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In the modern business landscape, efficiency and accuracy in financial management are paramount to success.

By CA. K. Raghu. The author is past President, ICAI and former Board Member, International Federation of Accountants.

At last count, close to two dozen laws simultaneously hover over any corporate entity in India at all times.

Ranging from the Companies Act to GST, Income Tax, Customs, Shop Act, and so on, their numbers don’t seem to be reducing any time soon.

Looking around us we realize how much ahead we have come when compared to times not so long in the past. Till about a 100 years back, life in most parts of India was not very different from those a 1000 years back!

In the last century, things have sped at the speed of light! Old social and political orders built upon hierarchies have crumbled and disappeared and in its place we have a flat order.

The outlook of Businesses in most developing markets including India is bullish. This is irrespective of size and activity considerations. These markets today are characterized by the presence of those who have money….and want to spend be it on personal acquisitions or establishing ventures or expanding existing ones. The ascent is thus towards spending and doing well.

To say that the world is changing would be like saying that the sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening; nothing new.

To say it is changing in unimaginable ways would be like saying that the sun has risen…from the south and will set in the north! That, is certainly new, very, very new!

Leading from the front is the signs of a leader. Most industry veterans go by this credo and make themselves responsible to the organization’s fortunes, good or bad. In doing so, corporate leaders, be it owners, CEOs, CFOs and MDs implement systems which are far-sighted taking into account the present and future scenarios given present and likely circumstances.

In any business, one resource always in short supply is time.

Most either have money but no time or plenty of time but no money. With Technology, a middle ground is now available for those who want to earn and at the same time spend quality time with family and friends!

And empowering knowledge is Data!

Today, given innovations in products and competition within an industry, the concept of a stable growth path or a tapering productivity line does not exist. Industry of any kind is on the path where a constant growth means survival and slowdown means a slow though sure death.

India has many challenges which has resulted in slow growth of economy.Some of the challenges are:

Lack of government infrastructure (multiple steps for approval, speed of approval, very old rules, which does suit current times)

These are interesting times. Very interesting indeed! So interesting that the word interest no longer seems interesting! What interests today instead are ownership, entrepreneurship, profits and income! Old words for the new emerging India.

A stitch in time is better than nine…….and there are no free lunches!

Something similar is the case when you run an enterprise irrespective of its size, worth, activity and similar considerations. Governments the world over see businesses from a different perspective compared to an individual as regards legal and tax liabilities. Businesses are established with express intention to earn profits. No business runs on a charitable intent. How-so-ever noble the intent, a functioning enterprise is the result of profits and incomes out of its operations.

The Indian economy has undergone a transformation of sorts in the last decade and is today the third largest economy with respect to purchasing power parity (PPP). With this change has come complexity. And coming in its wake as always, are some revolutionary solutions.

Increasing size affects any entity in various ways. Financial, Regulatory & Legal compliances with respect to taxes, stakeholders, societal compliances etc. become a reality.

Ask any budding businessman his most important commitment and pat would come the reply, his business.

A business much like a plant needs nurturing especially in the initial stages. Once it finds its roots, the rest is a test of time where the owner/ entrepreneurs and managers spend time understanding the industry, their position therein and how to go about making the best use of resources. In addition, it is expected of them to formulate strategies for growth and diversification whether in the same or varied industry.

Slog. One word which best describes what it is to become a Chartered Accountant or a Company Secretary.

Slog. One word which best describes what it is AFTER you become a Chartered Accountant or a Company Secretary.

Speak to anyone in any forum right from the street to the board-room about what it is to be a CA/ CS and you are left with one reply. Slog.

Later this year we are going to see lot of happenings on the Tax reforms – One is GST which is getting rolled out in India and other is VAT in GCC (Gulf Countries – UAE, Bahrain etc)

The government has proposed subsidy up to Rs. 1 lakh for micro and small enterprises to encourage them to use cloud computing for information and communications technology applications.

Indian have a penchant to stand in queue…any queue. And with time, we break it to our advantage!

Our PM, Narendra Modi just gave us an opportunity to form huge queues! Or did he??

Scarcity of capital, shortage of resources, delayed payments, technological obsolesce, increasing competition and harsh clean up of loans are leaving the small scale entrepreneurs at cross roads. It is high time that they reinvent their methods and appropriately utilize the opportunities available, in order to compete in the arena of Indian market.

Shaking hands at one end may sometimes translate to a shake-down at the other. The recent bonhomie between the US tax authorities and their counterparts in India under the FATCA or US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act could be a case in point.
What it essentially boils down to is that folks serving in the US and earning an income there shall have to pay tax on incomes generated through assets parked abroad. Till now the Indian community in the US,

Intolerance. It is in the air like the flavor of the season. No one particularly likes it yet no one does anything to lessen its impact.
We are a 130 crore+ nation with strong and sometimes unyielding ideas on life, likes, dislikes and the most contentious one of them all…religion. We are an ancient race which has seen life evolve for the last 5000+ years. This does one thing to people. It gives them baggage of the past to judge the present with the result that the future too is a reflection of the past.

Chinese whispers they say are designed to create confusion. More so if it is the Chinese themselves creating it!
Could this be……about the Chinese economy…? God forbid. There is far too much for the World to lose if China goes down than us losing a bit due to its currency devaluation.

Needs today define enterprise like never before. With competition nibbling away at profits and costs rising due to life-style pressures, the ascent today is to do thing efficiently at low costs. It is agility at low costs that is defining enterprise.

The Man, Prabhas….the Brain, SS Rajmouli together they bring to life an Epic of a Movie….Bahubali
India is nothing but history and for that reason Historical Epics and related myths have done well here. Add to that a big budget and you have a super-duper box-office smasher and that is what Bahubali is! In the first week of its release, it has set the cash registers ringing non-stop and has already crossed Rs 350 crores.

For most of us procuring our child’s birth certificate, somehow losing it and applying for and getting a duplicate can be a constant source of nightmare!
And this is just one document affecting one aspect of life in India!

A few random thoughts come to mind when thinking of the unfolding Greek financial tragedy, like:

1. A 1st world country irrespective of size ought to have an industrialized base to prosper. With an industrial base similar to the Greeks, it is a very likely base for a meltdown sooner than later.

A fit body is the perfect setting for a fit mind where creativity and resolve gets enhanced!

Lethargy never paid whether of an individual or an organization…. READ MORE

20 countries and still going strong……business worth some USD billions and still counting!

These are some of the attributes of a restless body with a 56” chest otherwise called Shri Narendra Modi, The Prime Minister of the Republic of India!

Coke in India was not going where it planned to when it introduced its flagship product for the first time in the early nineties. Reason? Pricing. Some deft calculations later, an unexpectedly simple solution emerged: reduce quantity and reduce prices! Result? Sales shot thru the roof! They have never looked back ever since.

Growth….or for that matter any activity shows positive results when you have any of the following strategies, namely: - Go on the front foot and increase business and revenues and/ or - Stay where you are and reduce costs. Both the above strategies though with very different focus and likely outcomes, point to the one central idea: increasing revenues/ profits.

Things have come a long way from the time that one has to invest a good sum of money to procure a worth-while software and then invest further in a server-based system to support this software. Add to that the intranet, an airconditioned room and dedicated staff and what you had was a separate department which was more cost than profit centered. It would not end here as the complexity kept on growing with time with things like virus scans, patches etc being thrown in with fair amount of regularity.

An interesting article in Hindustan Times mentions that Chartered Accountants in Gulf are paid four times that what they get in India.

A Indian CA who has worked for an Indian firm for two years, is set to shift to Dubai at four times what he has been getting here.

An interesting article on 29th Nov 2014 in Times of India mentions that the number of women seeking to get into the number-crunching profession of chartered accountancy (CA) has taken a big leap in the past couple of years.

Practicing CA Firms need to use ‘out of Box’ and collaborative approach to grow

An interesting article by a practicing CA provides insights into the challenges faced by practicing CAs.

With increased passing percentage over years, CA professionals are flooding the market and are not getting job. More CAs in market means reduced rate from customers. Add to this the increasing cost of setting and running practice, practicing CAs are finding it difficult to grow the practice and earn higher revenue.

Companies Act 2013 – Key Highlights and Impact Part 2 of 2

The recently enacted Companies Act, 2013 ('the Act') is a landmark legislation with far-reaching consequences on all companies incorporated in India.

According to industry estimates the top 300 companies are audited by 10 firms and experts say the mandatory rotation within the next three years could trigger a lot of chaos and confusion. Similar challenges will exist for many companies. So it is very important for the companies and the auditing firms to have all the information organized and available at one place. These firms should start using Software to have all the information at one place. CADashboard tool will help the companies and auditing firms to effectively collaborate with each other and avoid future compliance challenges.

The recently enacted Companies Act, 2013 ('the Act') is a landmark legislation with far-reaching consequences on all companies incorporated in India.

According to industry estimates the top 300 companies are audited by 10 firms and experts say the mandatory rotation within the next three years could trigger a lot of chaos and confusion. Similar challenges will exist for many companies. So it is very important for the companies and the auditing firms to have all the information organized and available at one place. These firms should start using Software to have all the information at one place. CADashboard tool will help the companies and auditing firms to effectively collaborate with each other and avoid future compliance challenges.

The revenue authority plans to prepare a list of service tax defaulters and publish it. This is part of the arrear recovery plan for all indirect taxes, such as customs duty, excise duty and service tax.“In service tax law, provision is available for publication of the names of defaulters, list should be prepared,” minutes of the conference of the Chief Commissioners and Director General, Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) said. Zone-wise lists of defaulters of custom and excise duty are already in the public domain with an advice to pay dues immediately.

As reported by Economic Times, ICAI, India's apex body for chartered accountants, has entered into a pact with the Saudi Organization for Certified Public Accountants (SOCPA) for cooperation on host of issues including corporate governance, technical research and forensic accounting.