Welcome to the second in our series of “We Ask Our Experts” posts. In this series of posts, we focus on our customers and our friends in the business community. The concept is to pose a series of quick questions to known experts in the various industry verticals. For today’s post, we spoke to Aonghus Sammin from Bradan Accountants.

Tell us a bit about your company.

We are an accounting firm specialising in SMEs and their payroll, accounts and tax. We are huge advocates of cloud technology for billing, payment services and paperless bookkeeping, things that make it easier for small businesses to operate efficiently and have up-to-date information. We have been working remotely since 2018 as a lot of our staff are part-time and it suits their needs. However, now we are all remote.

What would be your top 5 saving tips for a 2021 ‘sunny day fund’?

We would be better at advising businesses here (see below), but for households, there is the government tax back scheme for spending on hospitality, there are also various schemes existing or forthcoming for investing in renewables in your home.

I think a simple annual household budget is a very useful tool that surprisingly few people use. It is often not the end product that is important but the mental process, understanding the trade-offs between necessities vs luxuries, mandatory or discretionary spend.

This is the same in business financial planning.

What tips would you have for rebalancing budgets due to a reduction in work and how to soften the effect this is having on households?

Assuming they are maximising their benefits, there is also some self-employed income you can earn on top of that if you can find a revenue source. The big advantage these people have that others don’t and they might not have again is the huge amounts of time that is not taken up with work. This may be a once-off opportunity to test out that big idea or project you are always too busy for. Or for spending quality time with the children or learning a new skill/language or developing one of your passions.

As regards being off work, there was never a better time than now, at least the government has opened the coffers, not like the late 2000s when a similar loss of employment occurred.

If you would have any advice/tips on the repayment of the covid payment taxes?

Firstly, it is a problem that won’t affect everybody especially those on lower pay. However, for a significant number of employees, there is an amount of 1k or more to be sorted. The second thing to note is that Revenue is not going to collect until 2022 and then over 4 years if required, this may mean a lot of employees will not even notice this in their monthly salary. The last relevant point here is that employers may make this payment for employees without the employee incurring a Benefit In Kind (BIK) tax. This may be an option employers take to show solidarity with staff.

What do you think is the biggest impact that lockdown has had on companies such as those you work with and would you have any advice on how they can combat this?

The pandemic has created haves and have-nots in business. Our hospitality clients are struggling while most of our tech clients are booming. The have-nots just need to hunker down, freeze their outgoings, collect whatever grants or incentives are available and try to stay in the game. Things will get better for them if they are still there..

For those clients that have surplus funds or excess cash some good options would be pensions, vouchers for staff/customers, invest in R&D projects, new ventures. Surplus cash can also be put to good use by investing in peer to peer loans/projects.

Although this is a time of disruption, would you agree that it is also a time of opportunity?

Absolutely. Some jobs in the world that had to be done at a particular location can now be done from anywhere. That is a massive game-changer for millions of people around the globe. In our business the cloud technology we use is now of its time as it facilitates and simplifies business for a remote world in the 21st century.

What is the number one thing you wished people knew about your company?

We can help businesses make the best use of technology to run things easier and faster.. We are based in Galway, Dublin and Online at bradanaccountants.ie.

How has your business changed in the last year?

We have recruited people remotely, we have created good team communication by regular virtual one to ones. We now use zoom calls as a significant part of client engagement.

What is the most positive thing to have happened for Bradan Accountants in the last year?

We supported our clients throughout the difficulties of last year and took on a good few who switched to our cloud offering.

If you have any specific questions regarding Bradan Accountants and how they can help you or your business please let us know and we’ll pose these questions on your behalf. Alternatively please feel free to reach out to them directly: