Brian Burke of Ashleys accountants in Hitchin wins #INABAaward

I announce the (virtual) award of INABAs to accountants who operate in such a way as to confirm my contention that ‘Boring Is Optional'.

INABA stands for 'I'm Not A Boring Accountant' - more on the awards here++++

Brian Burke was proposed for the award by Simon Chaplin, who simply pointed me at a recent Ashleys accountants' video which I then featured on this blog last week. This prompted me to get in touch with Brian. I also took a look at some of Brian's many other youtube videos containing: "Bite sized chunks [of business advice] to help you grow your business". These videos quickly confirmed that Brian has a larger than life personality and does not conform to the old stereotype. Far from it in fact.

Brian says:

"I have always taken the view that as we spend most of our weekday waking life at work we should have some fun in what we do especially as our field is considered somewhat dry and boring"

"I thus tend to spend my time devising as many off the wall marketing strategies as I can both for Clients but also for team members and am proud to say our retention levels are way above the ordinary small firm... If you like it produces that warm glow from [our long-term staff] and I must say the bedside manner especially from our tax department is second to none."

"I guess we just want to treat our people as ordinary responsible individuals (accountancy seems to attract ‘em !) so we are totally transparent as a firm figure wise …We produce a monthly one page plan which shows all our key drivers, soft drivers, goals, vision, team happiness etc and this in turn is presented by everyone in the firm even the most junior members so they understand it and appreciate what it means."

"We also reward our teams when targets are met ..over the past 5 years we have had days out to Germany, Ireland (God bless those 1p flights ), York, Bath and Cambridge as well as various local and London shows....We also try and raise a bit for Charity (the local hospice is our main recipient ) with the Ashleys Ball and an 'It’s a knock out' competition …. 

Individually we reward team members who make a client introduction with 20% of first year fee ....We have just run the Xmas advent calendar which spews out tenners and twenties plus the odd booby prize on a daily basis …you have to roll a dice and the highest number wins ..the roll off is at 8 20 am and you have to be there to win it  we begin work at 8.30  so you can see there is a method to the madness."

"I am passionate that the whole basis of success in the small firm accountancy world is to have a strong, committed and loyal team and this can only be done by constant nurturing from the leadership ...If it is not meant the team will soon realize and the whole thing can implode very quickly. IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE “FINANCIAL“ REWARD EITHER....PEOPLE JUST APPRECIATE BEING APPRECIATED, and I hope that Ashleys will continue to make that one of their main goals".

"On a personal note I keep myself sane by writing and playing music (Irish folk mainly ..though I did do the lyrics for our ad ) and also am President of our local Rugby club"  

There are currently 17 of Brian's videos for Ashleys on youtube. In the first one he looks a lot more conventional than he does in the more recent ones. If you only watch that one you may wonder why I think Brian deserves an INABA.  All I will say is watch some of the others when he's not stuck behind his desk!

If you know san accountant who may qualify for an INABA, please check the (very simple) criteria here and then let me know via my website: www.BookMarkLee.co.uk

For Ashleys Accountants in Hitchin #BoringIsOptional

This is a fantastic two part video from Accountants Ashleys of Hitchin.
It starts and ends with Brian Burke explaining how much he hates the 'boring' tag.
Sandwiched in the middle is a cleverly contrived rendition of Madness's 'It must be love' with new words and a look around Ashleys offices in Hitchin.
For Brian and the team at Ashleys, clearly #BoringIsOptional


Many thanks to Simon Chaplin - @SocksUpSimon - for bringing this video to my attention.

A non-boring email disclaimer from an accountant

Picked up from a thread on AccountingWeb:

"The information in this document and any attached files is top secret and confusing and may also be very posh. It is intended solely for and should be read only by you (the recipient). In the event that you do not get this message please notify the sender by return. Help I'm being held prisoner by the Institute of Family Planning Accountants, they keep me in a Linux office and subject me to double entry all day without any roll over relief, please help! If however the contents of this email make no sense whatsoever then you probably were not the intended recipient and you should immediately delete yourself, and not disclose, copy, distribute, or retain any life or any part of it."

Originator = anonymous ("mouse007")

Is Santa an immoral tax avoider?

I am indebted to that satirical and very funny tax sage, Murphy Richards, of the Justice for Taxes Network for inspiring this festive blog post. He has noted the following in his tweets:

Being mythical puts Santa outside the scope of UK taxes. It may be legal but it is immoral and therefore it is illegal and Father Christmas is a tax evader. 

This lead others to comment:

@BrownsAccounts: Hodge #PAC questions Father Xmas re #tax #avoidance, deliberately creating losses by giving things away 

@jmalitrg:  Being Laplander and non-dom and spending so little time in UK chimneys he has no perm establishment so he is ok 

@jmalitrg:  A General Anti Abuse of Rudolf (GAAR) provision will catch him.....

Addendum

The front cover of Private Eye's Christmas edition follows a similar theme. Maybe it inspired Murphy Richards. It shows Santa flying across the sky in his sledge with the now ubiquitous ill-informed illogical commentators saying what they think:

Private Eye's message: 

"Happy Taxmas and a Dodgy New Year"

Critics:

Santa's based offshore 

He only spends a day a year in Britain...

...and he doesn't pay the Treasury a penny 

Booooo! We hate Santa

If Santa suffered an audit.....

ParenteBeard, a top 25 U.S. accounting firm, is helping to balance the books of what would be the largest non-profit in the world: Santa, Inc. The following notes are extracted from the related Press Release which goes into far more detail.  They have been described as 'Reckless Santanomics on CNN (see video below).

While Santa’s magical powers eliminate many of the typical business fundamentals such as production and employee costs, ParenteBeard analysed what it would take to actually operate Santa’s North Pole. They determined that it would cost 42.3 billion dollars to operate Santa, Inc. annually.

ParenteBeard's analysis includes detailed consideration of the following categories of expense and how the figures below have been computed:

• Gift Production: $39.5 billion (assuming the av value of Santa's gifts per child =  $75)
• Employee Costs: $2.77 billion (incl: Elve's Salaries: $2 billion and Health Benefits: $773 million) 
• Electricity Costs: $98 million 
• Reindeer Costs: $54,000

It's a long time since I was in practice but it strikes me that ParentBoard's Santanomics are flawed.

I'm prepared to accept that they can ignore any property related costs other than electricity on the assumption that Santa.Inc owns the workshop and that no impairment costs arise due to specific local weather conditions. But there is still the cost of a new red suit each year - with all the travelling he does it's unlikely his suit would last indefinitely. And, I'm no expert but I suspect the reindeer costs are too low. The CNN santanomics expert agrees....

And the INABA award this week goes to...a goth accountant

This is the first in what I hope will be regular (virtual) awards ‘presented’ to accountants who operate in such a way as to confirm my contention that ‘Boring Is Optional’.. . More on the awards here:

J. ‘Psyche’ Coderre MAAT, is a 20-year veteran of the goth/alternative scene. She created her website, Death and Taxes in 2009. When she says she's focused on keeping clients in the 'black' she means it literally! Not only is her website different. She is obviously deserving of an INABA (it stands for 'I'm Not A Boring Accountant').

Psyche (sy-kee) tells me that:

Most alternative types, as they progress through life, are faced with a choice: Change your appearance, or accept that your career choices may be somewhat limited. Many of us fear experiencing the fate of Richmond from "The IT Crowd", whose adoption of goth fashion saw him banished to the office basement. However, I quite like my hair purple.

When I completed my AAT qualification in 2009, I wasn't looking forward to removing my piercings, dyeing my hair a normal colour, suiting up and joining a City firm. The option of going into practice -- where, as the boss, I could set my own dress code -- seemed far more appealing. As did the prospect of working with other alternative types like myself, who were running their own micro-businesses and seeking to earn a living outside of the corporate culture. 

Death and Taxes was the obvious name for a goth accountancy firm. The logo of the Grim Reaper with a calculator immediately suggested itself, and I commissioned the design from an artist who had previously created flyers for the club night I used to run in Washington, D.C. 

I wasn't sure how well it would go over; whether, in spite of the humorous branding, I'd be seen as someone people would want to bring business to. But due to the nature of accountancy selling itself mainly through word-of-mouth, this wasn't an issue I experienced. And word-of-mouth travels very well within the close-knit alternative scene. 

Once word got around that "one of us" was offering accountancy services, people from across the scene started contacting me. 

It's not just goths who have responded well to Death and Taxes. I'm often greeted by "I love that name!" when ringing HMRC with a query. 

People don't expect a stereotypically "dull" accountant to have a sense of humour. 

It's also aided my practice by making it memorable. It's easy to forget whether the accountants your friend recommended six months ago were Smith and Jones Accountants or Jones and Smith Accountants, but everyone remembers Death and Taxes! 

Another advantage is that when meeting a client for the first time, I am very easy to spot. 

I'm also probably one of the very few accountancy firms to be selling its own branded merchandise. 

I love watching new people I meet do double takes when they ask what I do, and I tell them I'm an accountant. I love subverting the "boring accountant" stereotype!

If you know someone who may qualify for an INABA, please check the (very simple) criteria here and then let me know via my website: www.BookMarkLee.co.uk

We all love accounting - #BoringIsOptional

The chorus goes:
"We all love accounting - it's the reason we come to school, dear old accounting, there's nothing else quite as cool"