From San Jose to Sydney, there’s plenty going on in the world of accountancy.
While Washington absorbs the aftershocks of the midterm elections, over in California all accounting eyes are on QuickBooks Connect.
For a flavour of the US accountancy software extravaganza, check out the Tuesday recap video, above. For first-hand reporting, AccountingWEB‘s head of insight, John Stokdyk, is out there at the Intuit event and dispatching some great stuff.
Set his stall out
John managed to extract some interesting comments from Intuit’s CEO in waiting, Sasan Goodarzi. He takes over from Brad Smith in January but he was happy to use the Connect platform to set his stall out.
Not afraid to raise a few eyebrows, Goodarzi said: “Don’t call us an accounting platform. We’re not in the accounting business.”
Though he went on to explain: “We are not just a platform for accounting, we are a platform to help small businesses succeed and a critical part of it is to make accountants successful.”
Road to artificial intelligence
It will be interesting to see how Goodarzi steers Intuit further down the road to artificial intelligence integration… And how quickly the ‘accounting’ software group gets there…
Next stop Australia… Sydney is playing host to the four-day World Congress of Accountants. Just like the football World Cup, it takes place every four years and attracts talented participants from all over the globe.
The event’s motto is “Be inspired”. (By the way, the slogan for Intuit’s 2019 events is “Leave Feeling Inspired“.) And this was clearly the goal of keynote speaker and economics historian Niall Ferguson, who was cheered by a 5,000-strong audience when he said: “Accountancy may not sound glamorous. But it is so important.”
Ferguson highlighted the important role the profession had to play in the battle against corruption in developing economies.
Supposed end to austerity
On the domestic front, there’s been a lot of media attention on the budget, low pay and the supposed end to austerity.
The Living Wage Foundation has announced a rise in its real living wage to £9.00 nationally and £10.55 in London. Unsurprisingly, these figures are slightly at odds with the government’s ‘national living wage’.
Philip Hammond, chancellor, announced a rise to £8.21 an hour in April 2019 for over-25s. If you’re younger it’s apparently OK to be paid even less … in the view of the government.
Wage brackets
Adam Williamson, head of professional standards at the Association of Accounting Technicians, which supports the Living Wage Foundation, says: “There are four lower wages incorporating other wage brackets – from £7.70 per hour for 21- to 24-year-olds down to just £3.90 per hour for apprentices.”
“The £9 Living Wage is set independently and calculated annually, according to the basic cost of living using the UK’s ‘Minimum Income Standard’. While those employers, including AAT, who have Living Wage Foundation accreditation are going above and beyond their legal requirements by paying the Living Wage, it sets a strong tone – not only to employees but to customers, suppliers and other stakeholders.
“With a third of AAT’s student population being aged under 25 and with over 10,000 studying apprenticeship schemes, we support the National Union of Students’ description of the apprenticeship wage as ‘exploitative’ and believe they should also receive the standard minimum wage.
“All businesses, large and small, should consider signing up to the Living Wage to help eradicate low pay and act for the benefit of students, apprentices, small business owners, skilled workers and many other employees.”