Impact of COVID-19 and Financing of Businesses

Welcome to some winter weather!  It’s great to see that some of the States and Territories are opening up for business operations again.  There are going to be plenty of challenges for accountants to respond to, especially as we approach 30th September.

In this week’s "COVID-19 Survival Panel" webinar on Friday 29th May at 12-noon AEST, we have a presentation by Jordan Lowry, Managing Director, Blackstone Business Group, Human Resources and Workplace Health and Safety Consultants “Impact and Mindset” – analysing the effect of COVID-19 on accountants and business operators.

The second presentation will be made by Andrew Ward who, for a number of years, was an Independent Director on Crowdfunding Industry Australia the industry body representing Crowd Sourced Funding Intermediaries.  Andrew’s presentation will discuss the emergence of a Crowd Sourced Funding Industry in Australia and he'll discuss the current status of Crowd Sourced Funding and offer his predictions on what will emerge over the next few years and make comment on the role that accountants can play in assisting small businesses and medium-sized enterprises to take advantage of this new capital raising opportunity.

To register for this webinar, please go to the ESS BIZTOOLS' website > Webinars.

The keynote speaker in last week’s webinar was Amanda Gascoigne a Chartered Accountant who advises small accounting practitioners all over Australia on ways and means to improve the services that they are offering to their clients.

Amanda has a Facebook community called “The Balanced Firm” and she invited the webinar attendees and viewers to logon to familiarise themselves with the type of services that she is offering to smaller accounting firms.

The key messages conveyed by Amanda included:

• Resetting for the new financial year.
• What are some of the metrics of a contemporary and profitable accounting practice.
• Why do clients leave accountancy firms?
• Strategies that you could consider implementing for the new financial year.

Amanda referred to an article that had been written in 1994 offering suggestions to accountants on how to run successful practices and she indicated that, in many aspects, 16 years later she was saying very similar things.

In the “Want to Know More” you can review the PowerPoint slides that Amanda utilised in her presentation.

Peter Towers raised the question about the “Relationship of an accountant moving into the role of the virtual Chief Financial Officer for a client.”

A lot of the work that accountants have been doing in the last 8 weeks could be described as Chief Financial Officer duties relative to eligibility for the various government initiatives and grants that have been offered.

The application process for a client to obtain a bank loan, especially utilising the “Coronavirus SME Guarantee Loans”, requires the preparation of a Business Plan, Budget and Cashflow Forecast together with financial accounts for 2018/19 and interim financial accounts to 31st March 2020.

“Business conditions are changing and you don’t need me to tell you, but I think we are in the calm before the storm at present”.  “There’s no debt collection occurring at present – the law has been temporally changed – lenders cannot take action to wind up companies until after 30th September, some liquidators have laid off staff and are applying for JobKeeper themselves, but they expect to be very busy from October when the temporary respite for borrowers, who are in default, has expired”.

“So, what does all this mean?”

“I think after 30th September there will be a lot of changes”.

“Now is an opportunity for accountants to be part of their client's planning process, establishment of strategies, negotiating to perform a Chief Financial Officer role, acting as the Project Manager for the leadership team to meet and consider all aspects of the business in the Business Review Meeting each month and to contribute to the planning of the long-term strategies relative to financing the business, including the possibility of raising capital or additional capital from the public utilising Crowd Sourced Funding Equity Raising or Section 708 of the Corporations Act”.

If accountants do not enthusiastically and voluntarily offer you services to undertake this role for your business clients, then many small businesses and medium-sized enterprises will turn to other service providers to undertake this 'value adding service' and accountants will be left with only the taxation work, which is becoming more and more of a commodity service.

You can view the PowerPoint slides that Peter used in his presentation in “Want To Know More”.

Want to know more about the services that are available from ESS BIZTOOLS and our Affiliates to assist you to proactively assist your SME clients on a wide range of business services performing a Chief Financial Officer’s role?  If so, I invite you to visit the ESS BIZTOOLS' website > Survival in Difficult Times > Learn More, where you'll be able to view an overview of the material included in the product packages which incorporates COVID-19 products.

Reminder, we are presenting the special webinars for accountants each Friday at 12-noon AEST until 30th September 2020.

If you would like to have a one-on-one discussion, please send us an email: or phone 1800 232 088.

Stay safe!

If you have a friend or colleague who you think might find this article interesting, please feel free to pass it on to them.

Have a great day!