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Mind the GAAP
Thanks to http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
There are changes afoot and much is being made of ‘FRS 102’ and ‘new UK GAAP’, so in an effort to understand what all the fuss is about, and how it will impact on a small accounting practice with a client base firmly in the SME sector, I have dragged myself off to seminars and scoured t’Internet, and what follows is a brief summary of my understanding to date of these changes.
If you can put further flesh on these bones or correct misunderstanding then please feel free to comment.
First a little terminology:
- “IFRS Foundation”: an independent, not-for-profit private sector organisation.
- “IASB”: International Accounting Standards Board is the independent standard-setting body of the IFRS Foundation.
- “IFRS”: International Financial Reporting Standards which are designed to be global standard so that company accounts are understandable and comparable across international boundaries.
- “IFRIC”: International Financial Reporting Standards Interpretations are the official interpretations of IFRSs.
- “IAS”: International Accounting Standards are international financial reporting standards that were created by the predecessor body of the IASB and form part of the body of IFRS requirements.
- “SIC”: the official interpretations of the IASs.
- “IFRS for SMEs”: a self-contained standard of 230 pages, designed to meet the needs and capabilities of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and includes simplified language and fewer disclosure requirements (expect to be aligned with FRS 102 in due course).
- “SMEIG”: SME Implementation Group is an advisory body to the IASB, is providing recommendations to the IASB in connection with IFRS for SMEs.
- “Small Company”: organisations with up to £6.5m turnover, £3.26m assets, and 50 employees (to be revised to £10m turnover etc. under new EU directive).
- “Micro Company”: companies with up to £632k turnover, £316k assets, and 10 employees.
- “UK GAAP”: Generally Accepted Accounting Practice in the UK is the overall body of regulation establishing how company accounts must be prepared in the United Kingdom.
- “ASB”: UK Accounting Standards Board which is the body responsible for publishing accounting standards and other guidance.
- “FRS”: Financial Reporting Standard.
- “SSAP”: Statements of Standard Accounting Practice.
- “UITF”: Urgent Issues Task Force of the UK Accounting Standards Board (now disbanded).
- “SORP”: Statement of Recommended Practice for charity accounts and reports.
- “New UK GAAP”: new reporting standards applicable from 1st January 2015 (latest) comprising
- “FRS 100”: Application of Financial Reporting Requirements which sets out the overall reporting framework.
- “FRS 101”: Reduced Disclosure Framework which permits disclosure exemptions from the requirements of EU-adopted IFRSs for certain qualifying entities.
- “FRS 102”: the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and ROI which replaces all existing FRSs, SSAPs and UITF Abstracts.
- “FRS 103”: the Financial Reporting Standard for insurance companies.
- “FRSSE”: the Financial Reporting Standard for small company accounts includes reduced reporting requirements (anticipate this may be phased out in due course).
Phew! so which standard do I use?
Listed company consolidated accounts: must use IFRS
Listed company parent/ subsidiary accounts: either IFRS or UK GAAP (FRS 102)
Other companies: either IFRS or UK GAAP (FRS 102)
Small (& micro) companies: either above or IFRS for SMEs or FRSSE
Charities: must use UK GAAP (FRS 102 or FRSSE) and the new Charities SORP
So in particular, what is FRS 102?
- for medium and large companies is similar to IFRS but reduced disclosure requirements
- allows ‘amortised cost’ or ‘fair value’ methods of valuation except equities held which which must be at fair value
- investment properties should be valued at far value via the P&L where possible but depreciated costs allowable if fair value involves undue cost or effort
- allows goodwill to be amortised rather than applying impairment method
- no ‘indefinite life’ option for goodwill
- other intangibles to be recognised separately from goodwill
- greater regulation of hedge accounting such as forward currency contracts
- option to use IAS 39 (which outlines the requirements for the recognition and measurement of financial assets, financial liabilities, and some contracts to buy or sell non-financial items)
- deferred tax to be provided on revaluations
- government grants can be recognised immediately or accrued and matched with costs
- holiday pay entitlement must be accrued where holiday not taken
- disclosure of total lease commitment (i.e. note on operating lease liability)
- cash flow statement required
- reduced reporting for small companies which will no longer be required to include a director’s report, analysis of income
New EU Directive
From 1st September 2013 micro companies can report a greatly simplified balance sheet (and P&L) and are not required to provide notes and analysis on most balance sheet items, but must still include details of directors’ loans.
HM Revenue & Customs
All the above deal with reporting for public record; there are no changes on reporting requirements to HMRC at this time, so from a parochial point of view, is this going to make any real difference?
Paul Driscoll is a Chartered Management Accountant, a director of Central Accounting Limited, Cura Business Consulting Limited, Hudman Limited, and AJ Tensile Fabrications Limited, and is a board level adviser to a variety of other businesses.
Why Sage 50 will fall to the information revolution
At the heart of small and medium sized businesses up and down the UK lies Sage 50, the UK’s favourite accounting software. Like the Remington typewriter, it’s a great product, well designed and does what its designers intended very well.
Unfortunately, like the Remington typewriter, it is also designed with a 20th century mindset to fix a 20th century problem. And accountants and bookkeepers all over the country are using Sage 50 to make themselves indispensable to business owners in a way that holds their accounting back in the last century, reduces their effectiveness, reduces competitiveness and ultimately destroys value.
Here’s an example. Google “sage 50 year end” and you will see references to support with Year End, training on Year End, problems with Year End, questions about Year End, accountants asking each other for help with Sage year end processes. It is a process that is irreversible and therefore important to get right. A great deal of effort goes into getting it right. You might even need to get your accountant to do it for you.
But it is an utterly unnecessary process.
In the old days, when revenues and expenses were all kept on handwritten ledgers and added up throughout the year, they had to be written back to zero ready for the start of the financial year. The net total of all the year’s revenues and expenses was then added to retained profit. This was an important accounting procedure, and one that Sage 50 faithfully replicates.
Yet all transactions in an accounting system have a date. If you want to see a report for a date range, your accounting software should simply filter transactions outside that range (or, for a balance sheet or trial balance, treat the transaction appropriately according to the date of the report). More importantly, it should allow this to be done for whatever range is important for the business or period under review – regardless of whether it spans a year end – to identify performance, key trends, anomalies, and potential errors.
Precisely because of the Year End process in Sage 50, data for prior years has to be accessed in a very different way. But year ends are relevant only for statutory reporting and tax purposes. Customers, staff, and suppliers do not behave differently in a new financial year. Trends are no less relevant or important just because they span a financial year end.
So not only is it an unnecessary process – it also reduces accessibility and usefulness of information.
Of course, once the accounts are finalised for a year, it is important that the transactions are not changed thereafter. But for some companies that is important on a quarterly basis (so VAT returns are not out of sync) or even on a monthly basis (so that published monthly accounts are not adjusted). A simple restriction on all but the “Admin” user making changes before a certain date is all that is required. Not an irreversible process that permanently eliminates access to data.
That’s not all. Sage 50 costs £700 for two users, and whilst it is a powerful system it is, to all intents and purposes, closed to all outside the finance team or book-keeper. Business owners, managers, and forward-thinking accountants are waking up to the fact that with today’s cloud technology financial information can be accessed anywhere, instantaneously. Owners and managers want information now, not when the book-keeper is next in or when the accountants have examined the files at the end of the year. They are realising that it is possible to access scanned copies of supplier invoices just by clicking on their management reports and wondering why they are still telephoning their accountant and paying them to look up the information on Sage. They are wondering why they are paying over £700 for a 2-user licence to Sage 50 when solutions like Xero will allow access at different levels to many users within the company for less than half the cost.
It won’t be a quick death. Traditional accountants will resist this change. They will focus on the dangers of allowing too many people to change or view information without proper training; on the dangers of looking at information without the benefit of their annual adjustments or their considered interpretation; and on the risk of fraud without a full visible audit trail of any change made to any transaction anywhere in the system. These are all valid concerns. Accounting systems and good financial information are vital to the successful operation of any business.
Ultimately, however, our job as modern accountants – and as management accountants – is to properly evaluate the risks and benefits of precisely these kind of changes, and to help business owners get the benefits of the new technologies whilst at the same time ensuring that the information stored and produced is meaningful and secure. And the benefits of up to date, accurate information, accessible instantly and on the move, are huge.
Typewriter manufacturers may have correctly pointed out that with a word processor you could lose the entire document with an untrained accidental press of the wrong button. But ultimately the benefits far outweighed the risks. Sage 50 will go the same way.
VAT Return Box 2 EU Aquisitions? This is what you need to enter
Personally I have always found this box a little odd as its not taken from invoices its calculated by you.
Box 2 Acquisition Tax is calculated as UK VAT due on VAT free purchase of goods from other Member States, i.e. 20% x Box 9 figure, the same amount is then entered in Box 4 (as noted below by HMRC) so the net effect is Zero.
Box 9 Total EU Purchases are the value of goods bought from other EU Member States on a VAT free basis.
The following are HMRC’s instructions:
Box 2: VAT due from you (but not paid) on acquisitions from other EU countries
You need to work out the VAT due – but not yet paid by you – on goods that you buy from other EU countries, and any services directly related to those goods (such as delivery charges). Put the figure in Box 2. You may be able to reclaim this amount, and if so remember to include this figure in your total in Box 4.
Box 4: VAT reclaimable on your purchases
This is the VAT you have been charged on your purchases for use in your business. You should also include:
- VAT due (but not paid) on goods from other EU countries and services directly related to those goods (such as delivery charges) – this is the figure you put in Box 2
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/vat/managing/returns-accounts/completing-returns.htm#4
If you trade regularly with the EU you may be required to do Intrastat Returns, here is a chart that explains the basics
steve@bicknells.net
Is Greed Good – 12 years on from Enron and Sarbox?
It was December 2001when Enron filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
In just 15 years, Enron grew from nowhere to be America’s seventh largest company, employing 21,000 staff in more than 40 countries.
But the firm’s success turned out to have involved an elaborate scam.
Enron lied about its profits and was accused of a range of shady dealings, including concealing debts so they didn’t show up in the company’s accounts.
Enron was followed by scandals at Global Crossing and WorldCom, John ‘Bernie’ Ebbers co-founded WorldCom and made this statement in his defence
“I know what I don’t know. To this day, I don’t know technology, and I don’t know finance or accounting”
These companies all had the same auditors, Arthur Anderson which was once one of the top 5 accounting firms in the world.
The scandals lead to the creation of The Public Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act as a result of work done by Senators Sarbanes and Oxley and is general referred to as Sarbox or SOX and applies to US publicly listed companies and their subsidiaries.
Some of the key items in the Act include:
- Auditor Independence (s201,202)
- Audit Partner Rotation (s203)
- Forfeiture of Bonuses (s304)
- Disclosures (s401,409)
- Internal Controls (s404)
- Personal Loans to Executives (s402)
- Whistleblower Protection (s806)
But despite this it failed to prevent the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 .
So is Greed Good?
Common themes in all these scandals were:
- Greed/Personal Ambition
- Attitude of Senior Management
- Failure to report ‘wrong doing’
Tax Avoidance is now in the spot light will that lead to new scandals coming to light?
steve@bicknells.net
How do you split capital and interest on finance agreements? Sum-of-digits
From a business perspective it makes sense to spread the cost of purchasing assets rather than using up working capital and putting pressure on your cash flow. The Matching of Revenue and Expenditure is a fundamental accounting concept.
Assets such as vehicles are often financed over 3 years, generally, the monthly payments are a fixed amount, but when the payments are posted to the Accounts, Capital needs to be posted against the Loan Balance on the Balance Sheet and Interest needs to be posted to the Profit & Loss.
There are basically two methods to calculate the split:
Simple Interest
Interest is calculated on the balance outstanding as follows Balance x Interest Rate/12 months
Here is a link to a Microsoft Template for Simple Interest
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/loan-calculator-TC006206287.aspx
Investopedia says:
The standard loan is called “simple interest”. You borrow some money and at the end of the period you pay it back plus interest. For longer term loans, you make periodic payments. With some consumer loans, especially with auto loans, you may encounter a different type of loan which mentions the “Rule of 78”. It is a different way of deciding how much of each monthly payment is interest and how much is principal.
Read more: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/ruleof78.asp#ixzz2ILaSYgS0
Sum of Digits (Rule of 78’s)
The sum of digits method uses the formula:
(n x (n+1))/2
Sum-of-the-digits method, also know as the Rule of 78s is a term used in lending that refers to a method of yearly interest calculation. The name comes from the total number of months’ interest that is being calculated in a year (the first month is 1 month’s interest, whereas the second month contains 2 months’ interest, etc.). This is an accurate interest model only based on the assumption that the borrower pays only the amount due each month. If the borrower pays off the loan early, this method maximizes the amount paid by applying funds to interest before principal.
A simple fraction (as with 12/78) consists of a numerator (the top number, 12 in the example) and a denominator (the bottom number, 78 in the example). The denominator of a Rule of 78 loan is the sum of the digits, the sum of the number of monthly payments in the loan. For a 12 month loan, the sum of numbers from 1 to 12 is 78 (1 + 2 + 3 + . . . +12 = 78). For a 24 month loan, the denominator is 300. The sum of the numbers from 1 to n is given by the equation n * (n+1) / 2. If n were 24, the sum of the numbers from 1 to 24 is 24 * (24+1) / 2 = 12 x 25 = 300, which is the loan’s denominator, D.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_78s
I have created a template for the Sum-of-digits method and you can download it using this link
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AiOJESd6TK4ddFd1cHkweDZwSVk1b1M2OHJXdDlRNXc&output=xls
Comparison
If you take the following example:
Asset cost £18,000
Deposit £1,800
Loan £16,200
Repayments 36 x £500
Interest Rate 6.9718%
The total interest charged over 3 years is the same £1,800 but the monthly interest is different, simple interest for month 1 = £94.12 but using sum-of-digits its £97.30. This means that with the sum of digits method the balance due for early repayment will be higher.
steve@bicknells.net
Cash Accounting has arrived, but will it reduce your tax bill?
You can use the cash basis for Self Assessment Tax Returns (starting from 6th April 2013) if you:
- are a small self-employed businesses (sole traders and partnerships but not Limited Liability Partnerships)
- have an income of £79,000 or less a year (this is the threshold when you have to register for VAT)
You can choose to record your business income and expenses over the tax year in 1 of the following ways:
- using cash basis – record money when it actually comes in and goes out of your business (all money counts – cash, card payments, cheque, any other method)
- using traditional accounting (accruals basis) – record income and expenses when you invoice your customers or receive a bill
Cash basis might suit smaller businesses because, at the end of the tax year, you won’t have to pay Income Tax on money you haven’t received yet.
You must keep records of:
- business income received
- business expenses paid
Depending on what you use simplified expenses for, you need to record business miles for vehicles, hours you work at home and how many people live on your business premises over the year.
Sounds simpler so far, doesn’t it.
But what about …..
- Suppliers – if you have trade accounts with suppliers then you will have creditors, many small businesses get paid quickly for example a shop or a window cleaner, they don’t have debtors, so the cash basis may not be the best option
- Capital Allowances – many small businesses will claim capital allowances for their car (and claim most of the running costs too), with the cash basis you can only claim a set mileage allowance https://www.gov.uk/simpler-income-tax-simplified-expenses/vehicles-
- Equipment Finance – Under cash accounting money you owe isn’t counted until you pay it (unlike traditional capital allowances) and interest and charges are limited to £500 https://www.gov.uk/simpler-income-tax-cash-basis/income-and-expenses-under-cash-basis
Cash accounting may be simpler but will it reduce your tax bill?
steve@bicknells.net
Can I process my payroll once a year?
Yes, HMRC are now able to process requests for annual payrolls.
An annual scheme must meet all of the following requirements:
- all the employees are paid annually
- all the employees are paid at the same time/same date
- the employer is only required to pay HMRC annually
Once a business is registered as an annual scheme, an Employer Payment Summary (EPS) is not required for the 11 months of the tax year where no payments are made to the employees.
We all have busy schedules………
Annual schemes are likely to be adopted mainly by very small businesses and single person companies as you can pay all your salary in one go and save yourself 11 months of RTI reporting.
steve@bicknells.net
Top 5 useful things I have learnt about RTI
Real Time Information (RTI) has now been with us for a few months and once you get used to Full Payment Submissions (FPS) and Employer Payment Summaries (EPS) its not too bad.
HMRC recently reported:
With over 1.4 million PAYE schemes successfully reporting in real time, the launch of PAYE Real Time Information (RTI) continues to go well. The vast majority of employers (83% of small & medium size employers and 77% of more than 1 million micro employers) have started reporting in real time, but we are aware that there are still some employers who have not started yet.
Given time you might even get to Love doing your RTI Payroll as much as Suzie Humphreys…
Here are some things that I have learnt that you might find helpful:
Split FPS Submissions
You can only submit each employee once for each payment period but you can make more than one Full Payment Submission, this is useful if you have Monthly and Weekly payrolls, or a late starter you have process after the FPS has been submitted, or if you split your payroll by seniority and different staff process sections.
Hashtag and Paying by BACS
At the moment if you pay employees by Direct BACS using systems such as Nat West Payaway the Direct BACS submission needs to include a Hashtag to enable HMRC to match the payment with the FPS, however, if you don’t use Direct BACS and you just pay by Online Banking, Bankline, BACS or CHAPS or any other method you don’t need the Hashtag. I am sure that will change!
Starters and Leavers
When you enter a new employee HMRC are notified on the first FPS that they appear on and you must no longer use a P46 to get starter information you need to us the new HMRC Starter Checklist
P45’s are just for the Employee to refer to and are useful to show to their new employer, don’t send them to HMRC. HMRC are notified of leavers on the FPS.
CIS
If you have deductions under the Construction Industry Scheme you need to enter them on the EPS to reduce the amount of tax payable.
NI Holiday
NI Holidays for new companies end in September 2013 but until then need to be entered on the EPS. Form E89 is used to keep track of how much has been claimed.
Here are some more useful tips and facts on RTI:
Relaxation of Rules for Small Companies
HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) recognise that some small employers who pay employees weekly, or more frequently, but only process their payroll monthly may need longer to adapt to reporting PAYE information in real time. HMRC have therefore agreed a relaxation of reporting arrangements for small businesses.
HMRC is planning to extend the temporary relaxation for employers with fewer than 50 employees to April 2014. This relaxation means that these businesses are still required to report through the new system, but are able to do so once a month (but no later than the end of the tax month (5th)), rather than each time they pay their employees. This gives small businesses that pay weekly (or more frequently), but who only run their payroll at the end of the month, some extra time to adjust to the new requirements.
Annual Schemes
Many micro businesses such as one person companies are switching to annual payrolls.
An annual scheme must meet all of the following requirements:
- all the employees are paid annually
- all the employees are paid at the same time/same date
- the employer is only required to pay HMRC annually
Once a business is registered as an annual scheme, an Employer Payment Summary (EPS) is not required for the 11 months of the tax year where no payments are made to the employees.
But currently HMRC are unable to process requests to become Annual.
HMRC are working to rectify this position and will publish a further ‘What’s New’ message to announce when this is ready.
Late Filing Penalties
If you do not report the final payment made to an employee, for the tax year 2013-2014, by 19 May in the following tax year you will be charged a late filing penalty.
Penalties are calculated on the basis of £100 per 50 employees and accrue for each month (or part month) that a return remains outstanding after 19 May.
If you fail to report this information by 19 May, or tell HMRC no return was due by sending an EPS, they will write to you (and your authorised agent if you have one) advising that a penalty may already have been incurred and that you must report this information as soon as possible to prevent the penalty building up any further.
steve@bicknells.net
Confidence Accounting for Businesses
Andy Haldane (Executive Director for Financial Stability at the Bank of England) has recently been working with Long Finance/ACCA/CISI on a new method of accounting – Confidence Accounting.
http://www.accaglobal.com/content/dam/acca/global/PDF-technical/corporate-governance/tech-af-cap.pdf
In a world of Confidence Accounting, the end results of audits would be presentations of distributions for major
entries in the profit and loss, balance sheet and cash flow statements. Accountants would present uncertainties
as ranges to investors and managers, rather than as discrete numbers: ‘the balance sheet of Company X is
worth £Y, plus or minus £Z, and we are 95% confident that it falls within this range’. Auditors would verify these
ranges. This would move auditing towards ‘measurement science’, in line with the way most laboratories report
measurements. Audited accounts would be presented in a probabilistic manner, showing ranges. Over time,
investors could evaluate an audit firm on the basis of how closely historic accounts fell within the stated ranges.
Such evaluations might conclude that firms were too lax or too strict. Clients would be able to make their own
decisions about audit quality on the basis of historic evidence rather than having to rely on assertions of quality.
This sounds like a good approach to me, especially for larger businesses where lots of assumptions are taken in preparing the accounts.
Economic prosperity requires businesses to be financially robust and that requires sound financial reporting, this could definitely play a key role in achieving that.
steve@bicknells.net
‘Bean counter’ view of accountants is holding back entrepreneurs
Some entrepreneurs and small businesses may be holding themselves back by refusing to share information with their accountants who they sometimes regard as little more than “bean counters”, according to a new study.
There is a tendency for UK businesses, to make decisions without adequate financial information or analysis, there is often poor cash flow management and time and opportunities are being wasted because some owner-managers don’t want anyone else to know their business, it concludes.
The report, funded by the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) and compiled by Dr Michael Lucas of the Open University along with Professor Malcolm Prowle and Glynn Lowth, from Nottingham Business School, part of Nottingham Trent University urges accountants to improve their image by refuting bean counter accusations and promoting themselves in business partnering roles.
“Given the importance of financial issues and the increasing need for enterprises to operate economically, efficiently, effectively, efficaciously and ethically, management accounting has potentially a crucial role to play in improving the quality of planning, control and decision-making,” says the CIMA report called Management Accounting Practices of UK SME’s.
The authors also call for further research into the way small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) reach critical decisions and into the psychological profile of executives, particularly owner managers.
Dr Lucas said: “While most business owners are good at using accounting services for monitoring cash flow and costs they do not always appreciate that management accountants can add a great deal to decision making in the management of the business. Accountants were sometimes regarded as little more than bean counters, rather than potentially having a business partnering role where they can advise and improve efficiency
“Some entrepreneurs, in particular, are reluctant to employ management accountants, expressing a desire to maintain control and have exclusive access to information they consider sensitive.This could lead to higher costs in terms of management time which is turn can put constraints in time spend in growing the business.”
The report says its exploratory findings give important insights which should inform the development of further large-scale survey research into whether accounting tools were used and, if not, why not.
These tools include: Product costing; budgets for planning and control; standard costing variance analysis; cost-volume-profit analysis; responsibility centres; capital expenditure appraisal techniques; working capital measures; and strategic management accounting.
Dr Lucas is Senior Lecturer in Accounting at the Open University Business School, Professor Prowle is professor of business performance at Nottingham Business School and Mr Lowth, who is a former President of CIMA, is a visiting fellow at the Nottingham business school.
Business Accountant 