Why are you in business? Do we ever ask ourselves that question? Imagine you are in a room with no phone, total silence, with a pen and paper on a table in front of you. What is your answer to that question? What do you write down?
We live in a manic world where we are always on. Devices, deadlines, instant news, most of which is bad, goals, work, and everything at the touch of a button.
“I can’t believe Just Eat isn’t here yet with that Happy Meal I ordered 15 minutes ago.” Impatience.
But does all this stuff and instant gratification make us happier? No, it doesn’t. This isn’t a happy-clappy let’s all go hug tress blog. It’s more to ask ourselves some questions about why we are in business. We’ll look at
- Why I’m in business
- Curiosity
- Be of Value
- Do things right
Why I’m in Business
Is it to win? Is it to be rich? I discussed this with a close friend yesterday. You can’t win in business. No one is declared the winner at the end of the year. You take part but who are you competing against? Are we competing against the other accountants in our county, city, or country? No, we’re not. There’s loads of business out there for everyone. Yet, there’s an element of competition to get the best clients. But they could be the ones you already have.
I believe we are competing with ourselves. We are setting targets at the start of the year and planning to achieve those. Growing our sales, keeping our costs in check, and most importantly of all, growing our profits.
For me, it isn’t money that motivates me. My why is to grow something valuable to clients and a valuable business to us. It’s a business we could sell, but we don’t have to. It’s valuable because of the great clients we have who use our services year after year. It generates annual income and profits because people want and need the services we offer.
BHAG
Big Hairy Audacious Goal. We used to work with an excellent accountancy coach in the UK called Rudi Jansen. One of his questions for us is what is your BHAG? Without thinking too much we’d put down numbers like sales of €2 million or €4 million. Numbers on a page that were quite meaningless.
Now I know that we want to double our business in the next 5 years. Will we do that? If we don’t, we’ll go close as we know it’s achievable with the right team and the right clients. But we will get there, and it may take an extra year or so. If it does that’s not failure, it’s doing what we are good at for people and businesses that we help to grow too.
Doubling our team of 9 to 18 would be exciting. It may not fit the definition of audacious but when you start as 1 and go to 2 it is for me.
Curiosity
They say curiosity killed the cat. The rest of that saying could read, “And satisfaction brought him back.” Curiosity in the tax world interests me. I like to see how things work and problem-solve for clients. I don’t have all the answers, but I have access to some brilliant people to bounce things off when I need a steer on an issue.
Plus, learning new things is exciting. Last week I was on a few webinars with Omnipro to meet my annual CPD need. Listening to Brendan Twohig, Paul Murphy, and John Murphy talk about various tax topics is so interesting. I know I know that would be pure hell for most people but it’s a great motivator for me. You learn a lot from them and can bring ideas and tax-saving tips to help clients.
One such tip was the need to have tax clearance by the 31st of December this year to get the new landlord tax credit. By availing of this they can save up to €3,400 over 4 years.
Team
Luckily, we have a curious team here. In our weekly training sessions, we start with sharing one or two new things we learned since we last met.
Cathy our Revenue interview specialist with all the latest questions from Revenue
Gwen on how she’s pushing through invoices from DEXT into Xero and reconciling them to the bank.
Brenda our RCT wizard who is tidying all things RCT for a new construction company client
Dee who is helping me set up a new company for a client so we can get the directors, secretary and shareholding right.
Goda on her dealings with Revenue to get postponed account and Intra-EU VAT set up for a client
Izabela our payroll specialist, showing us where to include the small benefit exemption in Collsoft. This is to help clients comply with ERR.
Aedin queen of the business snapshot. Updating us on the key business performance numbers given to clients weekly.
Ger telling us about some useful AI tools that can help us in meetings with clients and with data entry.
The purpose of our weekly training sessions is to improve the way we do things for clients. Also, we want a culture of knowledge sharing so that our team is up-to-date with
- The technology we use
- The latest tax, company law, and accounting rules to keep clients on the right side of Revenue
Be of Value
We aim to be relevant and be of value to our clients. It’s very satisfying for us to see our client’s businesses improve. And to see client’s businesses helping the business owners and company directors
- Earn higher salaries than the year before
- Have their companies make pension contributions for directors and staff
- Make bonus payments after a good year
- Pay medical insurance for key employees
- Get Other benefits like the small benefit exemption and bike-to-work scheme
Some of our best clients come from existing clients recommending us. That’s brilliant as it’s free advertising and makes the sales process smoother.
It’s all great when things are going well but there will be bumps along the road. And we have to be there to support our clients when they need us.
Compliance Intervention
Two clients had a Level 2 Compliance Intervention from Revenue this year. Two other clients in the property space had Revenue Profile interviews. None of these resulted in extra taxes, interest, or penalties. Revenue didn’t get one extra euro from our clients that had these reviews.
Plus, we took ownership of each case to help prepare the client for the interviews involved. And the team answered all Revenue queries with detailed backup and reconciliations. This is down to experience and having good quality numbers available. What we call getting the foundations right. Or being part of the Comerford Foley Safety Net.
Do Things Right
Why would you not do things right? The corporate tax rate is 12.5%. Why mess around in a company when all you’ll save is 12.5%? Sometimes, as accountants, we focus too much on Income Tax & Corporation Tax. But remember that payroll taxes PAYE, PRSI & USC, and VAT are where we incur our highest liabilities.
Yet, some people they’ll look after their own payroll taxes & VAT returns. Does that make sense if you are not a trained bookkeeper? If I have a severe pain in my tooth, I don’t whip out the pliers to pull it out. I could do that, but I wouldn’t because of the pain and the mess! It’s off to Sorcha White for me and praying she can see me asap. It’s our job to get there right for you when you use our services to ensure you are compliant. That helps so much when Revenue come calling.
By doing things right we protect you from Revenue, and we protect ourselves too. You are paying us to get things right. And doing things right has a huge value for you. It gives you confidence. A vital ingredient in any growing business. Confidence is positivity and helps you make good decisions. Knowing things are right and having up-to-date numbers boost your confidence levels.
And we want to work with clients who value getting things done right. It is one of our values.
Our values
Our values are important to us, and we want to work with people and businesses that have similar values. We have the 3 Ps, an A, an E, and a H.
- Problem solve – figure things out for you
- Proactive – if there’s something to share or we get it done
- Protect – do things right and be there when you need us
- Approachable – someone you’d got for a pint with
- Enjoy – I know. A crazy concept that someone can enjoy this stuff!
- Honesty – We want you to be honest with us. If we didn’t do a good job tell us.
Those who have been to our office will see these values on our walls in different places.
Curiosity, hard work, and a willingness to improve and do things right make us better—better accountants than we were at the end of 2023. And we plan to be better at the end of 2025, too. It makes business more interesting and is good for us and you, our clients, too.
As we sign off for 2024, I’d like to thank you our readers for reading our blogs. Thanks for your resilience; we hope they are useful now and again. See you in 2025.
Interested in getting the foundations right and letting us be your safety rope? If so, Start Here
