From The Trenches

Best on Ground 
Paul Meissner

A fact sheet released by the corporate regulator highlighted it would cost members $13,900 to operate a self-managed super fund, as well as a 100-hours-a-year time commitment.

The ATO has refined these figures, showing operating expenses are closer to $3,923 a year.

https://www.smsfadviser.com/news/18950-ato-figures-throw-light-on-asic-s-financial-fact-sheet  

Great content by the ATO. Content from May 2016, can’t say I have seen it before.  
https://www.ato.gov.au/General/Trusts/In-detail/Trust-tax-time-toolkit/Resolutions-checklist/#_Does_a_resolution  

David Boyar

Twitter is more often a dangerous place than a supportive one but this is #taxtwitter at its best
https://twitter.com/kjb_cpa/status/1274905696052502528 

Could this trigger a construction sector clean up?
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/directors-to-get-id-number-for-life-to-thwart-phoenixing-20200612-p55218 

Is receipt banks' strategy to win on data quality?
https://www.accountantsdaily.com.au/technology/14498-receipt-bank-acquires-xero-app-partner 

Dynamic Arrays are a new excel feature worth taking the time to learn 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2USJsIyIzvo 

David Dahm is a proper leader 
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-16/coronavirus-leaves-medical-practices-on-verge-of-collapse/12359282  

Worst on Ground
Paul Meissner

“The Lazy Accountant” - Is it just another software seller telling us how we are underperforming?
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/davidboyar_tax-activity-6681346758121017344-cYYp 

 
Deloitte will cut 7 per cent of its workforce, or at least 700 professionals, despite the firm growing annual revenue by 10 per cent to $2.5 billion amid the COVID-19 downturn.

Partners were told on Monday that the firm was on track to deliver revenue growth of about 14 per cent over the first three quarters of the firm's financial year but that growth had collapsed in the final quarter due to the pandemic.

https://www.afr.com/companies/professional-services/deloitte-to-cut-at-least-700-roles-across-the-firm-20200622-p554we 

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The rant episode years in the making. 

Online lives are fake  for both business and personal. This is spoken about often in our personal lives but when people are big noting themselves in business platforms, we're worried about the impact on our business lives. 

Anyone can post any view or opinion they have now as fact. Facts no longer matter. Science is irrelevant and research is more often shared when it's commissioned by marketers who need data to sell their product. People are then emboldened by social sycophants that just agree with them. 

And when that happens, an idea that isn't worth spreading gets spread.

Anyone who tries a counter argument is labelled a troll or grumpy and risks damage to the professional reputation. 

Facts don’t matter anymore, there is always a group that will feed you back your views, a comfortable confirmation bias is met. And if enough likes and clicks are made all of a sudden that person is considered a "thought leader". When all they did was share a self service opinion. 

I often hear people pass off likes, supportive comments etc as proof that anyone holding a different view is irrelevant. 

But we embrace the differing view. We like the friction and the debate.

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The Weekly Challenge
The feds are handing out support cash industry group by special interest group. It seems the squeaky wheel is getting the oil as industry leaders claim mass extinction if they don’t get aid:-

• $1b. For construction
• Money for the arts
• Grants for renovations

My challenge, is to develop a strategic funding arrangement that set us up for the next century and not whittle away the 60b left from JK!

Best on Ground
David Boyar

This just became the third most loved tweet of all time - the sheer power of words to reach millions blows me away and makes me think of the reach and influence of accountants. 
https://twitter.com/andymilonakis/status/1266821069823975430 
Business Depot have come up with another new way to engage with clients - ultra low cost and wide reach. If a client on the edge saw this, would they wonder why 
http://offers.businessdepot.com.au/rebound-2020 
Xero Document Packs have made digital doc signing the hottest tech stack piece of the month 
https://www.xero.com/au/features-and-tools/practice-tools/tax/document-packs/?escape=true 

Paul Meissner

Grant Thornton: The main reasons people enjoyed working from home were the reduced commute time, having the flexibility to manage their own hours, reduced expenses, and having more time for exercise and family.

The survey also showed 45 per cent of respondents had some discomfort about returning to the office. More than 60 per cent wanted to work both at home and in the office after reopening and only 9 per cent wanted to exclusively work in the office.

https://www.afr.com/companies/professional-services/grant-thornton-kearney-reimagine-the-post-pandemic-office-20200601-p54yc8?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=nc&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1591149136 

Ask our competitors sales people to SHOW you each of these features in their software. Not TELL you their software has a feature,  BUT actually SHOW you the feature and HOW the feature works in their software.
https://www.bglcorp.com/2020/05/25/not-all-corporate-compliance-and-smsf-admin-software-is-the-same/  

Leading in a work-from-home environment, Accountants are exactly the right kind of workers to thrive in a work-from-home environment. 

Good summary of the 4 challenges
https://www.accountingtoday.com/list/leading-accountants-in-a-work-from-home-environment?utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=accountingtoday-tw&utm_medium=social&utm_content=socialflow  

Worst on Ground 
David Boyar

Doe’s Paul’s latest Linked In “give the masses what they want” post actually hit the mark?
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6673610747613978624/?commentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Acomment%3A(activity%3A6673526621976317953%2C6673610640814432256) 

Paul Meissner 

The Australian Comfort Group, which owns the SleepMaker and Dunlop Foams brands, delayed issuing invoices and the processing of customer orders in April, according to a source and documents seen by The Australian Financial Review.
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/ato-to-investigate-11m-jobkeeper-claim-20200531-p54y16? 

“Finance Futurist and Podcast King”
https://twitter.com/icmispeakers/status/1267365360145227776?s=20 

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NEW SEGMENT!!!

With so much change afoot we're challenging our institutions and leaders to actually have the back of the small businesses they keep saying are the backbone of the economy.

Paul Meissner:
I’ve long been critical of Cosboa, far too friendly with the medium end of SME, Their conference excluded small and micro business. My challenge - don’t screw this up. I’m ready to celebrate the success of this.  https://www.cosboa.org.au/post/small-businesses-set-for-boost-with-spend-local-campaign 

David Boyar:IR reform - We need actual representation of small business at the table so it's unions v big corporates
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/28/morrison-government-will-push-on-with-ir-reform-even-if-unions-and-employers-cant-agree

Best on Ground

Paul Meissner

Staying in touch with staff remotely is super important and this is a great quiz. Good example of responding. 
https://www.smartcompany.com.au/coronavirus/atlassian-employee-survey-open-source/ 

Taking the mickey out of your boss isn’t grounds for dismissal apparently. BP dragged this out for 2 years and took it to the federal court. Just for offending management. 
https://www.news.com.au/national/courts-law/worker-wins-twoyear-battle-to-take-the-piss-out-of-bosses-with-hitler-meme/news-story/3df34d53f3ceb09886adf0a619d5cb8c 

A lot will be written about the future of work and the office. Online booking seems to be an obvious change. Not sure hotdesking dies in the end. Large commercial offices face a bigger test I feel. 
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/nab-nixes-hotdesking-in-favour-of-app-bookable-desks-548390 

Trust the data, what do you need a human to check it for. There are never errors…

Political fighting here is interesting. Treasury is separate to government, staffed with the same people (largely) irrespective to who’s in government. Government always blamed. 
https://www.afr.com/policy/tax-and-super/later-60b-jobkeeper-error-discovered-20200522-p54vkm 

David Boyar

Accountants are the real heroes 
https://twitter.com/JosephCarrozzi/status/1263968097389514756

Peter the Great graces accountants 
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/6815904703351/WN_42ybOi-pT6mkRw1II7eBHg

Would David be this aggressive in app marketing? Or is it just something BGL can get away with? 
https://www.bglcorp.com/2020/05/25/not-all-corporate-compliance-and-smsf-admin-software-is-the-same/

Worst on Ground
Paul Meissner

Payroll is complex, errors bound to be made. Fair work found for the employee but hard to not see this go higher up the courts. 
https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/workplace/qantas-dealt-blow-over-jobkeeper-payments-20200524-p54vve 
 
https://www.afr.com/companies/professional-services/we-want-you-back-in-the-office-law-firm-tells-partners-20200524-p54vv6 

End of year BS tax articles by people who don’t know their stuff. 
https://www.westpac.com.au/news/money-matters/2020/04/making-sense-of-wfh-tax-tweak/ 

David Boyar

Advocacy: Too Little too late?
https://www.accountantsdaily.com.au/tax-compliance/14412-practitioners-potentially-misled-by-ato-s-jobkeeper-turnover-guidance

Does anyone know what EY is talking about? 
https://twitter.com/BrandDNA/status/1265280824141701121/photo/1

AI/ML Universities and job ready candidates 
https://twitter.com/filippie509/status/1265356259621912576

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Best on Ground

Paul Meissner
Best and worst. Best - Interesting view admitting that advisory disappeared in the last few months. Worst - Rob Nixon wrote this 10 years ago, firms globally are living this now. 
https://www.accountingtoday.com/opinion/our-profession-has-changed-forever 

David Boyar
Strong Excel Twitter game 
https://twitter.com/msexcel/status/1260932882463289345 

CA’s transparency on the Exam Issue 
https://www.accountantsdaily.com.au/professional-development/14340-ca-anz-issues-mea-culpa-over-exam-hiccup 

From the Trenches Live insane NPS is a credit to the community 
https://blog.hubspot.com/service/net-promoter-score-benchmarks 

Worst on Ground

Paul Meissner
MYOB cuts 130 jobs and warns of 'artificial economy'
https://www.smh.com.au/business/small-business/myob-cuts-130-jobs-and-warns-of-artificial-economy-20200519-p54ua0.html  

This is the most basic piece of content so out of touch with members. This content is more basic than what’s covered in the CA program.
https://www.charteredaccountantsanz.com/news-and-analysis/insights/opinion/running-your-accounting-practice-in-tough-times-part-2  

David Boyar

The Tax Institute threatened us with legal action instead of picking up the phone  https://www.fromthetrenches.com.au/podcast/2020/5/12/live-with-ron-lesh-nat-lennon-and-lee-duffield

Headline: Death of the Office - Copy: It’s too early to tell 

https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/workplace/the-death-of-the-office-20200507-p54qm0

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This is a live recording of our inaugural live web event. 

The chat box exploded as the audience interacted with this weeks show and with the awesome feedback we promise Trenches Live will be back soon. 

After the usual best and Worst BGL Founder and CEO Ron Lesh is taken of the Lesh and delivers his usual direct shot of reality into the debate amidst calls from the chat box for him to run for PM! 

Lee Duffield from All in Advisory and Nat Lennon from Two Sides Accounting,  two brilliant public practitioners, join to answer the questions that matter from those in the trenches

1. What did you learn about yourself?
2. Has your relationship with your business changed?

News round up

Best on Ground
Paul Meissner

Accountants and Bookkeepers handling JobKeeper, cash boost, etc. Psychologist (client) story.  

Robyn Jacobson moves to the TIA. Interesting given this puts a tenacious advocate for taxpayers in to an organisation that has some clout. Could we see better advocacy from professional bodies??
https://www.taxinstitute.com.au/timediarelease/the-tax-institute-appoints-tax-leader-robyn-jacobson-as-senior-advocate   

Tax jokes in TV series. Schitts Creek (Netflix) very funny scene on trying to claim personal stuff as a business expense.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mark-newman-accountant-for-builders-electricians-trades_thats-not-a-write-off-scene-from-schitts-activity-6661776582073425920-5a0y  

David Boyar

Early suggestions of tax reform - Nixing Consumption taxes the way GST intended
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/news/car-sales-cut-in-half-by-pandemic-5185554/ 

Is the VCFOA back, great job and reframing different types of advice during a recession
https://vcfoassociation.com.au/surviving-and-re-booting-are-2-separate-problems/ 

The DropBox Blog is beautiful. Relevant and 
https://blog.dropbox.com/topics/work-culture/distributed-work-setting-boundaries?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=distr-work&utm_content=boundaries 

Worst on Ground
Paul Meissner

Professional bodies lack of real support during this time

• Ineffective in Canberra
• No tools/resources
• No additional member contact, not even an email from the org, ceo, etc
  Only contact was selling/promoting products
• Hey hey CA video’s, I get it, it was fun, but where’s the practical effort.

David Boyar

Small biz accountants not at the table in canberra and thats why everyone got stressed. 

• The cause of stress wasn’t the ATO updates, it was that legislation did not consider how small biz accountants advise clients. ATO forced to run on its feet
• 3 big red marks - Accountants exemption, Franking credits, JK rules
• Bodies did an excellent job explaining AFTER the fact

Accountants continually unsung 
https://twitter.com/LieletteCalleja/status/1258218705571311616 

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Best on Ground
Paul Meissner

Xero builds good stuff, quickly. 
https://go.xero.com/bas/jobkeeper  

Denmark has announced any companies registered in tax havens will not be eligible for state aid programmes during the pandemic

“The government also said that companies which pay out dividends, buy back own shares or are registered in tax havens won’t be eligible for any of the aid programs, which now amount to a total of 400 billion kroner, when including loans and guarantees.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-18/denmark-extends-business-aid-to-increase-spending-by-15-billion  

David Boyar 

Quality lessons from GST

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/accountants-six-tips-from-2000-todays-challenges-scott-charlton/?trackingId=3BtqWlT7xMtAGuAO62hSBA%3D%3D

Anthony Pratt’s Linked In nails it again - Long Term View

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/anthonyjpratt_activity-6659961911041503232-JRQQ 

Security Matters: Mailchimp offering 10% to signing up to SSO

https://mailchimp.com/help/set-up-a-two-factor-authentication-app-at-login/

Chartered Accountants moved an education and events business online and EVERYONE wins 

Worst on Ground

Paul Meissner

PWC cuts pay but not hours, then with the spare hours the staff were not given, they are forced to ‘volunteer’? Was it the same voluntary method used for the pay cut??

https://www.accountantsdaily.com.au/business/14291-big-four-steps-up-with-largest-pro-bono-tax-offering-amid-covid-19 

David Boyar 

The ATO has made JobKeeper so easy businesses are doing it themselves - When UX is too good.

“If I get one more email about mental health I’ll lose my mind”  David’s Dad 

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In this Zoom recorded episode Trent Innes, Xero's head in Au and Asia talks about:-

• How Xero got their JobKeeper products in the market so quickly

• Why the Xero Community facebook activity has exploded

• Tips for managing remote teams

• What the future of work is

• Why you need to be responsible for the work/life changes you want to make after this crisis ends.

About Us

From the Trenches is brought to you by Paul Meissner from Freedom Mentoring and David Boyar from Change GPS. Proudly sponsored by BGL.

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Best on Ground

Paul Meissner

Great mental health guide shared by Nickie Sheehan
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/meissnerpaul_mentalhealth-stress-accountants-activity-6656739104723738624-xqMw 

ATO working miracles. For people who will whinge over the coming days and weeks, get over yourself. 

Tyler Wise
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/tyler-j-wise_in-the-whole-of-my-career-i-do-not-believe-activity-6656836360986603521-u9Mm  

David Boyar

Apple’s product designs from the 80s clearly show the origins of what we use today 
https://www.shockblast.net/apples-product-concepts-of-the-80s/  

Will we return to offices?
https://www.accountancyage.com/2020/04/14/accountancy-industry-unlikely-to-return-to-office/ 

Learn why you have this type of stress with James Ashford
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jamesashford_margins-accounting-profit-activity-6656268810712076288-6BdO  

Real Collaboration v Fake collaboration 

Worst on Ground

Paul Meissner

Avalara list - Waste of time given all the actual accountants are too busy working  
https://www.rise.global/accounting-top-100 

Just for your amusement - HR Software selling tax advice. Opportunistic. 
https://www.jobkeeperhelp.com.au  

David Boyar

What did the 45% of firms who either increased business or stayed the same do differently to those who decreased business 
https://www.accountantsdaily.com.au/resources/polls/260-how-has-covid-19-impacted-your-practice 

Some covid infographics make your understanding worse than before you see them
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/frasercreighton_jobkeeper-jobkeeperpayment-caanz-activity-6656440561375027200-ZMmT  

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Here's the breath of fresh air you need. A Classiv Paul Vs David - Is this Hell Week?

Paul Meissner - YES!

• Get everyone in there with a grey definition of income for the turnover test
• Multiple stages to this, register, enrol, meet wage condition (payroll STP), employee details, monthly reporting
• Become clients Payroll officer is not something accountants want
• High stakes, high risk
• Cost of missing out is huge for a client
• Scheme penalties are intimidating
• Doing it for clients, vs clients doing it themselves. Us doing it is an hour on the phone, going alone leads to 10-15 phone calls about logins, business details, etc, will they pay.

David Boyar - No! 

• COMPLIANCE LIVES 
• It's just a process that will have a best practice my mid week
• ATO has made engagement easy (if the bandwidth holds up)
• Clients have had the emotional detox and are now working out what's next, easier to work with
• Prediction: Fake Stress
• You must charge, there is no point working for a month, under high risk. If there is risk there must be return

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