you have any questions on any aspect of preparing business plans for your clients, or any aspect of the services that are available from ESS BIZTOOLS and ESS BIZGRANTS, to assist accountants to deliver an outstanding range of services to your clients, please contact us.

Peter Towers

MANAGING DIRECTOR – ESS BIZTOOLS PTY LTD

+61 7 4724 1118 | 1800 232 088

[email protected]

www.essbiztools.com.au | www.essbizgrants.com.au

The duties of a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) have been fairly

Many of the requirements of a CFO in a public company also apply

Let’s look at some of these…

Covers accounts, taxation and audits – things with which you’re

Include:

Driving profitable growth is a key role of a CFO.  Business

Includes:

Performing the Company Secretarial duties such as:

CFOs have a key role to identify issues in the business and

In 2015, Benchmarking.com produced an interesting report on the

If you’re offering a full range of CFO services, my expectation

We have a fantastic offer for you at present.  You can

We also have a special offer for our Business Advisory Services

If you wish to purchase individual packages within ESS BIZTOOLS,

Alternatively you can sign up for the ESS BIZTOOLS’ Gold

ESS BIZTOOLS is presenting a webinar on Tuesday 3rd May 2016 at

Alternatively, we can arrange a one-on-one webinar for you and

If you have any questions on any aspect of the services that are

Peter Towers

MANAGING DIRECTOR – ESS BIZTOOLS PTY LTD

+61 7 4724 1118 | 1800 232 088

[email protected]

www.essbiztools.com.au

The Personal Property Securities Act (PPSA) and the associated Personal Property Securities Register (PPSR) have a very wide influence on business operations in Australia.  Unfortunately, a large number of small/medium enterprise operators appear to not have any direct working knowledge as to how this legislation affects their business and, indeed, don’t have any understanding of the very severe financial consequences that ignorance of this legislation can cause them.

Already, in excess of $120M has been lost by the owners of property who have been involved in court cases over this legislation because they had not appropriately registered their assets on the PPSR.

Some accountants have indicated to me that they believe that this is solicitor’s work.  On the other hand, I’ve talked to quite a number of solicitors over the last few months.  They’ve indicated to me that, in their opinion, their role is to draft documents, in this case, two very important documents about which all small/medium enterprise operators should’ve received advice from a commercial solicitor – Terms of Trade Agreement and Retention of Title Agreement.

Solicitors don’t agree that it’s their role to then go to their client’s premises and check that a system has been introduced to ensure that proper consideration has been given to a myriad of business transactions that occur on an ongoing basis within most businesses as to whether registration should be made on the PPSR.

These business activities include customers.  When a new customer is secured, before any goods are sold to that customer, having the customer complete the Terms of Trade Agreement and the Retention of Title Agreement and returned to your client’s business so that an informed decision can be made as to whether a registration should be made for that particular customer on the PPSR.

Are your clients tracking where their stock is located?  Have they got stock on consignment?  In which case, there’s a very good argument that they should be giving careful consideration as to whether a registration needs to be made on the PPSR.

Are they renting or leasing assets, whether they’re boats, cars, aeroplanes, motorbikes, etc?  Are they looking at the consequences that could affect them if they haven’t registered on the PPSR?

Do they have plant and equipment such as formwork, buildings and other products stored on someone else’s premises?  If so, they’re potentially at risk under the PPSA.

Do they have Intellectual Property (IP) that they’ve developed that they’ve hired or entered a licence agreement with someone else who has got the right to use that IP?  Have they protected their interest by registering on the PPSR?

There are numerous other areas that need reviewing in most businesses to ensure that the business is protected from the consequences of not registering on the PPSR.

I honestly believe that this is accountant’s work, to establish a system, to make sure clients understand the terms relating to the sale.

A solicitor recently explained to me about a $400,000 loss that one of his clients has sustained because the person in the office misunderstood the terminology “grantor” and “grantee”.  For the hire of a number of items of plant and equipment, the office person had described the solicitor’s client as being the “grantor”, where in actual fact, the client should’ve been described as the “grantee”.  That was enough for the client to lose $400,000 worth of assets.

Within ESS BIZTOOLS, there’s a full PPSR Due Diligence System, to assist accountants to first of all establish an appropriate system within your client’s business, to review all aspects of the transactions being undertaken by your clients relative to the question and, secondly, should registration should be sought on the PPSR.

ESS BIZTOOLS is presenting a webinar on Wednesday 27th April 2016 at 12pm AEST, featuring “PPSR Due Diligence System”.  You’re invited to attend this webinar, free of charge, which will look at what’s included within the PPSR Due Diligence System and how you can utilise this system to ensure that your small/medium enterprise clients are protected from the ramifications of the PPSA.  Click here to register to attend.

Peter Towers

MANAGING DIRECTOR – ESS BIZTOOLS PTY LTD

+61 7 4724 1118 | 1800 232 088

[email protected]

www.essbiztools.com.au | www.essbizgrants.com.au

The Federal Government has finalised the legislation for the two new company-type entities that will operate from 1st July 2016.  The legislation for both new company entities is currently in the Senate.

The new entities are:

I believe that there are some tremendous opportunities for accountants to be active participants in the preparation and mentoring for clients so that they can form companies that will have a great chance of raising share capital for investors.

The crowd-sourced funding companies’ requirements are:

The legislation introduces an intermediary, an organisation which has an Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL) who will be the organisation that promotes the investment opportunities that are available in a particular company and will also be the entity that collects the investors’ funds and holds them until such time as the amount of capital that’s targeted has been raised or the capital raising period has ended.  It’s worth noting that the maximum capital raising period is 3 months.

The government has relaxed some of the rules that pertain to a public company for these crowd-sourced funding entities for the first 5 years so there’s no requirement for an Annual General Meeting to be held.  There’s also no requirement for an auditor to be appointed if the capital raised is less than $1M.  The annual reports don’t have to be sent to shareholders, they can be available on the website.

The ESIC are also a very interesting vehicle.  The general rules are:

Every company has to satisfy the 100-point innovation test that relates to items such as:

These items only relate to companies that are already established.  The government has also made allowances for brand new start-ups that might have an idea for a product, process or service.  The legislation is saying that, if the company is genuinely focused on developing for commercialisation, one or more new or significantly improved products, process, service, marketing or organisational methods, that company can be admitted.  We believe the best way to do that will be for the company to have one or two experts to sign off that the new company has, in fact, a genuine new product, process or service or something that’s of significant improvement.

Retail investors can invest up to $50,000 in these companies.  Originally, the government had not made any provision for retail investors.  I believe this is a good change.  There’s also no limit for what a sophisticated investor can contribute.

Capital Gains Tax (CGT) exemptions are available for investments in the ESIC, if the shares are held for longer than one year and less than 10 years, there’s no CGT.  Originally, the government had proposed that the one-year figure would, in fact, be 3 years, however that has been changed as part of the House of Representatives’ process.

However, as there’s no CGT applicable, there’s no capital losses that are deductible for income tax purposes in the period up to 10 years.

For investments in approved ESICs, investors can obtain a 20% tax rebate on the amount of their investment in the company, to a maximum rebate of $200,000 per annum.

It’s worth looking at the key aspects of getting investment ready because this would be part of the process that businesses have to go through.  This is where accountants can really add value to your clients.

Businesses need to be able to articulate their objectives.  They will need business plans, budgets and cashflow forecasts.  They will need to have identified their business’ vision which will include their exit strategy (this might be an initial public offer or some other type of exit strategy).

They will need to be able to summarise their Intellectual Property (IP) ownership and the security they have for that IP, details of any patents that the business has, how are they valuing their shares and what amount of shares are going to be issued.

Businesses will need to identify:

Businesses will need to prepare themselves for an investment pitch.

There’s a significant amount of work that accountancy businesses can perform to assist your clients to avail themselves of this tremendous opportunities to raise capital in a completely different format to what has previously been available in Australia.

To celebrate this, we’re conducting a special webinar on Thursday 21st April 2016 at 12pm AEST, which will feature the following guest presenters:

Bistorque is a company that has a pool of experts (over 80) who would be able to issue the certification that some companies are going to require to be accepted by ASIC as an ESIC-eligible company because they will be companies who are brand new on the development of new product, process or service and will require some external verification that they do have a genuine product or they’re making significant changes to an existing product.

Click here to register to attend, free of charge.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Peter Towers

MANAGING DIRECTOR – ESS BIZTOOLS PTY LTD

+61 7 4724 1118 | 1800 232 088

[email protected]

www.essbiztools.com.au | www.essbizgrants.com.au

Some accountants have contacted me and indicated that they’re a little bit worried about being challenged on their skills to offer business advisory services.

My response to that: if you’ve undertaken the ESS BIZTOOLS’ preparation package, you don’t need to worry.  You need to be positive.

All accountants went to a university.  The syllabus was the same at the university that you’ve attended for all of the commerce students.  You then went on to join the Institute of Chartered Accountants or the CPAs and undertook basically the same entrance qualifications.

Whether you ended up working for BHP, Coles, Federal government, State governments, banks or at public practices, every accountant in Australia undertook a very similar program.  There was no differentiation based on where you might ultimately work.

If you seriously wish to offer business advisory services, what you need to do now is to do some “brushing up”.  Do some research.  Improve your skills in some areas that might have gone a bit “rusty” so that you can offer a fantastic business advisory service to your small/medium enterprise clients.

By this stage within your firm, you would’ve conducted special updating programs over the last three months, involving partners, accountants and marketing personnel if you have them.  You should’ve asked for feedback from your clients as to what type of services they required from you in the years ahead.  Especially bearing in mind that the results of the surveys of small/medium enterprises, conducted over the last 15 years, have indicated that the small/medium enterprise market wants a wider range of services than just annual accounts and income tax.

As part of the review of the services you’re offering and the training that you’re undertaking, you would’ve identified accountants in your team who would become “product champions” (debtors, PPSR, CFO, etc) and “industry champions”.  This is going to vary depending on the type of industries from which your clients come.  You might identify someone who is going to be your pharmacy “champion”, your beef/cattle “champion”, your steel fabrication “champion”, etc.

Your team is also undertaking some leadership training to appropriately prepare them for the challenges ahead.

The SME Needs’ Analysis will assist in the identification of the types of services that your clients would like to receive from you.  The analysis gives you the opportunity to have a real conversation with your clients.

Marketing strategies have been discussed relative to promotional activities your firm might introduce to communicate with your clients about the services that you’re now providing.

A review has been made of the products and services that your firm will offer to your clients, especially in the first few months of offering business advisory services.  For example, debtors’ management, which includes a training video, incorporating information to assist you to offer a quality service, to assist clients with their business’ management of debtors.

The key components include:

A complete debtors’ management system that you can then customise and badge with your name on it is also available within ESS BIZTOOLS.  You can supply this type of service to your clients for a fee.

There are 15 other key products included within the ESS BIZTOOLS’ product directory.

We also discussed utilising a series of small seminars to launch business advisory services.  The system includes seminar program, scripts and handouts.

There’s no doubt that accountants will need some training in professional selling to be a market leader in the delivery of business advisory services.  This is because there’s no obligation for any of your clients to commission anyone to undertake business advisory services work, therefore you will need to sell your services.  It’s going to be a little bit more difficult than what the ongoing engagement with your client is for income tax.

The ESS BIZTOOLS’ system includes suggestions to enhance your team’s professional selling skills.

You’re then ready to invite clients who have undertaken the briefing seminars to attend a one-on-one meeting, to assist your clients to identify the new services your clients would like to receive from your firm.  For example, improvement in debtors’ days outstanding.

After all of these processes, you can then confidently answer any client who challenges you that you might not have the skills necessary to offer a CFO or a business advisory services by saying: “We are confident that we can deliver outstanding business advisory services to our clients.”

ESS BIZTOOLS have a fantastic offer at present.

The first module of the Business Advisory Services Introduction Package is available, free of charge.  Click here to sign up for your copy.

You’re then invited to subscribe to ESS BIZTOOLS, to give your accounting business a great advantage by offering business advisory services.  Modules 2-11 of the Business Advisory Services Introduction Package is available for $660 (including GST).  Please click here to sign up.

You can also sign up for the ESS BIZTOOLS’ Debtors’ Management Package as mentioned in this edition for $440 (including GST) or the SME Debtors’ System Manual for $240 (including GST).

Alternatively, you can get all of these and much more by signing up to the ESS BIZTOOLS’ Gold Package, which also includes access to ESS BIZGRANTS, a system that will assist you to identify government grants for your clients.  We currently have a special discount offer of 20% available, whereby you can sign up to the Gold Package for $2,376 including GST (normally $2,970 including GST).  Click here to take advantage of this offer, making sure to enter the code ESSGOLD20 to obtain the discount.  This special discount offer is available until 30th April 2016.

Attached with this transcript is a complimentary copy of the April 2016 edition of Business Plus+ newsletter.  The Business Plus+ newsletter is produced by ESS BIZTOOLS each month for our subscriber accountancy firms to badge and distribute to their clients and prospects.  Please feel free to utilise this newsletter for your firm.

ESS BIZTOOLS is presenting two special upcoming webinars.  You’re invited to attend these webinars, free of charge.

Wednesday 20th April 2016 at 12pm AEST will feature “Debtors’ Management”.  Click here to register to attend.

Thursday 21st April 2016 will feature “Innovation Companies Capital Raising”.  This webinar will include commentaries on the two new types of companies that the Federal government is introducing as part of the government’s Innovation Package.  Click here to register to attend.  This webinar will also feature the following guest presenters:

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Peter Towers

MANAGING DIRECTOR – ESS BIZTOOLS PTY LTD

+61 7 4724 1118 | 1800 232 088

[email protected]

www.essbiztools.com.au | www.essbizgrants.com.au

To be successful, accountants offering a broader range of services have to be part of the “client’s team”.

In the first instance, you will need to:

For items such as:

Government Grants

For many accountants, a significant change that will affect you is that your clients require greater input from you.  Small/medium enterprises require a “total financial service”, not just tax.

The “Accounting Market Pulse” report, prepared for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in December 2015, indicated that 64% of accountants earn less than 5% of their income from non-accounting services and 24% earned between 5-10% of their income from non-accounting services.

This means that 88% earned less than 10% of their income from services other than taxation, even though, for the last 15 years, small/medium enterprises have been indicating in survey after survey that they would like to receive additional services from their accountants.  If their accountants are not prepared to supply those services, eventually, many of those clients will find those services from some other supplier.  It could be another accountant or a business coach or consultancy business.

This is where a significant change is going to occur for accountants.

The question is: do you meet the challenge and make the changes so that the services nominated by small/medium enterprises can be provided or do you ignore the requirements of your clients?

ESS BIZTOOLS supplies a wide range of services to assist accountants to be able to deliver an outstanding range of services, to assist your clients to meet the changed circumstances that now prevail in the marketplace.

ESS BIZTOOLS has prepared an article, “Characteristics of a Well Run Business”, which looks further at the concept mentioned in this edition.  This article is available as complimentary material and is attached with this transcript.

ESS BIZTOOLS is presenting a special webinar on Wednesday 6th March 2016 at 12PM AEST, featuring “Assisting Clients to Plan for Success”.  You’re invited to register to attend this webinar, free of charge, which will give you a great introduction as to why business advisory services is a package of products that you should really consider introducing to your accountancy business in 2016.  Click here to register to attend.

I look forward to having further discussion with you in future weeks as part of the ongoing productions of appropriate material, to assist accountants to add value to your clients’ businesses.

Peter Towers

MANAGING DIRECTOR – ESS BIZTOOLS PTY LTD

+61 7 4724 1118 | 1800 232 088

[email protected]

www.essbiztools.com.au | www.essbizgrants.com.au

This is certainly going to be a challenge for most accountancy businesses. One of the big questions is: “Where to start?”

Part of this “start” preparation would include the development of an “elevator pitch”, something that you can talk to people you meet, literally in an elevator or in other casual settings.

An “elevator pitch” for your firm could go something like this:

“Hello, I’m Bill Smith, partner of Smith & Co Accountants. Our objective is to deliver a virtual Chief Financial Officer service to assist our small/medium enterprise clients to add value to their businesses. Whilst our services include taxation advice, we offer a full range of commercial services, including advice on cost management, planning, budgets, succession planning, debtors’ management and risk minimisation.

Incidentally, all of these items have been identified in small/medium enterprise surveys that have been conducted over the last 15 years. In these surveys, SME operators identified the type of advice they would like to receive from their accountants.

If you would like to talk to me in more detail, please ring me on 4724 1118 or visit our website at www.smithandco.com.au.”

Another key aspect of the delivery of a virtual Chief Financial Officer (CFO) service will be encouraging your clients to spend some time, each week, working ON their businesses rather than continually working IN their businesses

One of the ways that you might be able to achieve this is to be giving worthwhile information to your clients on what’s happening within their business and then encouraging them to sit down with you to review those business operations.

What are some of these items?

The analysis of the monthly management accounts would be a great place to start. Don’t prepare a set of financial accounts just for one activity if the client has got 4 or 5 different business units operating. Prepare separate Profit & Loss Accounts and the associated Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and ratios for each of those individual business units.

Why not prepare a benchmarking report? You could utilise reports by Benchmarking.com.au to compare your client’s financial performance in those various individual business units to figures established by Benchmarking.com.au from a review of other businesses.

Budgets and cashflow forecasts are very important, to show your clients where they might be going and then the comparison of actual performance to budgets, on a monthly basis, to see where they went wrong or, hopefully, where they improved and could that improvement be then implemented in other parts of the business.

Management of costs is a big worry for small/medium enterprises. In fact, in the surveys that have been conducted, this item was identified in the CCH survey as being the most important aspect on which businesses wanted some advice.

Business plans are very important and they’re going to become more important during 2016. This is because the government is introducing a whole new regime for small/medium enterprises, entrepreneurs, etc, to raise capital. This will be through capital raising functions being encouraged in the amendments to the Corporations Code for crowd funding equity raising and equity raising for the new “innovation companies”.

You can also assist by implementing appropriate systems to record research and development projects and then the actual expenditure, to facilitate a claim for the R&D rebate. This requires the business to be operating as a company.

If the business is also exporting or proposing to export, they could claim an Export Market Development Grant if they’ve spent more than $20,000 $15,000 in the year.

There are plenty of ways that accountants can be very proactive in offering a virtual CFO service. 2016 is being predicted by the Commonwealth Bank, in their publication “Accounting Market Pulse”, as being the year that the business advisory services are emerging as the major new activity in which accountants are involved.

ESS BIZTOOLS has prepared an article, “Building a Virtual Chief Financial Officer Service in 2016”, which looks further at this concept of offering a “virtual CFO service”. This article is available as complimentary material and is attached with this transcript.

ESS BIZTOOLS is presenting a special webinar on Wednesday 30th March 2016 at 11am AEST (12pm AEDT), featuring “Building a Virtual Chief Financial Officer Service”. You’re invited to register to attend this webinar, free of charge, which will give you a great introduction as to why business advisory services is a package of products that you should really consider introducing to your accountancy business in 2016. Click here to register to attend.

I look forward to working with you on the implementation of appropriate strategies to meet the challenges that are confronting accountants at this time.

Peter Towers
MANAGING DIRECTOR – ESS BIZTOOLS PTY LTD
+61 7 4724 1118 | 1800 232 088
[email protected]
www.essbiztools.com.au | www.essbizgrants.com.au

I believe that 2016 will be acknowledged as being the “year of business advisory services”. This is what the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s publication, “Accounting Market Pulse”, has predicted.

The first phase is the preparation phase, to lay the foundations for a very successful segment of your work, which will come from business advisory services. By laying the foundations, this will ensure that your accountancy business is ready to deliver an outstanding business advisory service to your clients.

The various surveys that have been conducted over the last 15 years, by MYOB, CCH, Smithink, universities, etc, have identified that the small/medium enterprises have indicated that they would like to receive commercial services from someone – preferably their accountant.

The services that you could deliver include:
• Personal Property Securities Register (PPSR) due diligence system
• a virtual CFO service
• by using the cloud and modern technology, you should be able to supply a service for many of your small/medium enterprise clients as if you were present in your office everyday
• debtors’ management review
• business planning
• budgets and cashflow forecasts
• succession planning
• advice on buying a business
• consultancy on selling a business
• identification of government grants so that your clients can receive subsidies of around 50% of the cost of specific projects

Other services that you could deliver include:

Analysis of the business’ financial performance
Firstly, making sure that the Profit & Loss Accounts have been prepared for the individual management units within the business and then calculate the ratios, the Key Performance Indicators and benchmarks so that the managers of those individual units receive “real time”, valuable information, to help them manage the business more effectively.

Investment readiness
Investment readiness is going to be a significant area over the next 6-12 months. This is going to be brought about by the Federal government’s amendments to the Corporations Code, to allow “crowd funded equity companies” and to enable the incorporation of a class of company, at this stage, referred to in the information memorandum as an “innovation company”. Of course, we still have the S708 capital raisings of up to $2M from 20 investors per annum. We also have the Offer Information Statement companies that can raise up to $10M. Once this new legislation comes into operation, hopefully on 1st July 2016, I believe the professional area of helping clients to get investment ready will be very busy.

If you’re concerned about the future of your accountancy business, NOW is the time to commence the implementation process so that your firm is able to navigate the changing market circumstances, which definitely exist at present.

When the history of this period is written, I believe that the transformation of accountancy businesses into offering virtual CFO services and business advisory services will be acknowledged as a momentous improvement in the services being supplied by accountants to the small/medium enterprise market. The challenge for all accountants is to make sure you’re not left out because, even though the surveys have indicated that small/medium enterprises want additional services, they will not all sign on for these services when you approach them. The quicker you get ready for this new emerging market, the better.

ESS BIZTOOLS has developed a full range of products to enable accountants to earn professional fees from the delivery of virtual CFO services and business advisory services.

ESS BIZTOOLS has a special offer of 20% discount on the ESS BIZTOOLS’ Gold Package, now available for $2,376 including GST, normally at $2,970 including GST. The Gold Package includes everything ESS BIZTOOLS and ESS BIZGRANTS offer. Please visit our website, www.essbiztools.com.au, to take advantage of this special offer, which is available until 30th April 2016.

Alternatively, you can pay for individual packages so that you can use them when it suits you to undertake the process.

The Business Advisory Services Introduction Training Package is available for $660 including GST, which includes 11 modules with the training programs for each of those modules.

The individual Business Advisory Services Products, 17 of them, will be available for individual subscription and will range from $300 to $900 including GST.

ESS BIZTOOLS has prepared a wide range of templates, forms, articles, seminars and training programs to assist accountants to deliver a wider range of commercial products and services to assist your small/medium enterprises add value to their businesses, including “Creating Business Advisory Services for Clients”, which can be downloaded from our website.

Peter Towers
MANAGING DIRECTOR – ESS BIZTOOLS PTY LTD
+61 7 4724 1118 | 1800 232 088
[email protected]
www.essbiztools.com.au | www.essbizgrants.com.au

Most aspects of running a business involve legal issues of some kind. Legal compliance is very important if your business is going to be successful. Failure to implement appropriate legal strategies can cause you stress and could, in fact, lead to business failure.

There are appropriate legal services available from competent solicitors in most cities, towns and regions in Australia, however you should be talking to a commercial solicitor, not a family court solicitor or a personal property solicitor, for business related matters.

In the first instance, it’s important that you’ve used the right entity for your business, whether it be a sole trader, partnership, trust or company.

A solicitor can explain the differences to you. You also need to tell the solicitor what you intend to do in your business. For example, if you intend to do significant amounts of research and development that is going to cost in excess of $20,000 per annum, perhaps you should be incorporating a company. However you need to look at the cost. Incorporating a company will cost you more money than just setting up as a sole trader and applying for an Australian Business Number (ABN). On a positive note, a company can give you significant advantages when it comes to securing some government grants and also claiming research and development expenditure for a tax rebate.

Most businesses develop Intellectual Property (IP) and yet most businesses fail to adequately protect the IP within the business. Have a discussion with your solicitor relative to IP.

Other issues which can involve ensuring you get legal advice are:
• leasing premises
• employment of staff
• engagement contracts
• service agreements – such as your terms and conditions and your Retention of Title agreements
• how you might comply with the Personal Property Securities Act and the registration requirements on the Personal Property Securities Register

The items mentioned are only a very small sample of the range of activities on which a commercial solicitor could advise you.

I believe it’s important that business owners have one or two meetings per annum with a commercial solicitor, to review what’s happening in your business and to find out from your solicitor if there have been any recent laws, cases or decisions that might affect your business operations. Indeed, I believe that every business should be having an annual legal check-up, whereby you can get this type of advice, at least once a year.

To be successful in business, you need to be aware of a range of business issues and, if you’re not an expert in any of those areas, you need to identify an individual or a firm that can deliver the services to you in a manner that you understand so that you can implement their advice.

Sometimes, you might not even realise that you need the advice at the time it was given to you, however you’d be very happy that you received the advice once you realise the consequences.

One of those key areas is legal advice. Many small/medium enterprise operators ignore legal advice to their detriment in operating their businesses.

ESS Small Business presented 2 webinars with 2 commercial solicitors:
• Legal Essentials for Australian Small Businesses – guest presenter Dean Woodbridge, Executive Lawyer, Clinch Long Letherbarrow Lawyers in Sydney
• Legal Issues for SMEs – guest presenter Matthew Karakoulakis, Commercial Solicitor, AMK Law in Melbourne

Click here to view these webinars, free of charge.

Whilst you are on the ESS Small Business’ website, why not have a look at the offerings from a wide range of business people who are able to assist small/medium enterprises?

Peter Towers
Managing Director