Business quiet for accountants
Accountants are finding business quiet with few signs of any fresh upturn in business according to the monthly BNZ Confidence survey.
Industry comments illustrated this point with one firm saying business is very tight and that if you're not in insolvency you're hurting.
Another described work as busy, but still nowhere near the level of transactional work seen in 2007/08.
Another Chartered Accountancy said business is the "quietest I've ever experienced in 25 years, with very little advisory work and huge pressure on prices for compliance work".
However there is a spattering of activity with one comment saying work is steady with new clients appearing regularly every week.
An individual in the accounting, business advisory and investments Sector also says with the Official Cash Rate rising and the strong earnings report from overseas businesses, customers are commencing to look for growth strategies whether it be for their businesses or to invest outside otherwise.
Other industry comments also found clients of accountants struggling.
"Clients are very fee conscious and focused only on basic or essential support services, fee collection is also becoming protracted. All clients are feeling the downturn to varying degrees."
A Chartered Accountancy commented that it expects more failures based on the long time clients are taking to pay and their financial performance.
This sentiment was mirrored by another firm saying clients are slow to settle bills and profitability for most clients is down and consequently tax refunds to follow. It also mentioned that bad debt write offs for many clients are higher this year.
Another accountant described the current landscape as rocky.
"Work seems to have completely dried up for some of our clients - there are still a lot of people struggling."
The survey of 565 BNZ Weekly Overview readers also found little change overall in expectations for the economy over the coming year from four weeks ago.
A net 1% of 565 respondents expect the economy will get worse compared with 2% expecting improvement in early July.
The result leaves sentiment above the 17% pessimistic average reading since 2005 and in that sense suggests one can anticipate reasonable business capital spending and employment demand consistent with the economy growing near 3%.
However, as with last month the tone of the comments submitted by respondents is decidedly downbeat with a number indicating things appear worse than a few months ago, that customers are thin on the ground, and that cost pressures remain quite intense.
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