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Archive for the year 2012


Would you really drink this coffee…

Published on: 21 Dec 2012

Anyone that has studied hard for their exams will almost certainly at one time or another utilised the services of a strong coffee. Whilst desperately trying to cram that last bit of knowledge into your brain before the exams there is often a temptation to grab a strong coffee late in the night to keep [...]


Can you be fired for being too attractive?

Published on: 19 Dec 2012

Picture the scene. You’re the boss. You’re married and you find your assistant very attractive. Your wife finds out about this and demands that you fire your assistant. Do you: a) Tell your wife that you don’t like your assistant and hope she believes you, b) Admit it and then ask you assistant to leave [...]


This Financial Controller will be sat in prison rather than in a £140m apartment…

Published on: 17 Dec 2012

What’s the link between a Financial Controller, a £140 million apartment in London and prison? Ross Smith, the former Financial Controller of property developer Candy and Candy will have plenty of time to contemplate the link as he is currently in prison serving a sentence for stealing nearly £100,000 from his employers. As the Financial [...]


Your chance to win a free ACCA or CIMA course…

Published on: 22 Nov 2012

Wow – it only seems like yesterday that we started this blog and yet, here we are this week sending out our 100th blog newsletter. We’ve also just exceeded 33,000 fans on facebook so a big, big thank you to all of you that read the blog and thank you also for all your kind [...]


Surely everybody should get this benefit at work?

Published on: 19 Nov 2012

Having a motivated team in the office is key to any business. As well as a salary component, a person’s remuneration package could include other benefits such as flexible working days, health insurance and access to an executive jet. I mentioned access to an executive jet because surely all of you have got regular access [...]


Is this segmentation or discrimination?

Published on: 10 Nov 2012

The banking profession has had it pretty rough over the last few years. Whether you refer to it as the credit crunch, the liquidity crisis or the banking crisis it’s been tough for the banks and a number of banks have had to be rescued by government funds. There’s also a lot of competition between [...]


What have James Bond and accountants got in common?

Published on: 01 Nov 2012

James Bond – fast cars, fast women and saving the world. It’s all in a day’s work for 007. A lot of the readers of this blog are accountants and as accountants we all know from personal experience that driving fast cars, entertaining fast women and saving the world can be a very tiring business. [...]


Selling a hotel that you don’t own – what could possibly go wrong?

Published on: 29 Oct 2012

One of the general duties of company directors is to exercise reasonable skill, care and diligence. Three directors by the name of Robin Reichelt, Stephen Nathan and John Gibbs were clearly not exercising any of these attributes though. Whilst on the face of it their plan to reclaim VAT on the purchase of a hotel [...]


Guess who’s going to Myanmar?

Published on: 26 Oct 2012

Such is the spread of large accounting companies around the world that there are very few countries left where you can’t find an office of one of the Big 4 or mid tier companies. Myanmar in Asia was until recently one of the few countries that hadn’t had the pleasure of international accounting companies being [...]


Are you paid peanuts or do you get a fair salary?

Published on: 17 Oct 2012

How would you feel if you were doing exactly the same job as the person next to you but he or she was being paid more than you? My guess is that you wouldn’t be feeling too happy as the principles of fairness and equality would clearly be broken. It also raises the discussion of [...]