7th April, 2022
Looking forward to a much-needed long weekend, Leanne Berry looks back at her recently concluded tour of the country in support of the ICB Australia Summit.
I’ve had a fantastic time these past few weeks on the road with the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers, and having this opportunity to share my experience has made it all the more memorable.
Travelling to each State capital in quick succession is a novel experience at the best of times, but seeing so many people from the industry turn out for each event day was an ongoing source of pure energy.
The Summit promised to deliver a wealth of insights for bookkeepers and accountants, and it did so in spades. I’ve previously shared my insights on solo bookkeepers as a profession in the wake of ICB CEO Amanda Linton’s presentation on that topic, as well as outsourcing with Executive Director Matthew Addison, but there were a host of other agenda items covered, including cybersecurity and STP Phase 2.
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank MYOB (one of only two sponsors to appear on every leg of the summit tour) for supporting this initiative, the ICB and its members. As a result, we’ve delivered fantastic presentations and helped more advisors gain confidence in how to better work with their clients at a very critical time.
For my own part, I feel like I’ve survived a whirlwind – and the numbers prove it. Not only have I been keeping tabs on the key event numbers (as any bookkeeper worth her salt would!), I’ve even recorded my overall distance travelled, and distance walked over the period.
Here are the vital statistics to help give you a sense of the entire event:
Over a period of just over four weeks, the ICB delivered 11 live and in-person events across nine cities, plus a virtual event delivered over two days for those who couldn’t attend.
Each one of these events involved five hours and 15 minutes worth of content and, when combined with the virtual event, totals nearly 67 hours of material presented to over 1300 attendees across the country.
In attending these events, I’ve managed to clock up 75 kilometres on my pedometer app, while my overall transit distance comes in just shy of 25,000 kilometres. It’s fair to say I’ve gone from one extreme to the other in terms of my travel behaviour in the past six months.
After all of that activity, I’m in desperate need of a lazy ‘staycation’, but I’m also acutely aware many businesses and their advisors, such as bookkeepers, could also use a break of another kind.
The final Melbourne event for the ICB Summit happened to occur on Wednesday, 30 March, which means I had the pleasure of sharing the news of the Government’s announcement to offer a 120 percent tax incentive for eligible businesses (those with turnover up to $50 million a year) to spend on digital services, such as those offered by MYOB.
While such an incentive would no doubt be well received by any bookkeeping or accounting advisor seeking to help clients move onto cloud platforms, we’re unfortunately yet to see any draft legislation that might help shed light on the practical reality of this announcement. Doubly unfortunate as I know there are a lot of businesses out there who could’ve used this time to adapt their plans this side of 30 June, and that’s becoming less likely as a result.
MYOB has worked hard to bring such an incentive to fruition, and it’s estimated the implementation of such a measure would add $10.5 billion to the economy by improving the productivity of small businesses everywhere. We will continue to watch this situation as it develops, keeping in mind that once the Election race begins, the Government will go into caretaker mode and we won’t see any new legislation passed until after voters have gone to the polls.
So, while I take a moment to gather myself in preparation of the run up to the Accounting Business Expo later this month, I hope you’re staying productive as we edge toward the end of the financial year.