Archive for year: 2022

“When written in Chinese, the word ‘crisis’ is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.” (John F. Kennedy, 35th U.S. President)

When people hear the term “crisis management” they immediately picture a PR team in front of the media defending a company from an unpredictable disaster, but crises that close down businesses are seldom unpredictable and even those that come out of the blue don’t need to close a company down. Here are 6 things you will need to do if you want to avoid a crisis from closing your business.

Be Prepared! Set up a crisis management plan

The first step to handling any crisis is being prepared to accept that a crisis is possible and having a plan in place for how you will handle it. This plan should attempt to anticipate any future crises and should look at the best possible way to resolve them. Throw the net wide and try to come to terms with all the things that could potentially go wrong and then develop step-by-step plans for overcoming those things.

The plan should include important aspects such as budgeting for costs and employee time should a crisis arise. This will allow you to at least have the resources available to handle the crisis correctly, something which is even more important should your company be small or relatively new.

If for instance you are releasing a new product in the near future, have your accountants run the numbers on recalls vs repairs and the costs of PR and marketing around potential problems. This will help you to make quick decisions should something actually go wrong.

The other important aspect of a crisis management plan is determining which of your employees will make up the crisis management team. The primary role of your crisis management team is to assess the situation and implement your plan. Strategic thinkers are especially useful in this situation, as is an empathetic team leader with a proven ability to communicate effectively. If the budget allows, consider hiring a crisis management leader whose experience can guide the team in times of crisis. If none of this is within your scope, ask your accountant to assist or recommend a consultancy to do so and start to develop a relationship with them, so they are on hand if the worst does happen.

Regularly review your business plans and systems

Many crises, particularly those of a financial nature, arise because companies have become complacent in their business practices and plans. Going back and looking at the way you are doing things is an important part of avoiding future errors. Just because something has worked in the past, doesn’t mean it still works.

These reviews should specifically look at where your company stands using simple financial, cashflow and product quality milestones and then compare your company with its competitors. Are you getting ahead or sliding behind? What changes have occurred in the industry or in technology, which may assist you to do things in a more streamlined fashion?

How does your business plan describe your business? Is it still relevant in today’s environment or are new products, services or the convergence of technologies threatening to make your operations and products obsolete? Think of Polaroid, telex and then fax machines and so on.

If you find you are stagnating or falling behind your competition then that’s a strong sign that your plans or systems may be obsolete and in need a bit of a shakeup. The best way to avoid going bankrupt in a crisis is to stop yourself from having one entirely.

Lean on others

With your plan in place, once a crisis does hit it’s important you follow the plan. This will often mean leaving things in the hands of your crisis management team, or the company you have agreed to bring in for the crisis. As CEO or company founder it can be tempting to take control yourself but getting through a crisis will require all hands on deck, working together collaboratively. Your role is then not to do everything yourself, but to rather help co-ordinate the important people and get them working together.

This may be easier than it sounds though. Making sure your team is willing and ready to do whatever is necessary in a crisis begins long before the crisis itself. The crisis is just where you cash in on all the goodwill you have built up with your employees over time. If you have looked after your employees, treated them fairly and built a reputation as a trustworthy and fair leader then there is no doubt they will be ready to help you in your time of crisis.

Communicate clearly

Communication with all stakeholders is going to be one of the most important pillars when it comes to getting you out of your crisis. Being able to clearly define what is happening and the path to fixing it to your employees, customers and other interested parties such as the media is critical if you hope to undo, or at least mitigate, the damage that has been done. The last thing a company needs in a crisis is leadership that goes silent.

If you discover that a crisis is imminent it’s important that you face it head on, and immediately send out communication that acknowledges the crisis and explains that you are working on solutions and workarounds. This will show nervous clients and employees that you are in charge of the situation and are taking care of it, giving everyone a sense of important calm. This gives the public a sense of trust in you and your company, which will be important to weathering this storm.

If you are required to make a statement, keep that statement simple. There is no point flooding the market with information or excuses. Always focus on acknowledging the problem, apologising for it, if appropriate, and then on what is being done to fix it. This gives a sense that the worst is behind you and the problem is being actively addressed.

Be decisive

In times of crisis people look to those in charge for leadership. This will require making hard decisions and doing so quickly. This is partly where your crisis management plan comes in, as it allows you to make these decisions with the most important information on hand. It’s far easier to explain where the company will find the money it needs if the money is already set aside and your accountants have analysed exactly which aspects of the business are most likely to survive cutbacks.

If one particular person was responsible for the crisis (say by slandering clients in the media) decisive action needs to be taken to remove that person from their position. Leaders cannot allow sentiment and emotion to dictate their actions at this stage. This is most important in the early days of the crisis when the public, essentially your customers, clients, financiers and suppliers, may demand to see that you are doing something positive to manage the situation.

Be prepared to change everything

While planning is extremely important, no plan can cover all contingencies. Your plan should identify potential actions, but it should not make those actions prescriptive. Allowing your team to adapt the plan as opportunities and good ideas arise will make the plan fit better to the crisis you are in and strengthen the outcome. At the end of the day, every organisation and every crisis is different, but historically the companies that fare the best are the ones that have a plan and the right people backing it.

“What gets measured, gets managed.” (Peter Drucker)

Financial reports, such as a balance sheet, income statement, cash flow statement, debtors reports and actual spend vs budget reports, provide an understanding of where your business stands financially at a certain point in time. They detail the business’s financial performance over a period and also raise red flags, reveal opportunities and highlight changes that need to be made to meet business goals in the future.

Especially in trying and uncertain times like these, keeping a finger on the pulse of the organisation’s financial position and regularly reviewing its financial performance provides a range of benefits.

What the right financial reports reveal

• The financial position of the business – past and present – provide invaluable insights for informed decisions about the future, for example, forecasting future cash flow requirements or identifying financing needs timeously.
• Business financial performance can be assessed and analysed with the right reports, for example, evaluating marketing efforts or projecting inventory needs, which allow for improvements to be implemented and tracked.
• Important indicators of financial health – such as liquidity ratios, efficiency ratios, profitability ratios and solvency ratios – can be calculated based on accurate and timeous reports.
  
  
• How to better manage costs – costs that are unnecessary, duplicated, over budget, or rapidly increasing are often only managed, reduced or eliminated once categorised and identified in the financial reports.
• Trends – financial reports provide a means to compare financial trends in the business from one reporting period to another, as well as to benchmark company trends against industry trends.
• Where the opportunities are – financial reports reveal opportunities and are essential to review before making big spending decisions or considering ways to grow the business. For example, financial reports may reveal where outsourcing or automation are viable options, or where changes to employment structures, operating systems or processes are required; or where there are opportunities to grow and expand into new locations or product lines.
• Tax liabilities, challenges and deductions – reviewing financial reports can help manage ongoing tax liabilities, flag potential tax challenges, and reveal possible tax deductions.
• Financial irregularities or risks – regularly reviewing financial reports ensures that potential areas of concern regarding irregularities, risks or even fraud are picked up timeously and can be quickly addressed.
• Viability for third parties – financial institutions, creditors and potential investors will request financial reports to consider credit lines, loans or investments in the company.

The 5 financial reports to understand

To enjoy these business benefits, there are five financial reports to understand – and review regularly – at least on a quarterly basis, but ideally on a monthly basis. This will provide a finger on the business’s financial pulse and enable more accurate and relevant business decisions.

1.Profit and loss (P&L) statement

The profit and loss statement, also called an income statement, summarises the profit or loss over a certain period by reporting on three components:

1. 1. • total income (or the total sales less costs of goods sold);
      • total expenses including operating costs, taxes, utilities, insurance and interest on loans; and
      • net profit or loss, calculated as total income less total expenses.

This report reveals whether the business made a profit or a loss during the specific period, and also allows the calculation of profit margins, operating profit margins and operating ratios. This allows profitability to be evaluated and enables investors or creditors to assess the level of risk in the business.

To be profitable, the income in the business should exceed the expenses. However, companies may show a net loss at times, and the reason should be evident in the reports, for example, slow business periods or times when extraordinary expenses are covered. Where the net profit is continuously lower over more than one period or expenses regularly exceed income, these may be red flags of financial trouble.

2. Balance sheet

A balance sheet provides a summary of the company’s financial position at a specific point in time by summarising total assets and total liabilities, as well as shareholders’ equity, or investments and retained earnings.

The assets, or what the business owns, can include cash and investments, equipment and property, stock and accounts receivable. Liabilities, or what the business owes, include loans, accounts payable, wages, rent, taxes and utilities.

It is used to calculate factors such as the current ratio of assets to liabilities, a measure of a company’s liquidity or ability to pay short-term liabilities. This is a particularly crucial consideration when borrowing money from a financial institution or requesting credit from a supplier. A declining current ratio could also indicate financial problems.

3.Cash flow statement

A steady cash flow is one of the most crucial success factors for business, especially smaller business, and this makes regularly reviewing the business’s cash flow statement vitally important.

Summarising the expected cash inflows and outflows over a period, the purpose of this statement is to reveal which areas of the business are generating and using the most cash; enable informed budgeting and spending decisions; as well as to allow potential cash flow problems to be identified and managed in time.

A cash flow statement will also show how readily a company can meet its debt and interest payments; and how much money was distributed to owners or investors as dividends.

4.Debtors’ reports

Cash flow problems are often a result of poor management of debtors. An aged debtor’s report enables current and overdue invoices to be tracked and proactively managed to ensure payment is received on time. Lenders and investors will also look at this report to better understand a company’s creditworthiness.

5.Budget vs actual income and expense reports

Comparing actual revenue/sales against the budgeted figures for a period indicates how well or otherwise the business is trading.

These reports allow a comparison of actual spending as recorded primarily in the income statement, against the amounts budgeted for the period, to assess how well spending matches financial forecasting projections and where there are areas that are over or under budget.

The percentage of costs of goods sold to sales for a period indicates how sales pricing and control over the costs of goods sold are being managed.

Speak to your accountant about accessing these reports on a regular basis and for professional assistance in understanding what the reports reveal about your business. Regularly reviewing your company’s financial reports will unlock many business benefits, provide a finger on the financial pulse of your business and enable more accurate and relevant business decisions.

“One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight, for a very long time, of the shore.” (Andre Gide)

All of the largest businesses in the world started small. Apple, Google, and Amazon were all famously founded in garages. Now these giant multi-billion-dollar companies occupy multiple office blocks that dwarf football stadiums. This happened because at one time their founders moved them out of the garage and into the office. Moving away from a comfort zone can be frightening, but knowing when to move a business into its own space may be one of the most important decisions a company owner can ever make. How do you know it’s time to take the plunge and get your business its own space? Here are the signs.

1. You need more employees than home can handle
   
   This may seem like an obvious sign. Your business is doing so well that it’s time to take on new staff, but you have not done it yet, because you have no idea where you would put their desks. Staff are the lifeblood of any venture and opting not to move your company in this situation would directly and immediately impact its potential for growth.

   This is the simplest scenario to recognise and also the one that needs the quickest attention. It will be better to find the new office space and then hire staff, than to hire them now and find that once you have moved, your business is no longer situated in a convenient location for your staff.

2. You need more space
   
   While finding a home for staff may not be your issue, finding storage or workspace may be. If your business keeps a lot of inventory on hand or needs large work areas then it’s better to find a dedicated space to grow than it is to try and fit it all in your home. While it may be feasible to work surrounded by boxes piled on top of boxes and supplies crammed in the spare bathroom for a while, eventually it’s going to become unmanageable and lead to unhappiness in your home and your personal life. Workplaces where everyone needs to work on top of everyone else also cause employees to become unproductive and unhappy, which in turn leads to disappointed customers, and a decrease in business. If you don’t find a new space to fit the business, you will soon find the business decreases to fit the space.
3. You want to create a brand identity

   Your brand is about more than simply the service or product you produce. Think about Google’s offices and what they say about the company, the image they project, the culture they are able to create among employees and the impression it gives to customers. Working from your home may fit your own personal brand, but it becomes difficult to establish a corporate culture and image when the office itself does not reflect what you stand for.

   Moving into a separate workspace allows a business to tailor that area perfectly to reflect what it is all about, and the needs of its employees and customers, better reflecting the brand you are trying to build. Even if you are happy with your employees working from home, having a small space where they can have meetings with clients, share concerns with HR or attend company functions, helps them to feel a part of something that’s bigger than simply your couch at home, and lets them feel like the brand is strong, reliable and somewhere they can easily stake their long-term futures.

4. The industry is changing

   When starting your business you may have had ideas of just who your customers are and what their needs might be. A few years down the line you might be servicing an entirely different customer bracket than expected, selling products you didn’t even think of initially or catering to a market that isn’t even in your city. Depending on the kind of business you run, the changing demands of your customers can dictate exactly where you should be located and what your office needs to look like.

   Maybe you are losing out on retail opportunities and need to move closer to customer businesses to better service their needs? Perhaps your suppliers will give you cheaper delivery costs if you are located in a different area? Maybe your customers have all semi-grated away from your city? Or perhaps employees with a particular set of skills can’t be found in the town where you live?

   Understanding the needs of your business and your industry will help you to determine where to best situate your company and if that place isn’t near your home, it’s time to consider moving.

5. Home distractions

   Working on a new business from home comes with a number of benefits. It allows a founder to easily fit their lives in around the needs of a new company. There will come a time, however, where that personal life and the needs of the family, will become a distraction to the optimal operations of the company. When the demands of family life, including children, start keeping you from achieving what needs to be done then it is definitely time to move your company into its own space. Being able to establish a good work/life balance will be important if you want to both grow a successful business and have the kind of happy, healthy family life that supports the energy it takes to be an entrepreneur.

6. Money

   At the end of the day, money and affordability are going to play the largest part in deciding whether you need your own office space. Perhaps you aren’t being taken seriously by the larger brands or need to scale up quickly if you are to grow? Maybe you want to move, but can’t quite afford it? Carefully considering the pros and cons of moving will ultimately give you the real answer as to whether it’s time to move out of home. The needs of the business and the potential for growth will have to be balanced with the costs of renting and establishing a company space before you can truly determine whether it’s time to move out of the garage.

   When you move you must know that the benefits of moving will outweigh the costs of buying office furniture and signing a multi-year lease. You will need to take into consideration, whether you want to own or lease the new space each of which comes with different cost and tax implications, the projected growth of the company over the long term and which employees absolutely need desk space and which can work from their homes. Carefully analysing your budget and balancing it against your needs and projected earnings will give you a clear idea of whether you should move, and if that works out in your favour, and you can 100% afford to pay the bills of the new space, then it would be absolutely foolish not to.

7. Balancing the possible tax benefits
   
   Running a business from home can allow you some tax benefits dependent on a number of factors including how much of the house is used for the business and what exactly that space is used for. Moving into your own space may, however, provide additional tax relief that can sometimes ameliorate the costs of moving out.

Ask a professional to help you with a careful analysis of the costing and to advise you on whether you stand to benefit in this regard.

“What the government gives it must first take away.” (John S. Coleman)

It certainly seemed like a win for taxpayers when Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana announced in his February Budget Speech that the corporate income tax (CIT) rate has been reduced from 28% to 27% for companies with a tax year ending on or after 31 March 2023.

But as we are reminded by John Coleman’s quote: “What the government gives it must first take away.”

In this particular instance, to give a 1% reduction in the corporate tax rate, government limited the tax relief corporate taxpayers have enjoyed in the past in terms of assessed losses and interest deductions.

According to Treasury, South Africa is following an international trend evident over the past few years to restrict the use of assessed losses and reduce the corporate income tax rate.

What’s the link to the corporate tax rate reduction?

The 1% reduction in the corporate tax rate is expected to cost the fiscus R2.6 billion -in the year of assessment commencing on or after 1 April 2022. To ‘neutralise’ this – and thus achieve a revenue-neutral reduction in the corporate tax rate – two further changes to corporate tax rules have been made.

The first is further limitation of corporate interest deductions, specifically on multinationals; and the second is restrictions on the use of assessed losses to reduce future corporate tax liabilities.

The first involves changes to, amongst others, the scope and thresholds of the interest deduction limitation, achieved by fixing and limiting the interest deduction limitation ratio to 30% of a taxpayer’s “adjusted taxable income”, instead of the earlier flexible percentage (adjusted upwards and downwards based on the average repo rate) capped at 60%.

What are the new assessed losses rules? 

Assessed loss rules were originally created to smooth the tax burden for:

• businesses that require a significant upfront capital outlay, causing assessed losses to accumulate before any profit is realised;
• cyclical businesses that realise losses in some years and profits in others, such as farming operations, and
• companies that suffer temporary setbacks and losses before recovering to become profitable again.

As a result companies could previously offset the full balance of any assessed loss carried forward from a previous tax year against all its taxable income for the current year. In addition, companies could carry over any assessed loss balance remaining to future years indefinitely subject only to the requirement that the company continues to carry on a trade. In effect, it meant that a company would only become liable for income tax once it earned a taxable profit and the balance of the assessed loss was exhausted.

Under the new rules, assessed losses brought forward from a previous year of assessment – regardless of the amount – can only be offset against the higher of R1 million or a maximum of 80% of taxable income for the current year.

This means that income tax will now always be levied on 20% of the taxable income for the year where the taxable income in the current year exceeds the R1 million threshold, no matter what the assessed loss balance carried forward from previous years may be. This will have adverse tax cash flow implications for some companies.

Small companies unaffected, and losses are not forfeited, unless…

Smaller companies with a taxable income below R1 million will not be affected by the new rules.

Further good news is that companies will not forfeit the balance of the assessed loss that could not be utilised. The balance can be carried forward to the next tax year, provided that the company earns income from trade in the succeeding year of assessment.

However, beware: if a company does not trade for a full year of assessment and no income is earned from such trade, the assessed loss will be lost.

When do the new rules apply, and which companies are affected?

The new rules apply to any year of assessment that ends on or after 31 March 2023, which, in more practical terms, means years of assessment that begin from 1 April 2022 onwards.

It is also important to note that the new limitation will apply to assessed losses generated prior to the effective date, as well as those arising after 1 April 2022.

Some companies will not be affected immediately, for example, companies with no assessed loss balance, or those with a taxable loss.

The cash flow implications, with examples

For those companies affected, the changes will have tax cash flow implications, best illustrated by the way of examples –

Table based on an example from Draft Explanatory Memorandum On The Taxation Laws Amendment Bill, 2021   

“Dear IRS, I am writing to you to cancel my subscription. Please remove my name from your mailing list.” (Snoopy)

According to some estimates, as many as 1,900 millionaires have left South Africa over the last few years. A New World Wealth Africa report indicates that 4,200 high net-worth individuals left the country over the last 10 years.

Whether due to choice or circumstances, a taxpayer ceasing to be a tax resident of South Africa must declare the change to SARS.

As the number of wealthy and skilled South Africans who are emigrating increases, SARS recently announced that another channel has been made available to taxpayers to inform SARS as above.

You can now also inform SARS through the Registration, Amendments and Verification Form (RAV01) available on eFiling or at a SARS branch, by capturing the date on which you ceased to be a tax resident.

Alternatively, you can inform SARS by capturing the date on the ITR12 tax return, as before.

Informing SARS via any channel could trigger unintended consequences. In addition, to qualify the taxpayer will have to substantiate how the qualifying criteria are met.

Many intricacies

It is not as simple as filling in a form. Numerous factors are taken into account to determine whether a taxpayer has ceased to be a tax resident of South Africa.

There are three bases for qualification for individuals:

1. Cease to be ordinarily resident
2. Cease by way of the physical presence test
3. Cease due to application of a Double Tax Agreement (DTA).

Whether an individual ceases to be a tax resident in South Africa is based on the manner in which such individual has been a tax resident. If the taxpayer has been ordinarily tax resident, the intention to cease will be supported by various objective factors. If a person has ceased to be ordinarily tax resident, it will be from the day such person ceased residence.

An individual, who is resident by virtue of the physical presence test, ceases to be a tax resident when that person has been physically outside the Republic for a continuous period of at least 330 full days. The individual will be deemed to have ceased to be a tax resident from the day such person left South Africa.

An individual who has become a tax resident of another country through the application of a double tax agreement will also cease to be a resident for tax purposes in South Africa.

Companies

A company is deemed to be South African tax resident either if it was incorporated here or if its place of effective management is located locally.

A company’s place of effective management may no longer be located in South Africa, for example, when the majority of a company’s board of directors move offshore on a permanent basis.

If a company becomes a tax resident of a jurisdiction with which South Africa has a double tax agreement, the company would normally cease to be South Africa tax resident.

Beware the unintended consequences

The intended outcome of informing SARS of breaking tax residency is that the taxpayer is no longer taxed in South Africa on worldwide income, but only on South African sourced income.

It may also have unintended outcomes. Informing SARS via any channel will trigger a case number as well as a request for various documents and substantiations, which taxpayers are obliged by law to provide.

If the declaration is made via the RAV01 form on eFiling, the completed declaration form must be submitted with the relevant supporting documentation. If the declaration is made on the income tax return (ITR12), the supporting documents and information requested will depend on the basis on which you have ceased to be a tax resident.

In many instances, advising SARS that you or your company intend to cease to be a tax resident will trigger an audit.

Potential tax liability

For individuals, ceasing to be a tax resident triggers a deemed disposal of worldwide assets, and exposes the taxpayer to possible capital gains tax.

Depending on the type of assets held and where they are located at the time when an individual breaks tax residence, a deemed disposal for capital gains tax purposes will take place when the person’s local tax residency ceased. The individual will be deemed to have disposed of worldwide assets at market value to a South African tax resident, with some exceptions such as certain personal-use assets and immovable property situated in South Africa.

Where a company ceases to be a South African tax resident, a capital gains tax may be triggered, and an additional dividends tax may also arise, among other possible unintended consequences.

Given the complexity of the provisions and potential tax liability, it is recommended that taxpayers rely on professional advice covering not only their South African tax position, but also their tax position in their new country of residence, well before approaching SARS.