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- Ernst and Young - as a "computational error", has resulted in an ITV nomination for the International Emmys to be withdrawn.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