Well in our case it was more like: “Publish and damn the economy”.

As each month we wrote another chapter of Accrual World it started to worry us just how much we were prophesising the world economy and events. Here’s hoping there’s an Alan Gold out there to find a resolution, as Accrual World is now available in all its printed glory.

There are 500 free copies available for accountants, just email accrualworld@wolterskluwer.co.uk with your name, company and contact details and we’ll drop it in the post.

Alternatively download the PDF here

It’s finally here - the reason the blog started and why the Accrual World team have been inflicting their musings on accountancy.

Accrual World is now published and Alan Gold’s ongoing struggle against the Britannic Party’s oppression of accountants and the British public has finally come to a close.

With its parallels to the current financial turbulence still ringing true, plus the fact that it’s a cracking read*, you shouldn’t miss this opportunity to enjoy the most exciting accountancy novel ever committed to paper (and pdf).

CCH is giving away a free copy of Andy Blackford’s novel to the first 500 accountants to request one by emailing accrualworld@wolterskluwer.co.uk. Just provide your name, details and delivery address and you’ll have your copy sent to you in the post.

Alternatively, for those of you who can’t wait, the story can be downloaded as a pdf here.

* “A terrifying warning of what might have been” - Martin Waller, the Times.

And there’ll finally be some long over due and (for this site) very important news.

I’m sure our regular readers can guess where this is going, but watch this space for a ‘Gold’en nugget of information coming soon.

The Accrual World Team got a sneak peek at the results of CCH’s Marketing Survey this week, and we’re pleased to see accountants bucking the stereotype of cautious adopters of the “safely, safely” approach.

The surprise results of the survey found that in spite of the recession (or maybe because of it) 84% of accounting practices are actively looking to grow their business. Just under a third were looking to do this by increasing the value of their existing client base, but over half saw them growing their business by actively going after new clients.

We honestly expected there to be a high number of people who would be happy maintaining the equilibrium, but the age old adage of marketing in a recession seems to ring true with accountants.

In fact from our conversations with accountants, it’s increasingly clear that “Marketing” isn’t as confusing or intimidating as it was once perceived as being. In the current climate raising the profile of their practice and differentiating themselves from their competitors seems to be at the forefront of accountant’s thoughts.

So what’s your take?

Are you one of these aggressive growth practices, or do you feel this approach leaves you exposed to greater risk?

Or are you aware of your clients being targeted and if so how have you reacted?  

It feels to the AW Team like there maybe a change coming to the market, and maybe the recession has given us the kick we all needed to leave our comfort zones and become more business minded.

The Accrual World Team spent most of yesterday seeing if any of us were suffering from the latest media scare story, following the announcement of Numerrhoea by Swiss scientists.

It’s basically the opposite of Dyscalculia, where people have trouble filtering and calculating basic numerical tasks. Afflicted people are unable to conceptualise certain grammatical patterns and substitute numbers as abstract concepts of the written copy. The ‘disorder’ (which we’re loath to call it) can result due to damage to specific regions of the brain, but can also occur developmentally, as a genetically-linked learning afflicti0n that resu1ts in the substituti0n of grammar with numeracy from a young age.

There was a strangely business-y frame of mind to the Accrual World Team morning catch-up today. 

It all started with tongue-in-cheek question: “Do you think accountant’s get nervous when they hear the words ‘Lord’ and ‘Carter’ in close proximity?” as one of the more technically minded members of the team joined the dots together on the implications of a report by another Lord Carter. 

We’re obviously firm believers in technology, but we do think that there’s a very big shift around the corner and wonder if accountants are prepared? It’s all well and good to talk about SaaS models for accountants, but are they ready for their client becoming truly digital in their business practices? 

Lord Stephen Carter’s interim Digital Britain report paints a picture where accessible and fast technology finally becomes a push rather than a pull factor. Once that happens it’s realistic to expect that the average home, small business and cost cutting firm will quite happily start to embrace the ‘cloud computing’*  concept once they realise that it can be so much easier and cheaper.

The real question is what does this mean for the way we receive and send information? The accountant who hasn’t got a robust and effective online presence will be the equivalent of the old guard accountant who refused to play around with that “new fangled email malarkey” back in the 90’s. Many of the larger practices are already there or heading in the right direction, but will the smaller firms be able to get away with hoping that their client remains a luddite? 

Of course it may never come to pass. A dependence on the private sector to fund this shift is the equivalent of asking someone in a desert if they can spare the last of their water, so expect lines to be drawn in the sand there. Either way, it’ll be fascinating to see the response when the next instalment of the report comes out in Autumn. 

*although whoever decided to give an intangible concept an intangible name really didn’t help the cause! Mind you… we giggled like school children when we first heard of the Nintendo Wii, so our track record’s not great.

As the Accrual World Team approached our lowest point of the week (2pm on a Wednesday for those who are wondering*), we couldn’t believe our luck to stumble across this post on accountingWEB’s Any Answers page.

Now admittedly not all the jokes are going to find themselves being used by Eddie Izzard or Ricky Gervais, but we found some of the entries on there to be laugh out loud funny.

Our favourite?

The response to: “Did you hear about the constipated management accountant?
He couldn’t budget”

Which was promptly followed up with:

“I thought the constipated accountant managed to work it out with a pencil?”

Get on there with your jokes, as there appears to be a joke-off brewing with ukbusinesseforums.co.uk!

* It’s statistically true by the way.

During our daily trawl of the news, the Accrual World Team was stopped in its tracks at the well covered story of a pill that makes us forget traumatic experiences.

It’s a topic that throws up numerous important ethical dilemmas about the human condition and also questions the very nature of what makes us who we are. Should we tamper with the human psyche through chemical means? Without our emotionally painful experiences what kind of people would we become?

With such a metaphysical topic on the nature of how we define ourselves to get us started on our Monday morning journey to work, it got the AW Team thinking…

What would you like to forget from the last 12 months?*

The lines between reality and fiction have already been blurred, so why not just wipe out the unpleasant reality and put it all down to a chapter of Accrual World?

*we’re not the deepest bunch of people and we’re particularly slow on a Monday.

Last week the Accrual World Team made a promise. Fewer posts about the recession*.

One post later and we’ve failed abysmally, but we found the story about KPMG trying to cut staff hours too interesting to ignore.

In the current climate it’s refreshing to see an employer recognising the importance of staff as their main asset and looking at means other than redundancy to streamline the business.

We wondered if this came down to the way in which accountants approach problems. Are they just naturally aware that a little bit here and a little bit there can prove vastly more effective than going crazy with a cleaver and chopping off essential appendages?

So what other practices could be adopted?

In our daily encounters with accountants we’ve heard suggestions ranging from half days working from home (supposedly staff treat time travelling to and from work as ‘office’ time anyway), outsourcing administration work, or even psychological profiling of staff to make sure they’re working in their most effective role!

So what do you think should be the focus on the prepared practice? The staff, the systems or the overheads?

* We also decided we won’t use the term Credit Crunch. It sounds like a chocolate bar.

With all the doom and gloom trying to break down what’s left of our New Year spirits, the Accrual World Team has decided to keep an optimistic eye out for good news to naysay all the doomsayer’s predictions.

Admittedly the only good news we’ve seen recently is for increased baked bean sales and Aldi profits, but it did makes us wonder how an accountant can position themselves to a market with a no-frills mentality?  It’s not like we’re a particularly ‘frilly’ profession, so maybe we should all be branching out into ready-made tax returns advertised by Kerry Katona? In fact which celebrity would you like to see fronting your practice?

The AW Team would like to see Jack Dee bring his sardonic wit to the importance of accountancy after his sterling turn on Shooting Stars, but we don’t see him winning the hearts and minds of the no-frills crowd…