This Is A Defining Moment!
Accountant's Minute 225
Greetings – We hope that you are well!
This is definitely a “defining moment” for the Prime Minister - Scott Morrison, Treasurer - Josh Frydenberg and the Chief Medical Officer - Professor Brendan Murphy and the State Premiers and Chief Ministers of the Territories and their advisors, but it is also a defining moment for accountants and business advisors who will be called upon to offer advice and support for small businesses and medium-sized enterprises in areas that many of you have not considered to be part of your engagement with your clients previously and this is “Business Improvement Advice!
Most of your clients now have a need for an input from their “Trusted Advisor” beyond taxation – this is about business survival, retaining homeownership, keeping their team together!
Your clients will be looking to you for leadership to guide them through this crisis which is very painful at present but will not last forever.
Australia has battled through significant crises in the past and will be able to survive this one but the key contribution you can make is assisting as many of your clients as possible to survive this “difficult time”.
Our suggestion is that if you have not already done so, that you contact your clients and suggest that they immediately prepare a summary of their position so that you can advise them. It is critical that your clients know their numbers and are able to communicate them to you or alternatively, that your team prepare their numbers.
Let us not forget that we already had difficult situations all round Australia prior to the advent of the Coronavirus from drought, bushfires, floods and cyclones. The Australian, State and Territory governments have introduced a suite of loans and grants to assist farmers, primary producers and small businesses that suffered loss or damage because of the various natural disasters. Our first suggestion is that you ensure that your clients have completed their applications to the responsible government departments and then if they need your assistance your team is available to assist them completing those applications.
Businesses need to have a clear understanding of their current position. We have prepared the “Survival In Difficult Times Product Package” to assist accountants to be able to guide your clients through this process either with the client doing the bulk of the work themselves or with the client engaging your firm to undertake the business reviews.
The key requirement is to prepare a current Budget and Cash Flow Forecast for the next twelve months so that a review can be undertaken to determine whether the business needs to submit an application to a bank or other financial organisation for a loan to assist them to continue to operate and employ people. Some of your clients may indicate that they talked to their bank a few weeks ago and never got a positive response. Hopefully that is now changed in many instances because last week the Australian Government and the Reserve Bank of Australia announced a $90 billion finance package with banks to enable the banking industry to be able to finalise loans with small and medium-sized enterprises.
In some cases, your clients might be inclined to try to raise some capital utilising section 708 of the Corporations Act or even considering attempting to raise capital as a “Crowd Sourced Funding Equity Raising Company.”
I would like to invite you to visit www.essbiztools.com.au/survival in difficult times/learn more where you will be able to view a full summary of the “Survival in Difficult Times Product Package” that you can subscribe to for $92 per month including GST for twelve months or take advantage of a discounted upfront cash payment subscription of $990 including GST.
If you have any questions on any aspect of the “Survival in Difficult Times Product Package”, please do not hesitate to contact me:
We have prepared a more detailed summary on the present position incorporating the latest announcements made by the Prime Minister in the “Want to Know More” please click on to the image below.
I invite you to view the Accountants Minute video which gives you more details on accepting that this is definitely a “defining moment” for the accounting/business advisory industry.
