Flying in private jets
Typically the remit of the wealthy and political sphere, private jets are beyond the reach of most given their purchase price. Some corporates lease jets or hire them by trip. Of course, the question of how environmentally sound they are looms large. A recent Guardian article gives some good insights.
The end of low cost air fares?
Over the years, I have used lose cost airlines as examples in several of my blog posts. Carriers like Ryanair have always interested me – whether you love them or hate them they are successful.
A recent article on RTE’s business section gives a good summary of the low cost sector, but also considers how costs have and will increase, leaving no option but to increase fares. You can read the article here.
Accounting in farming
Whether you love or hate Jeremy Clarkson, the Clarkson’s Farm series on Amazon conveys many of the challenges faced by farmers. In the last ten minutes of the final episode of Season 1, the financial challenges are highlighted. As I watched this part of the show, I guessed a figure of £10,000 profit. The actual profit shown was £144 on arable farming in what was a weather affected year ( yields were down 40%). This would be increased by subsidies, but one has to question the viability, or more importantly the sustainability of farming if such low incomes are generated. Of course, as many farmers know, today profits are less from growing or rearing, and more in things like direct sales through farm shops or other items like tourism.
This made me think about what we teach (or do not) about accounting for farming. One might think it is something which should be covered in an accounting syllabus at university, but it in my experience it is not. I have never been taught or have I taught IAS 41 Agriculture. As an accounting standard, it is not very complex, so teaching it is not much effort. Perhaps what is more useful to teach is how to actually prepare accounts of farms. The Irish leaving certificate (an exam for entry to university) includes some more practical items, such as an “enterprise analysis account” – an account which shows revenues, costs and profits of each part of the farm/farm activity. Such an account is useful as it can be the basis for decision making in the same way that departmental accounts can be in other business sectors.
My previous post was on a new definition of accounting. Linking it to this post, I am wondering how farm accounting fits with the “enable the flourishing of organisations, people and nature” element of the definition. It is, or will be, difficult for people and nature to flourish (by being fed, having good farming practices) if the financial return on farming is poor or subject more risks from climate change. I could go on, but some food for thought here I hope.
Accounting in TV/film production
At one of my recent management accounting lectures, my students had the pleasure of been given a short talk by an accountant who worked in the TV/film sector. There is quite a lot going on in Northern Ireland in this arena (think Game of Thrones etc). While I have often noticed the “Production Accountant” title on movie/TV credits, I have never really thought about what the role entails.
As I learned from the talk, the one name on the credits typically hides a whole team of accountants. Another thing I learned is the vast range of tasks production accounting entails. The tasks include legal aspects (e.g. employment law), payroll, bookkeeping, planning costs, tracking costs and many more things (see here). Having heard what production accounting involves, it struck me that it is an amazing learning ground for early career accountants and/or accounting graduates, as you have to deal with all aspects of accounting.
To add to the broad role, production accounting will vary by location as filming locations can be in different countries/legal jurisdictions. Thus for example, you would have to require knowledge of local GAAP, local tax rules and local business law. Thus there is a potential to learn about international environments.
The Production Guild has prepared some useful resources for production accounting and you can find them here . These resources reflect the broad nature of the tasks, as mentioned. As an example, an asset register reflects that some production assets may be purchased and moved from one production to another – very similar to an asset used in a construction contract. Another example is a template to capture the budget and actual costs of artists (actors) in a production.
One downside to being a production accountant may be that you are typically self-employed. Having said that, if you are an accountant in practice you may be self-employed regardless.
Domestic waste costs in Ireland
A few months ago, myself and a colleague from Dublin City University, Orla Feeney, published a paper in Accounting Auditing and Accountability Journal titled “Domestic waste policy in Ireland – economization and the role of accounting” – see this link.
The paper details how domestic waste collection in Ireland evolved over time from a free (to the end consumer) merit good, to a pay by weight system run by private enterprises. We used the notion of economization to frame the story of how accounting concepts played a role in this journey. The paper abstract is below.
In the paper, we noted “to say the sector became “financialized” would be an over claim as all firms involved were/are privately owned and not subject to financial market forces”. Well, this is perhaps no longer the case, as the Irish Times of January 15th reports one of the waste firms is up for graps with a valuation of €1bn – see here. Great to see a link from the paper to actual events.
See more of my research publications look at my research profile .
Paper abstract:
Purpose
This paper examines how accounting concepts were utilised in domestic waste collection services in Ireland over the past two decades or so. In comparison to other former “free” services in the Irish context, the prevalence of accounting concepts has been greater and delivered a more successful outcome.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on the concepts of calculation, the “economic” and economization, events around domestic waste policy in Ireland are examined, and the increasing prevalence of concepts such as price, cost and profitability in these processes are a focal point. Publicly available documents such as government policy documents, parliamentary records and media reports are utilised to draw out these concepts. The period of analysis is 1996–2018.
Findings
The findings reveal the role of accounting concepts in the economization of domestic waste policy in Ireland. The result of the economization process was a fully privatised, profit-oriented, price-monitored system.
Research limitations/implications
This research provides a broad view of accounting concepts in the management of domestic waste. It highlights how waste policy in Ireland travelled through instances of being political and economic over time. The research is limited by its use of secondary data.
Originality/value
This study highlights how accounting concepts were used in varying ways to bring about a satisfactory solution to domestic waste disposal in Ireland, namely the privatisation of waste services.
Zoos, costs and Covid 19
The are many examples of how Covid 19 is affecting business. An article in the Irish Times of 18/11/2020 provides a nice example, from Dublin Zoo. We all love a visit to the Zoo – well, I certainly do – but we probably never stop to think about the costs of running a zoo.
According to the Irish Times article, Covid 19 has left a €10 million hole in the finances of Dublin Zoo, and it costs €500,000 per month to feed and care for the animals. Looking at recent annual reports, the annual income of Dublin Zoo is about €20m. That would mean about 30% of the the income is used to cover feeding costs (500000 x 12 = €6m). This is a fixed cost, as the animals must be feed and cared for. If income has fallen to zero in recent months due to Covid 19, it is easy to see how Dublin Zoo – or any zoo – could get into financial trouble quite quickly.
The Templars and accounting
I recently finished reading The Templars by Dan Jones. The Templars are the stuff of legend in many texts movies, and Jones’s book is a great and detailed read on the history of the Templars.
As I did not know a lot about the Templars – outside of movies – I was surprised at how good they became at accounting. The Templars were a military order, founded in 1119 and remained active for about two centuries until their papal suppression in 1312. They were involved in several Crusades to the Holy Land, all of which entailed military and financial resources. It seems as a result of this and their well structured organisation, they became not only good at accounting, but so good they were trusted by others to hold cash assets on their behalf and act as a bank.
Jones’s book gives many insights from an accounting perspective, here are just two examples. A letter from 1220 written by Pope Honorius wanted to ensure that taxes collected to fund the Crusades did not flow via Rome. The Templars were thus used as agents to account for and deliver cash from tax collected to the Holy Land. A second example which appears throughout Jones’s book is how the Templars accumulated wealth as an order over time. They acquired land and similar immovable assets, and these were used productively to generate moveable assets – oil, wine and grains for example. All of this has to be accounted for and controlled. Jones also mentions how ultimately one way the Templars were hurt as an order – their wealth was attacked.
Attn: Wirecard & its auditors- a lesson on the basics.
You may have read about the scandal at Wirecard AG (see here for example), where about €1.9 billion in cash probably did not exist. As a result, the German regulators are calling for more oversight. While I agree that more oversight may be useful, I also think it is worthwhile reflecting on the absolute basics of bookkeeping, accounting and auditing that seem to not get much mention in the media. As is often my style here, I’ll relate to my own experience.
Close to 30 years ago now, I started to study accounting (September 1990). The first few weeks of the class covered bookkeeping. This was a bit repetitive for me, having done accounting as a subject at secondary school. One of the things I learned was how to prepare a bank reconciliation. In Summer of 1990, I got a summer job at a small audit firm. For my very first task, I was presented with two books (pre computer days 🙂 ) from a company – their cash receipts and cash payments. From these, I had to manually check every payment or receipt to the bank statements to make sure they matched. Some transactions had errors, some were missing, but at the end I could explain – or reconcile – the balance of cash per the company’s books and per the banks records.
Just pause for a moment. The act of doing this bank reconciliation means that the accounting records of a business agree with an external information source – the banks records. Thus, as either an auditor or an internal accountant at a business, I can be somewhat confident that the financial statements to be prepared from the accounting records are reasonably accurate. This assumes of course all transactions ultimately go through the company bank accounts. A bank reconciliation was one of the first things I learned to do as an accountant, but also one of the first things I looked for when doing an audit.
Following from the above, how can I be sure as an auditor that a company is disclosing all their bank accounts? I cannot speak for every jurisdiction, but usually the client signs a letter addressed to the bank(s). The letter is sent by the auditor and requests the cash balance at year end plus a list of all accounts held in the name of the entity/entities being audited.
Thus, if 1) a company accountant does a bank reconciliation, 2) the auditor checks it is done and 3) the auditor sends a letter to the company’s bank, then all should be fine and cash balances easily verified. I can only presume something very untoward was happening at Wirecard, but how it was allowed to continue beggars believe. Any auditor should be able to do the simple tasks I have described and surely a bank letter should have revealed the €1.9 billion did not exist.
However, as an educator, I rarely teach bank reconciliations. This is somewhat disappointing perhaps, and I often think should we (or I) be at least reminding students of the absolute basics. They will of course learn it quickly in practice. It is also worth pointing out that accountants (when part of a profession) are also bound by codes of ethics. Not every jurisdiction has a legally recognised accounting profession which educates and guides members.
A management accountant needs to know the business
A fairly obvious title to this post, but it is something we may often forget. As a management accountant you need to know how your business works, and this means getting out to the factory floor, to the process or working with those people doing the necessary tasks.
So why the old tyres Martin you may ask? Well, I recently read a two-page feature in Financial Management on how tyres are made and what happens the old ones – see here. This reminded me of some of my roles in industry. I knew nothing about making clothes or making cardboard when I joined my respective past employers. It is not that I became a technical expert in these areas, but I understood the process, what needed to be done, how the factory worked etc. And how did I learn you may ask? I learned mainly by talking to people, observing how things worked, determining how much things costs, where revenues came from etc. Then, as we updated various systems over the years, my knowledge became deeper and I started to question how some things were done, could they be improved for example. Having read the article in Financial Management, I was thinking based on my experience, if I started to work for a tyre company this would be my day one reading material.
Hand sanitiser instead of gin at Brewdog
As a follow to my last post, have a listen to this podcast from FM Magazine. It’s a similarly interesting story.
Covering costs and ticking over during the pandemic – a nice example
I hope a local distillery near my home does not mind me using their graphic above. As we are all dealing with the effects of the Covid 19 pandemic, I was really impressed to see how small local distilleries in Ireland (and indeed elsewhere and some large ones too) have changed to producing alcohol based hand sanitiser.
Many businesses cannot adapt their products to the current scenario, but the example of distilleries is a really good one. The Listoke Distillery is manufacturing and selling hand sanitiser at cost. Not only is this a good thing for society, it also in my view makes business sense. As the header of this post suggests, it is better to be “ticking over” and covering costs than losing money and not covering fixed costs. I would also bet that many of us (and certainly yours truly) will remember these local small businesses that helped us out in these strange times and, hopefully, they will see increased revenues and growth. Meanwhile, with costs covered, at least they have a good chance of surviving.
By the way, I’ve just bought my second bottle of sanitiser – accompanied by a bottle of gin of course.
Free email is not free.
Telecommunication services in Ireland used to be provided by the State, through various entities. The most recent entity is eircom, now a private firm. eircom were one of the earlier providers of free email accounts, but that is about to change as the company now wish to charge €5.99 per month for email accounts. Well, there is no such thing as a free lunch as the saying goes.
But let’s put on our accounting hats for a minute. There is of course a cost involved in hosting email accounts – servers, cooling, power, buildings. This may have been okay when eircom was a state company and there was less of a profit motive. Gmail is free I hear you say; it is not, you give your data to them to make money from. So eircom probably need to recoup some of their costs, and that seems like a good accounting decision, The price does seem a bit high though – about €4.86 next of VAT will be earned by eircom. To me, it seem more like a prohibitive price, and the real objective to force email account holders to move to other providers.
An example of the going concern principle
One of the fundamental accounting concepts is that of going concern. In simple terms, this typically means a business is unlikely to be able to continue in operation for the next 12 months.
It is not very often the examples come to light, but recently in Ireland we had one. The national football association, the Football Association of Ireland, has their auditors state the organisation could not be deemed a going concern. According to the RTÉ news website, the auditors noted:
“While the company has received some advanced funding from UEFA during 2019 to enable the company to meet some of its current liabilities there is not sufficient audit evidence that the company will be able to meet its liabilities as they fall due. Therefore we are unable to obtain sufficient audit evidence to support the assumption that the company will continue as a going concern.”
The piece also notes the levels of debt and losses over several years. The statement above provides a nice clear understanding of what going concern means. Do have a read of the RTÉ article and other coverage to get more insights on the association.
Accounting for rock stars
Photo by nicollazzi xiong on Pexels.com
Being an accountant is sometimes portrayed as being a boring path in life, but like all professions and jobs, it has its moments when you feel like you may have helped someone. It is great to see a business take your advice and see them grow and become a success. Of course, as you deal with businesses or clients, quite often you may give general advice which may also yield some fruit. At the end of July, The Guardian had a great little feature on Mick Jagger, and it seems he heeded advice from his accountant when he was younger. Seemingly, Laurence Myers was his accountant – and the accountant of many other famous rock stars of the era – and in a new book written by Myers, he outlines the business sense the young Rolling Stones had. This sense would, of course, be nurtured by a good accountant. And indeed, the Rolling Stones have been a financial and business success (see more here), certainly thanks in some part to the advice and partnering of a good accountant over the years.
The “cost” of refunds and claims – a management accounting view.
In recent years in Ireland, business insurance costs have been increased dramatically due to increasing volumes of claims against them. In some cases, the costs have increased so much that the businesses have simply closed. This post is more about the smaller claims, claims for refunds or costs incurred because a product or service was not up to scratch.
I will use Ryanair as the example here. Despite all the criticisms levelled against it, it remains one of my favourite airlines. They run a tight operation and keep costs to a minimum. They also do not payout refunds or claims unless they have to, this is the fun part for me. In a recent Irish Times article, there are details of a customer claiming €222 for taxi fares incurred due to a Ryanair mistake. The company fought it, but the passenger pursued through a small claims court and got their money refunded. Fair play to the passenger.
Recently I was subject to a delay on a Ryanair flight from Bristol. Some passengers, those who were UK citizens I later found out, were offered £5 refreshment vouchers. I was not, and followed up. To be fair to Ryanair they said if I could produce a receipt, they would refund me.
Now the accounting part. In both examples above there are a lot of costs already incurred in having a customer service function to deal with such issues. Let’s deem these as sunk costs. Once a claim is initiated, then I think we could see the situation as an instance of activity based costing perhaps. In my own case, I sent three emails and I can guarantee the cost of dealing with me was way more that the price of a cup of coffee I was seeking to claim. In the case of the passenger taxi fares, costs of engaging solicitors by Ryanair would have far exceeded the cost of the refund had they simply paid it based on the passengers receipts.
The point I am trying to make is that while I fully agree that firms should not just pay refunds without any basis, there is likely some value at which it costs more to defend a refund claim than simply pay it – with vouched receipts of course, not like me and my coffee. But, if you are not getting satisfaction from a company if you feel you should get a refund, apart from legal options, you can always waste their time a little and get some satisfaction that way.
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