I received a message from an Australian accountant the other day. The message went something like this: Hi David, Just some feedback from my Partner in business (an old school hardworking now moving to retiring not the easiest lady to impress). You made it easy the questions that came back were of calibre and clearly indicated that you had certainly …
Selling the Accounting practice ball and chain… Thoughts part 2
We thought this week we’d start off with a great Getty image of an accountant at a beach. Then as the dream of the beach disappears (sorry) we thought we’d recount a recent conversation we had with an Australian accountant. This accountant was a principal of a firm in Perth. He was a part owner, with other major owners being …
Selling the Accounting practice ball and chain… Thoughts part 1
As many Australian accountants come to considering when to sell up their main asset of their working life, their accounting practice, it’s interesting to see how people start to consider readying their practice for sale. As Odyssey has been providing outsourcing services to Australian accountants for over a decade, we’ve seen a few accountants sell up their practice or consider …
Why bringing your outsourced work back inhouse often isn’t seamless…
An ex client of Odyssey reached out to me last week, and wrote the following: Dear David, It has been some time since I have made contact. I was wondering if we could touch base. We used Odyssey for the majority for SMSF clients in the 2016 year, approximately 40-50 funds. Most of these were handled by our senior accountant …
Forecasting the future of Australian Compliance
Nassim Taleb was credited with the black swan theory and indicated that the black swan event depends on the observer. So in respect of the turkey and the butcher, the outcome is the same, but the event is not a black swan event to the butcher. The object then is not to become the turkey. A turkey is fed for 1,000 …
The Future of the “Per Seat” Resource Model
I was talking to a Philippines BPO provider the other day who has been operating in this space for more than three years. They offer full time employees to Australian accountants on a per seat fee basis and he had some interesting comments about the resources. In the financial planning area they were making good money. They were doing okay …
Bitcoin: Are you up to speed?
In Mid May Bitcoin surged up to $1,900 and Bitcoin now sits at around $2,141. Going back only 4 years Bitcoin traded at $14. This has been a rise of 153 times the original $14. Certainly if you are reading this then likely you didn’t purchase Bitcoin at $14! Wikipedia lists 24 other crypto-currencies, the most recent being Zcash. You …
Is a black swan event just around the corner for Australian compliance?
With Mother’s Day just past there has been some interesting online discussion about the commoditisation of the florist industry. There are many similarities to the “Commoditisation of Compliance”. We are all familiar with Airbnb, Uber and the other connectors in the industry, and their margins are well known. Airbnb offers a more unique product while Uber offers a transport which …
The Ethical dilemma of offshore providers supporting non registered tax agents
Had an interesting phone call today. Odyssey was called by an Australian accountant who was wholesaling to other Australian accountants. The conversation progressed well and they were impressed by our business model, pricing and reputation for quality. They particularly liked our ad hoc approach to receiving jobs. Afterwards as we moved towards preparing a services agreement for them we ran …
Australia’s new data breach notification laws. Are your suppliers ready?
With an increase in data now on the cloud, and a number of third party services providers assisting Australian accountants, it’s a good time to look at the ever changing laws on data breaches. More recently, there was the “Can you hear me” scam reaching Australia. The scammer only needs to record you saying “yes” over the phone. The intention …
