A few days ago the Tax Practitioners Board (TPB) released draft Practice Note TPB(PN) D38/2017 to provide practical guidance and assistance to registered tax practitioners in understanding their obligations under the Code of Professional Conduct in relation to the use of outsourcing and offshoring. It should be noted that this is a draft practice note, and submissions and comments are invited …
How Australian accounting firm owners can semi-retire with lower risk…
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 …
Australian Accountants have big problems: Disruption hits hard in professional services.
We live in interesting times, but there is no denying disruption over the past 20 years since the internet and email burst onto the scene. Uber, Airbnb and Xero have been around for over a decade, and yet at the same time we still have rampant use of desktop bookkeeping and accounting software here in Australia. A little over a …
Australian Tax Workers: Is the next wage push just around the corner?
Recently Morgan McKinley released their 2017 Accounting & finance Salary guides. Focusing on the compliance salaries in Accounting & Finance Salaries in Commerce & Industry the more interesting numbers come from the “Tax Accounting” side with newly qualified accountants being paid $70,000 to $90,000; Senior accountants being paid $90,000 to $120,000; Managers $100,000 to $150,000; Senior Managers $140,000 to $180,000; and Directors/Heads from …
Are we irrevocably losing Compliance skills in Australia?…
I had a chat with a firm the other day that was resisting outsourcing and going to keep hiring local staff, on the pretext that managers of the future had always come from within the ranks. Late last year we blogged about the possible trend to bring the jobs back home as a result of changes in the Australian political climate. …
Increasing your firms capacity: Outsourcing versus Employee Leasing
Whilst the header on our blog this week mentions Outsourcing versus Employee Leasing, we should mention a third option being “DIY outsourcing”. So there are three options accountants may consider when looking at increasing Australian bookkeeping/accounting/tax compliance capacity within their firm. Business Processing Operation (BPO) Employee Leasing, sometimes referred to as Seat Leasing “Do it yourself” leasing BPO generally allows …
Tax Agents still upset at outsourcing work overseas
In a recent posting on the IPA website, titled: “Tax agent hits out at outsourcing work”, there was plenty of online comments from the Australian accounting community, proving the matter of outsourcing and offshoring is raising considerable angst and anger amongst Australian accountants. The article leads with an Australian tax agent indicating that outsourcing work presents an “unfair advantage” over …
Philippines – A race to the bottom for “per seat” costs
We recently saw a Philippines labour service provider advertise for a “seat fee” of sub Aus$200. This is certainly setting the scene for a race to the bottom for “per seat” costs. The current race is reminiscent of any overcrowded market. People smell cash, and a lot of new entrants come into the market. Prices are forced down to early …
Chatbots make a move on bookkeeping work
Bots and automation is a current theme in our blogs with recent posts discussing whether bots will beat offshoring and robotic process automation. Automation is an ongoing issue facing Australian accountants and we thought it time to look further into current market offerings from a couple of familiar Australian accounting software houses – Xero and Sage. Last week Xero announced …
Bring the jobs home… Australian compliance heads for a wild ride…
It’s been an interesting year. First we had the surprise of Brexit, then the surprise of the US elections and now there are rumblings in the Australian market. Whilst it will be interesting to see whether jobs will be brought back to America, there is likely to be some fallout in Australia. More recently there have been headlines in Australian news: …
