January 9th, 2020
What is cash flow? The Cambridge dictionary defines cash flow as: noun ˈkæʃ ˌfləʊ/ the amount of money moving into and out of a business Imagine trying to live without blood flowing through your body. You would have no oxygen or energy to function and eventually you’d die! This is the exact analogy to use […]
December 23rd, 2019
Big Four know best..? I recently bumped into an accountant friend of mine (in Tesco in Trent Vale as it happens). He recalled the time when a pottery client of his had called in one of the Big Four to oversee the move to a publicly-quoted company. No names, no pack drill but those two […]
December 17th, 2019
House Call… I sat in reception which, even for a Stoke-on-Trent widget company, was a little bit on the tired side. But the receptionist, Rita, was chirpy enough as she rang through to her boss to let him know that I was there. “Well, this is a pleasant surprise!“ he said as he came through […]
November 12th, 2019
Mothercare goes up to ten. Well, that was in the good old days. Now it has gone up the Swanee (here), hounded out of the high street by aggressive pricing, a slicker online presence from competitors and people having less money in their pocket. This is the latest in a long list of household retail […]
October 2nd, 2019
It’s a question I have taken to asking accountancy colleagues of mine, particularly those who have client companies based in the West Midlands generally and, specifically, in Stoke-on-Trent. I am not, of course, enquiring if they have recently taken on firms which specialise in the supply of large, ungainly and argumentative birds or, indeed, a […]
September 17th, 2019
What is the sixth largest French city? The answer, as many of you may have already guessed, is London. And one of the reasons that our capital has so many French people living and working there is that it is very easy to start a business in the UK compared with starting one in France. […]
August 30th, 2019
This column is not globally syndicated (yet) but I do have many regular readers, most of them from the world of accountancy and audit. These readers also use the services of Insolvency Practitioners Direct because they know that not only will we forensically and accurately investigate what is going on with their clients – and, crucially, […]
August 15th, 2019
Readers of this blog will know that for a long time now I have been advising my accountancy colleagues to find out from their clients who they are working for – by which I mean checking to see if the companies they are supplying are sustainable in the long term and not ‘sailing too close to the […]
August 8th, 2019
“Disqualification” is a word normally associated with alcohol and driving, or cheating in a competition. However, it can also be a process affecting company directors. If they are in breach of their duties (see ITB14) and they have been sufficiently “naughty”, they can be banned, or disqualified, from acting as a director for anything up […]
August 5th, 2019
Now steady on. Accountants all over North Staffordshire are clutching at their chests and hanging onto doorframes for support as they read that headline. This blog is a little longer than normal and those with a nervous disposition, or have a dislike of sarcasm, should not read further… “What on earth does Williamson, the Scourge […]
July 23rd, 2019
…local retail. Ah. I thought that would get your attention. The headline is, I admit, designed to make accountants sit up and take notice (particularly those with retail clients under their wing). This is my final look at the somewhat gloomy picture painted by the Quarter One statistics released by the Insolvency Service. Q2 will be […]
June 21st, 2019
I promised to return to the insolvency figures for the first quarter of 2019 and I’m sorry to say that they do not look at all encouraging. As my readers will know, I have been forecasting hard times ahead for more than 18 months now and my hope is that my accountancy colleagues are encouraging […]
May 23rd, 2019
When I tell people that I am an insolvency practitioner they usually nod solemnly and quickly move on to talk about the weather. I imagine that undertakers get a similar reaction. Midwives, however, receive beaming smiles and comments along the lines of ‘Oh, how lovely!”. Although it is true that members of my profession do […]
May 15th, 2019
One of the most annoying aspects of the high-profile audit failures by big brand accountancy firms – and there are many – is the reputational shadow it casts over the profession as a whole. Most local and regional accountants that I work with are hardworking, sensible, professionals who do a good job for their client […]
April 29th, 2019
“It’s a terrifying sight”, my accountancy colleague told me: “They come lurching through the door, rotting clothes hanging from their bodies, bony fingers clutching the latest bank statements. These zombie businesses scare the living daylights out of me!”. Ok, Ok. I admit it – I just made all that up. There are no reanimated corpses […]
April 9th, 2019
Can you buy an apple in Burslem? I ask the question because the Times newspaper reports that you can’t – well not in the town centre anyway. The Mother Town, it points out, has the highest proportion of boarded-up shops in the UK. And even if you could manage to find a greengrocer, you probably […]
March 25th, 2019
This autumn, some small businesses that suffer by being paid late will see a small chink of light fall into their lives when the government introduces its Prompt Payment Initiative. The aim is to ensure that all government suppliers and subcontractors are paid on time – but before the cynics and naysayers amongst you begin […]
March 5th, 2019
The Government has revealed that it will be imposing a completely new tax on some small businesses beginning in just over 12 months time. The Treasury estimates that it will raise an additional £185m in revenue every year. Hang on, I can hear you say. Where has Martin got this from? We haven’t seen anything […]
February 27th, 2019
“Leeds United’s movement and intensity caught us by surprise”. (Older quote..!) Speechless Stoke City fans were open-mouthed in astonishment as manager Gary Rowett gave his post-match television interview. The Potters had just lost their opening Championship game at Leeds and they were being told it was because they weren’t quick enough or committed enough for […]
February 15th, 2019
This particular blog is aimed primarily at my long-suffering accountant colleagues. The reason I ask this question is that, nationally, an increasing number of companies are not paying either their VAT or Corporation Tax on time. HMRC’s response has predictably been to take enforcement action which can result in winding up businesses which can then […]
January 31st, 2019
No sooner had we published our latest Insolvency Technical Bulletin (ITB) which defines exactly who can be considered a Director of a company – read it here – then along comes two shocking stories about Directors who should be hanging their heads in shame. The details are even more appalling because they also highlight what […]
December 19th, 2018
Stephen Haddrill knew that after Christmas, like Santa, he would (probably) be given the sack. So he announced in November that he was stepping down from his job as chief executive of the Financial Reporting Council (here). The FRC is the regulator for accountants – and in its own accounts it notes that Mr Haddrill […]
December 11th, 2018
P Parker? Peter Parker, of course. Still none the wiser? Peter Parker is The Amazing Spiderman, otherwise known as “Spidey” to his fans. His oft-quoted bon mot above refers to the moral obligation of superheroes to use their powers for good. But that same phrase could equally apply to company directors, could it not? Let […]
December 3rd, 2018
“Great news! We have just landed two blue-chip accounts from absolutely nowhere!”. Lawrie Driver was not normally so ebullient when arriving at his accountants to discuss his company’s quarterly management accounts, but it had been a good day. Gray Columns, the steadfast senior partner at Dubble, Entry and Heidit, perused the MD of Liquid Logistics […]
November 19th, 2018
When you get on a bus, tram or train you have no idea who your fellow passengers are. Most will be, like you, either going to and from work, shopping or meeting folk socially. But some will be criminals who are on their way to commit a crime. You may not be able to spot […]
November 5th, 2018
It has not been a great year for some of the bigger beasts of the accountancy world and, in particular, the auditing arms of those firms. First of all there has been a number of high-profile corporate collapses with insolvency proceedings following just a few months after the accounts had, apparently, been blithely signed off […]
October 22nd, 2018
Money laundering – disguising money obtained by criminal activity as legitimate – is one of the areas we address here at IPD. In fact, along with accountants, bankers and solicitors (in fact, anyone involved with financial matters), insolvency practitioners not only have the skills and systems to detect and monitor money laundering activities but we […]
October 11th, 2018
The accountancy world has been agog at the new insolvency measures that are being proposed by the Government following a consultation process that ended in August. Well, OK, not agog exactly. Accountants are rarely agog about anything although they do occasionally raise an eyebrow! Well, eyebrows are certainly being raised about the proposed new measures […]
September 19th, 2018
“Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future”, according to the physicist Neils Bohr. And he’s right. Prediction is a mug’s game. At IPD we don’t do prediction but we DO sometimes issue forecasts which, like weather forecasts, are not pronouncements of what will definitely happen but rather our views on what will […]
September 13th, 2018
Knees are knocking together in Northamptonshire and heads are being scratched in Somerset. The two county councils are in dire financial straits with one of them teetering on the edge of insolvency. “Why should this worry small business clients?”, I hear my accountancy friends ask: “None of my clients are based in these areas nor […]
September 4th, 2018
Inspector Morse turned towards his detective sergeant who had been puzzling aloud over some aspect of a baffling case. (Stay with me here…) “Try and see the bigger picture, Lewis”, he said, wearily. That was always a favourite quote of mine and not just because John Thaw delivered it with just the right amount of […]
August 15th, 2018
Business is just business? No, it’s not – and these two news items help to explain why. If you are a regular reader of this blog – and if you are not, (ha ha!) why not? – you will know that I have been concerned about the wellbeing of some Staffordshire businesses for almost a […]
July 3rd, 2018
House of Fraser, Sir Terence Conran, Jamie Oliver, Toys R Us, Carillion – the big names that are in difficulty or going bust (or hoping to trade their way back to viability after a CVA) seem to grow every week. Those names, once the darlings of the media, are now making headlines for all the […]
June 29th, 2018
I promised a few weeks ago to return to my commentary on the sobering Q1 data from the Insolvency Service because there are statistics in there that give me cause for concern. Despite working as an insolvency practitioner I am not a gloomy person by nature; I do, however, have a reasonable gift for crunching […]
June 15th, 2018
Accountants, like GPs, are busy people. Just like GPs, they spend so much time each day working on one client/patient before they have to turn their attention to the affairs of the next one. And just like GPs, each client/patient has a different need. With GPs an older person who has fallen at home may […]
May 18th, 2018
OK, nobody likes a smart Alec. But there is more than a hint of “I told you so” about this blog entry. To make matters worse, I am not particularly happy about the fact that my forecasts have proved to be accurate because they were – and are – about the jitters being experienced by […]
May 4th, 2018
You can be a multinational conglomerate with stores in 20 countries, or a one shop trader in Neck End. When sales are falling, costs are rising and insolvency is beckoning, both have been known to reach for the relative comfort of the CVA. The Company Voluntary Arrangement is essentially a deal between a company and […]
April 27th, 2018
The scammers of the world are out there right now planning to relieve you of your hard-earned cash. You know it and I know it – but we also think we know what a potential scam looks like. The days of the email from Nigeria giving us the good news that we are about to […]
March 14th, 2018
In many of the insolvency cases that come across my desk I end up looking back through the company’s history of dividend payments. Why would you be doing that?, I hear you ask. The reason is that occasionally company directors approve and pay dividends when it is illegal to do so. If and when that […]
March 7th, 2018
In The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy, author Douglas Adams recounts how a mighty galactic fleet of hostile spaceships journeys across the universe to attack Earth. When they arrive, due to a terrible miscalculation of scale, the entire battle fleet is accidentally swallowed by a small dog. “Those who study the complex interplay of cause […]
March 6th, 2018
Yes, I know I said that I was not going to write about Carillion again. But that was before Charles Orton-Jones wrote a punchy article in the Times on February 15 entitled ‘Five lessons Carillion can teach us all’. You will recall my concern that some smaller businesses caught up in the Carillion insolvency would […]
March 2nd, 2018
If you think it is tough as a business owner or director facing corporate insolvency, spare a thought for the workers whose jobs are on the line. These employees, however, have valuable rights – and not all company directors or even their accountants fully understand what they are. So let’s take a brief look at […]
February 23rd, 2018
The alarm bells began ringing in accountancy firms across the West Midlands when the news of Carillion’s insolvency hit the media. Although the story has now largely disappeared from the headlines, chartered accountants across the region are still working through the implications with client companies who were exposed, one way or another, to the collapse […]
January 26th, 2018
We are still in the early days of Carillion’s collapse. However, across Staffordshire, accountants are talking with the owners and directors of their client companies affected by the collapse of Carillion. Collectively, they are trying to assess the immediate impact on trading and cash-flow but they should also be looking further down the line at […]
January 15th, 2018
Following the collapse of Carillion, any further rise in the bank rate could push some small businesses in Staffordshire over the edge. Last November’s 0.25% rise, although small, was already affecting those companies that were operating on wafer-thin margins. My own view on this is that the relatively small increase in the Bank of England interest rate […]
January 4th, 2018
The quote that ended 2017 should become the watchword at the beginning of 2018 for accountants who have clients that are struggling to keep their businesses afloat. Indeed, my suggestion is that accountants should write this quote at the top of the page in their diary on their first day back at work. “Early intervention […]
December 11th, 2017
I have always enjoyed the timeless morality play that is Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. The characters are wonderfully drawn, the atmosphere gripping, the storyline endlessly compelling. As an insolvency practitioner I also appreciate the detail which the author sprinkles like snowflakes throughout this famous short story (it’s all about the detail, folks). When it comes to the […]
November 6th, 2017
The latest insolvency statistics for Quarter 3 (July to September) 2017 are out and I have not seen much reaction to them yet from local business and civic leaders. That may be because the headline figures seem innocuous enough. But I am not so sure. Having taken a careful and dispassionate look at the numbers […]
October 13th, 2017
I’m publishing this blog on Friday the 13th… but Friday, October 27th at 9.30am is when nightmare figures rise up to greet us and spectres stalk the land, instilling fear and trembling. Hang on Martin, I can hear you say, Halloween is actually on Tuesday, October 31st and all the ghouls and skeletons start drifting […]
September 22nd, 2017
Just about any organisation can get into financial difficulties and end up in administration or being declared insolvent. It is not the easiest of times when a business cannot pay its debts but handled properly – and speedily – it need not be a disaster either. The speed with which events can overtake a company […]
August 31st, 2017
The insolvency world continues to change at a rapid pace. Accountants are still getting to grips with the biggest rewrite of insolvency law in 30 years, brought about by the Insolvency (England and Wales) Rules that came into force in April 2017. One of the most useful changes has been the introduction of “deemed consent” – […]
July 28th, 2017
Four times more businesses than in September 2016 say they would be unable to pay debts if interest rates rise even by a small amount, research has revealed. A survey by insolvency and trade body R3 say 79,000 UK businesses are worried that they could not cope with an interest rate rise, compared to 20,000 […]
June 30th, 2017
Many British adults can be confused by financial matters due to a lack of education on the subject at schools and colleges. Just one in 10 adults say they received useful advice on finance through the education system, according to a survey by trade body R3 and polling body ComRes. “PHSE education in schools is […]
May 15th, 2017
Corporate insolvencies are now running at more than 5% higher than 12 months ago (ref: The Insolvency Service). Following a period of calm in 2016, insolvencies are now showing an upwards trend from a post financial crisis peak. Martin Williamson, Managing Director at ipd, said factors including a rise in the national minimum wage, pension […]
April 20th, 2017
139,000 businesses in the UK are only paying the interest on their debt and not repaying the debt itself, according to new research by insolvency and restructuring trade body R3. The number of businesses in this position – equivalent to 8% of all UK businesses – has returned to levels more in line with previous […]
March 20th, 2017
The total value of corporation tax payments in arrears has jumped 15 per cent in the past year, to £1.82 billion up from £1.59 billion, as businesses increasingly struggle to pay their tax bills. Research by online business supermarket, Funding Options, have warned that small businesses are at particular risk of having their assets seized because […]
November 8th, 2016
Young families are most vulnerable to insolvency, a new survey suggests. But there has been an overall drop in personal insolvencies year-on-year, according to statistics from Experian. The company reports that the number of people facing insolvency during the third quarter of this year has decreased by 14 percent compared to the same period last […]