Accountants Daily Podcast Network

Xero Australia country manager Will Buckley says artificial intelligence is rich with possibilities for the accounting profession and that he couldn't resist testing ChatGPT – the high-profile bot launched last November by OpenAI. "I was excited to get into it and just see what's capable of," Mr Buckley said on this week's Accountants Daily Insider. "A couple of the questions that I chucked in the...

The ATO is gunning for the wrong target in its s100A approach because the authors of the law never intended it to apply to families, says Tim Munro, CEO of Change Accountants and Change GPS. Mr Munro spent three weeks trawling through Hansard from 1978–79 to examine the origins of the trust distribution law. "I disagree with the approach the ATO have taken with the application of section 100A," Mr...

Four out of 10 issues raised by small business concern "shabby" payment behaviour by the big end of town, says Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman Bruce Billson. "Sadly, about 40 per cent of the matters that come our way are related to payment times," Mr Billson said on this week's Accountants Daily podcast. "The previous federal government introduced a reporting register so...

Accounting firms need to focus on their real expenses and review their prices or get left behind by inflation and interest rates rises, says Rebecca Mihalic, a director at eastern seaboard accounting practice BusinessDepot. "We spend a lot of time focused on making sure our clients are still profitable and they're staying solvent – we need to have a look internally," Ms Mihalic said on this week's...

Camilla Love started F3 — Future Females in Finance to bring more women into the financial services industry. The program — which won the Women's Community Program of the Year award 2022 from the Women in Finance Awards 2022 — aims to educate young women about careers and finance and nudge as many of the next generation of female talent into financial services as possible. In this episode of In Fo...

An outdated approach to pricing means accountants have fallen behind other professions and continue to be paid inappropriately for the work they do, according to the head of accounting at Intuit QuickBooks, Shaye Thyer. The latest data on pay from recruiter Seek — which shows accounting salaries rising slightly ahead of the pack — was good news and overdue. "I absolutely celebrate that accountant...

Hiring and retention costs have spiked with the low unemployment rate and a firm's value proposition has become vital to attracting and keeping talent, says Janet Daubney, head of people and culture at BDO Australia. "Firms are competing to attract and retain talent more than ever before," she said on the latest Accountants Daily podcast, produced in conjunction with Daniela Pasini, national direc...

Labor's first budget stuck to its election campaign script but offered only glimpses of a holistic vision and no surprises, says CPA Australia senior policy manager Gavan Ord.  Speaking on the latest Accountants Daily podcast, Mr Ord said it was a "cautious budget that suits the tough economic environment" with glimpses of future ambition in the areas of housing, manufacturing, and climate change....

The financial services industry has historically been male-dominated but encouraging more women into the space is not only good for society, but good for business too. In this episode, partnered by Mortgage Choice, Anthony Waldron, chief executive of financial services and Mortgage Choice at the REA Group, outlines how the industry can move away from being "male, stale and pale" and encourage more...

It's an "amazing time" to start an accounting firm and inspirational role models – here and overseas – are showing what is possible, according to Damien Greathead, marketing leader for accounting and advisory at Intuit. Speaking on the latest Accountants Daily podcast, Mr Greathead said successful start-ups were moving away from the traditional approach of hanging up a shingle and waiting for cust...

  Small business objections to ATO decisions leaped during the pandemic and a "significant number and proportion" were disallowed, says the Inspector-General of Taxation and Taxation Ombudsman (IGOT), Karen Payne. Speaking on the latest Accountants Daily podcast, Ms Payne said a report by the IGOT on the tax objection system, released today, shows pandemic support programs prompted the rise, with...

Auditors have a key role to play in achieving sustainability because it needs the same sort of scrutiny they apply to financial documents, says CA ANZ reporting and assurance leader Amir Ghandar. Speaking on a special Accountants Daily podcast to mark Auditor Proud Day — which this year has sustainability as its theme — Mr Ghandar said there were increasing demands for rigour in environmental clai...

Australia has lost its reputation as a marquee destination, and while the tide is turning, the managing partner of Mazars' Sydney office says there's still work to do. Speaking on this week's Accountants Daily podcast, Matthew Ashley said the firm's internal mobility programs were integral to the way it operates, but staff relocating to Australia needed reassurance about freedom of movement. "I th...

A global shortage of accounting professionals means Australia must lift its game on visa processing and offer greater certainty for those willing to relocate, says CPA Australia senior manager Gavan Ord. Speaking on this week's Accountants Daily podcast, Mr Ord said Australia had to rethink how it treats skilled migrants to outcompete a range of nations from Canada to the UK to Singapore. "You're...

Lines between expenses related to business and personal use that became fuzzy during the pandemic need to be brought into sharp focus now, ATO Assistant Commissioner Andrew Watson said. Speaking on this week's Accountants Daily podcast, Mr Watson said it was one of three key messages for businesses this year. "It's been around for a while as an issue, but probably as we've all experienced over the...

Australia is sleepwalking into an economic twilight zone with record debt and an acceptance that budget deficits are with us for the next decade, said Tony Greco of the IPA. Speaking on the latest Accountants Daily podcast, the general manager of technical policy said there was no appetite for budget repair and nothing in the larder for future downturns. "We normally try to get back to paying back...

The below-expectation June CPI figure of 6.1 per cent does nothing to defuse concerns over rising fuel, materials and labour prices hitting our most vulnerable industries, says the manager of SMEs, insolvency and public practice at CPA Australia, Kristen Beadle. Speaking on this week's Accountants Daily podcast, Ms Beadle said for many businesses the pandemic relief measures had just postponed the...

Penalties for non-arm's length income – NALI – in superannuation need legislative change before the compliance honeymoon comes to an end next July, said the superannuation leader at CA ANZ, Tony Negline. The current law was a problem for all funds but especially SMSFs, said Mr Negline, because it disproportionally penalised innocent mistakes. Speaking on this week's Accountants Daily podcast, Mr N...

COVID put a rocket into technological adoption among accountants but too many practices are their own worst enemies when it comes to change, says the head of accounting at Intuit Quickbooks, Shaye Thyer. Speaking on this week's Accountants Daily podcast – Ms Thyer, a finalist in this year's Australian Accounting Awards – said that cloud computing was a lifesaver for the industry but decision-makin...

Accountants are helping open the door to alternative sources of finance and investment as the trusted advisers to small business, say the heads of Assetline Capital and AltX. Speaking on this week's Accountants Daily podcast, the co-founder of mortgage-backed investment specialist AltX, Nick Raphaely, said accountants were critical because they operated at the "epicentre of their client's affairs"...

In this week's Accountants Daily podcast, ATO Assistant Commissioner Tim Loh talks tax agents through the fine print on pandemic deductions, work-from-home claims, rentals, crypto and granny flats. When it comes to COVID tests, the rules have changed to make them claimable for the first time. "Taxpayers who've paid for a COVID 19 test for work-related purposes – such as, for example, working out w...

In this week's Accountants Daily podcast, ATO acting assistant commissioner Chris Ryan rejects claims the draft ruling on section 100A reflects overreach or heavy-handedness. "Although many in the community are suggesting that our view of the law and our compliance approach is a matter of overreach, we don't believe that's the case. We've come to our position having carefully considered our view o...

In this week's Accountants Daily podcast Scott Treatt and Robyn Jacobson of the Tax Institute outline some of the challenges facing the new government. Although there are doubts over the final make-up of the 76-member Senate it is already clear the government will need support from the Greens or independents, Scott Treatt, who is head of tax policy and advocacy at TI. The Greens supported Labor's...

Today on the Accountants Daily podcast Elinor Kasapidis of CPA Australia says parliament may need to get involved to clear up the high levels of uncertainty surrounding the ATO's draft ruling on section 100A, released in February. "Our submission as well as others have raised the prospect of changing legislation around 100A to introduce a time limit to better define some of the concepts, and just...

Today on the Accountants Daily podcast, Matthew Addison of the Council of Small Business Organisations of Australia says the double whammy of high inflation and an acute skills shortage will hit small businesses hard. "I'm not sure that Australia, considering a CPI of sevens, eights or somewhere north of that, is one that small business could actually face or endure," says Mr Addison, who is execu...