Confirmed

Yup those were boxes of P45s the fact that the delivery man had to go up and down the stairs multiple times gives me an indicator that there are bad times ahead. I'm worried to be honest in that I wonder when my P45 will arrive as our clients are doing so little trade we simply can't justify sending them large bills. Everybody is tightening their belts.

But in other news today I've been reducing payments on account for HMRC for quite a while, in that taxes paid on Jan and Jul 31st are determined by last year's results as an estimate. If they are above last years you have a balancing payment at 31st January. If you have too high an estimate or your turnover falls off a cliff you reduce the payments on account.

I've universally had to reduce payments on account for EVERY client I've worked on, I can look back and see trends of falling turn over for a given period of time. It all looks bad.

Something not right

I work nearby the payroll office and they are ordering an immense amount of stationery these days, boxes being delivered on a daily basis. I suspect that these are P45s. In that generally in accounts work part of your job is to analyse trends and variations year on year. Small variations 5-10% usually don't matter but anything bigger needs investigation.

I often phone them up and almost universally every client states that they are doing less trade much less trade, many are simply ticking over at idle just covering their expenses.

I wonder how long this can go on, I can feel that because our work load has been cut WE the accountants will soon be cut which is not good.

I feel terrible today

As I said I do accounts, lots of boring accounts. A certain company did very well due to a change in the law today. Essentially a change in the law meant that if your business property is empty with a ratable value of more than £15,000, even if it is empty the owner has to pay the business rates which are high. And thus what happens is that the company will make provisions to not pay such a tax. This is reminicent of the window taxes of by gone days where people would brick up their windows to avoid such a tax.

This company made a large amount for 2008/2009 and yet they are cutting staff anyway to increase profitability.

One of the staff let go today

One of our juniors was given the push today. Her job is being distributed between all of us. The company is doing OK, namely as we have access to the billing excel spreadsheet and we can see how much is billed and we each know how much everybody else earns.

For a small amount of saving and to scare us into working harder..... I hate accountancy, its so souless.

I did hear a definition that I liked though, Accountant or Auditor somebody who after the big battle has finished walks around and bayonettes the wounded, nice.