While I rather like Stefan Töpfer's SME Blog, I take issue with this piece about the ongoing Royal Mail strike.

Stefan is usually a well-reasoned, sensible voice in the UK business arena, which is why comments like "getting back to the bad old days" and "incompetence, selfishness and outright disregard for the public’s needs" have surprised me.

Yeah, it's frustrating and yes, it has cost my own company and thousands of other SMEs money.

But surely we have moved on from the outmoded idea that people going on strike are - to use that old Tory cliche - "holding the country to ransom".

These days strikes are comparitively rare and are a last resort. A 2.5% pay off and the potential loss of 40,000 jobs is a serious issue for Royal Mail workers and I for one can understand why they've felt the need to take this action.

When faced with management that are refusing even to see that their employees may have a point, there are very few options available.

Of course strikes do inconvenience both businesses and individuals, but let's at least look at the issues rather than condemning everyone outright.

A pre-budget report from Chancellor Alistair Darling has indicated that he aims to simplify the business tax system. More than 20 measures have been tabled, including improvements to self-assessment, payroll and stamp duty land tax.

The Chartered Institute of Taxation has welcomed the move but is this really likely to simplify what anyone with any sense would agree is an over-complicated system.

John Cullinane of The Chartered Institute of Taxation adds a cautionary note to his comments when he said "it will take sustained effort, for a long time, to simplify it [the business tax system]. More consultation prior to major changes would help build support for this."

Without proper consultation - and that does seem to be the case here - there is the danger that rather than simplifying things, Darling will add another level of complexity to an already creaking system.

While I, for one, would definitely like to see a straightforward, easy to understand and easy to operate business tax system, I suspect that this is not likely to be the outcome here.

One of the downsides to running a pub is that the accounting side of things is fairly complex. This has, of course, been the downfall of a number of former footballers and rock stars. Well, that and drinking all the profits.

Greene King (producers of such fine beers as Abbot Ale and Greene King IPA) have offered an 'open-book' accounting system for four years, but have recently relaunched it to include more local accountants.

The aim, in the words of Commercial director for Pub Partners, Sue Thomas-Taylor, is to provide "...professional financial support to new licensees helps them progress through their first year.." and thereby retain more new licensees.

However, it appears there is a sting in the tail of this otherwise worthy offering with some Greene King tenants being charged more than double the usual accountancy rates and having little choice but to comply due to contractual clauses.

While I commend Greene King and other breweries for supporting new licensees, this smacks a little of profiteering.

There are a number of very fine accountants out there who deal specifically with the licensed trade and it would be in the breweries long term interest to help their tenants find the best accountants for their needs.

What has been described, mainly by the accountants responsible - Ernst and Young - as a "computational error", has resulted in an ITV nomination for the International Emmys to be withdrawn.

It appears that the error in the ballot count resulted in the wrong names of nominees for the news category.

While it must be galling for ITV to lose their nomination (particularly as they were replaced by the BBC in the same category), I'm fascinated by the phrase "computational error".

In mathematics, a computational error does have a very specific meaning. However, here, Ernst and Young are just using it as a less obvious synonym for "we added up the numbers wrong".

OK, so, the headline is more than a little flippant. But stick with me.

Here's a story in The Cambridge Evening News that owes a great deal to clever PR spin.

In essence, the story indicates that "... AAT students trained on the job straight from school can be as much as £70,000 ahead of their graduate counterparts by the time they have completed their degree...".

The implication, of course, is that the Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT) training programme will give you a significant advantage over university educated accountants.

The truth is rather more prosaic. It is absolutely obvious and of no surprise to anyone that if you go out to work after leaving school you will be earning more money that someone who stays in full-time education.

Still good on the AAT for making it clear that university isn't the only route to a decent career.

Those of you reading this who run your own business may have elected to let your accountants take care of your payroll.

The thing is...well, accountants don't really like doing fiddly little jobs like payroll. In fact, even their non-chartered bookkeeping staff could be doing more 'worthwhile' work.

And, so it is quite common to find that your accountants have outsourced your payroll to a third-party payroll bureau.

Nothing wrong with that in theory. Except that you might find that directly engaging a payroll bureau is cheaper and more effective than using your accountants.

Our own work with payroll bureaus (bureaux ?) tells us that they will take on businesses of all sizes, even if you only have two or three employees.

It's worth taking a look and comparing payroll services over at our Just Accountants website : http://www.justaccountants.co.uk/payroll.html

One of the things that has interested me most while working with Just Accountants.co.uk has been getting an insight into what people really want from their accountant.

We talk to numerous companies every week who are, for one reason or another, thinking about changing their accountant.

I say 'for one reason or another', but really, it seems there is ONLY ONE overriding reason that companies want to change their accountants. And that is: service.

People may express it in different ways: responsiveness; feeling valued; name recognition. But essentially, it all comes down to the same thing. Your clients want you to deliver a personal service.

They want you to instantly recognise their name, want their calls and emails responded to in a timely manner. They just want you to care.

Price? It's just not important. Even those people we speak to who mention price say things like this:

"It's too expensive for what we're getting".

If you are an accountant, your clients want to feel valued and important. And if you are unable to deliver that, then they will go elsewhere.

Let's be very clear : chartered accountancy is an EXTREMELY crowded market. There is no reason why your clients should stay with you if you aren't delivering the service they expect.

Conversely, there is an important lesson to be learnt here, I feel. And that is: charge what your services are worth and don't feel ashamed that you are more expensive than your competitors. Your client retention will be so much higher.

It was only a couple of weeks ago that I spoke to a chartered accountant on Merseyside whose minimum fee was £1,000 p.a. For that you could get end of year accounts (providing the bookkeeping was done properly) and a tax return. That's it.

I asked this particular accountant how he could compete with local accountants who charged far, far less. He said: "we don't compete with those companies..we just make sure we know our clients and when they ask us to do something, we do it....they know that we know their business and will give them good advice when they ask for it".

The message here is : in an increasingly crowded accounting market, offer a high level service because by competing solely on price, you are doing yourselves and your clients a disservice.

I've just been speaking with one of our clients, who runs a small but growing accountancy practice in North London. Well, he thought it was small but growing, until he logged on the HMRC Online website this morning and found that, actually, it was rapidly shrinking.

According to the HMRC website, he is down to 2 clients. A bit of a shocker for him and, no doubt, for his clients.

It appears that those terribly clever IT type people over at HMRC have done some kind of service upgrade and have managed to migrate several thousand records into the ether.

But don't worry, the "technicians are working on this". Well, that's OK, then, isn't it!

Following April's change in the rules governing managed service companies (MSCs), it appears likely that HMRC will clamp down on those MSCs who are claiming to be "professional accountants".

Following the new regulations implemented in April, many managed service companies appear to have rebranded themselves as "professional accountants" in an attempt to exploit an exemption in the legislation.

However, contractors should be warned that their one man limited companies could be deemed MSCs "if they are supported by a specialist service provider (MSC provider) who is 'involved' with their company."

The penalties for this will be that the contractor will be liable for full tax and NI on his or her earnings.

Personally, I fully support the PCG's attempts to get the law clarified and to support contractors in their attempt to show that they should not be classed in the same bracket as full time employees.

However, contractors would do well to listen to the advice of Matthew Brown, Managing Director, giant group, who says :

"Contractors and recruiters dealing with MSC providers are taking huge financial risks. A lot of MSC providers are reassuring their clients that they are fully compliant with the new law, but they are fooling themselves if they think HMRC would introduce anti-avoidance legislation, only to leave a 'loophole' allowing MSC providers to sidestep it by claiming to be 'professional accountants'."

Despite the best attempts of the regulators, the 'big 4' auditing firms are still growing and there is still little real competition to their control over the industry.

Between them, they averaged growth of 15% last year and audited the books of 349 of the top 350 UK firms. And, most worryingly, the dominance of the PwCs and Ernst & Youngs shows no signs of slowing.

Although the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has, according to Gavin Hinks, editor of Accountancy Age, "worked hard to convince corporates and potential clients that the mid-tier firms are viable alternatives to the Big Four", the problem here is two fold.

Firstly, there is a trust issue. Simply put, big business has heard of Deloitte, KPMG and the other two major auditors. They think that if it's good enough for the top 100 companies in the UK, then it's going to be good enough for them. This is a barrier that all the regulating in the world can't overcome. The regulators may be concerned that such a lack of competition undermines the authority of company audits, but big business isn't sharing that concern.

Secondly - and this may seem a trivial point - but the nature of auditing itself makes it easy for only a few firms to dominate the marketplace.

At Just Accountants.co.uk, we work with a bunch of accountants who are also registered auditors. And the problem they find is one of capacity: because these are generally small firms and because of the time it takes to conduct a full audit, they are unable to commit to more than a few per year.

This leaves the way clear for a few monster companies to dominate this sector and perversely, it increases worries about 'trust'. After all, if the company you are asking to audit your firm conducts audits very rarely, fears about accuracy, competence and trust invariably raise their heads.

If the FRC really wants large companies to look beyond the big four, then they are going to have to do a little better than say it "encourages competition".

The staff of many companies who outsource to a payroll bureau now receive their payslips by email.

However, Section 8 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 reads: "An employee has the right to be given by his employer, at or before the time at which any payment of wages or salary is made to him, a written itemised pay statement." [emphasis mine].

This has lead to some suggestions that electronic payslips may not be lawful.

The Paypershop.com article linked above puts a strong case that suggests that emailed payslips may not fully comply with current legislation.

For example: employees must be "given" their payslip. However, if the employee cannot access their email - when they are on holiday or sick, for instance - then it cannot be said they have been given their payslip.

While it does appear that HMRC is accepting of electronically delivered payslips, there nevertheless is a risk if staff are unable to see deductions made from their pay on payday. This opens employers up to employment tribunals that could lead to the employer having to repay 100% of the deductions "even if they were legitimate or statutory deductions."

In the first of what, hopefully, should be an occasional series, I would like to present to you 'Pointless Tax Rules: Part One'.

The first pointless tax rule concerns reclaiming VAT on cars:

VAT can only be reclaimed on vehicles if there are no windows or seats in the rear.

Yup, you read that right. You can't reclaim VAT if you can see out of the back windows. Not that you would want to if there aren't any seats.

So that means lorries and, um, what else? Even most Ford Transits have back windows! Can someone link to a picture of a vehicle that isn't a lorry on which you can reclaim VAT, because, for the life of me, I can't think of one.

The trend among small business owners in the UK seems to be increasingly to use their accountants as financial and business advisors.

In research conducted by Venture Finance, 78% of SMEs said that they could rely on their accountant to give them unbiased financial advice. While this advice does seem to mainly be concerned directly with business issues, accountants are also providing personal financial advice on issues such as investments, insurance and savings plans.

Personally, I would far rather trust my accountant to give professional, financial advice than an 'independent' financial advisor or a representative from a bank.

Rather sweetly, only 46% of accountants rated themselves as the most trustworthy in the financial services and legal sectors. However, you can bet that independent financial advisors and others selling financial products would love to be trusted by 78% of their clients. It is, of course, a trust that shouldn't be abused and I, personally, would hate to see accountants move too far away from their core competencies. Nevertheless, it's good to see that the relationship between small and mid-sizes UK businesses and their accountants is one based on trust and understanding.

I work with a lot of accountants over at Just Accountants.co.uk and pretty much each one has a different idea of their 'ideal client'.

We have accountants that don't like to work with cash only businesses; accountants who only work with contractors; accountants who specialise in start-ups and new companies; accountants who prefer owner-managed businesses with a turnover above £200,000 p.a - the list is ever growing.

I know this stuff because they tell me. And - if you are trying to find an accountant - this is information you will need to know too. However, put simply, most accountants would prefer the income from a client than not. And who can blame them? There are thousands of chartered accountants out there and they are all competing for business.

Nevertheless, when you are trying to find an accountant, whether you are self-employed or the financial director of a multinational corporation, you need to find out what type of clients that accountant prefers. That way you will end up with a responsive, helpful professional who can assist you as you grow your business.

For that reason, I recommend against comparing accountants on price. There are some great fixed fee based accountants out there and there are some good ones who are comparitively cheap, but if their preferred client is an owner-managed limited company and you are a self-employed hairdresser, then you are not necessarily going to get the service you need.

Accountancy, more and more, is a service based business and you have the right to expect that your accountants will be ready and willing to assist you. But you do need to ask the right questions.

Ask your prospective accountant if they specialise in any particular area, call them up at 5:15pm on a Friday afternoon and see how easy they are to contact; try to arrange a meeting for a time that suits you, not them. All these things will indicate whether this is the accountant for you.

Of course [beware, unsubtle promotional pitch coming], you could always find an accountant through Just Accountants and we'll put you in touch with accountants that are right for you : http://www.justaccountants.co.uk/quote.html

While I personally have nothing at all against the Customs and Revenue, I do believe that the IR35 legislation is a mess and that the new legislation governing managed service companies is even worse.

That's why there's a certain amount of schadenfreude in seeing the Professional Contractors Group's continued success in IR35 related court cases.

While this piece on Contractor Calculators.co.uk is slightly too gloating in tone, it does make clear some of the flaws of the legislation governing contractors' tax affairs.

The HMRC seems determined to label all contractors as employees and tax them accordingly. The reality is, of course, very different but - either to maximise tax revenues or because of anachronistic attitudes by legislators - the attempt to equate contractors with employees continues.

In the articles, Barry Roback, CEO of the Watford-based accounting firm JSA comments that: "These workers bear the risks of working for different companies at different times, with none of the privileges of employees. So they should not be treated like them.".

This is a view I agree with most strongly and it is for this reason that the PGC's continued success brings a smile to my face.

OK, we'll kick this blog off with an odd one.

According to the Chinese Ministry of Finance, Chinese accounting standards will be brought into line with those of the EU from January 1st 2008.

Obviously, as China opens up as a market to the rest of the world, this is no bad thing, but the question I have to ask is: how is anyone going to audit this? Are teams of SAS trained chartered accountants going to travel to Beijing to check up on whether the Chinese are secretly not doing it right?

It's a good notion, but I'm going to be interested to see how this idea works (or doesn't, as I suspect) in practice.