The Long Way Home - Chapter 14 - Gladstone Day 12

I am getting angrier by the minute. No internet again this morning although it was suggested at the Telstra Shop yesterday, because I was at the end of my billing cycle, there should be a reset overnight.  I pack everything, laptop, dongle and phone and head to the shopping centre adjacent which houses the aforementioned Telstra establishment.

It’s 8.50am. The shop opens at 9.00am and the staff are milling around behind a locked concertina door talking. I am not alone, there are a number of people waiting for appointments I suggest. At 9.00am one of the staff opens the doors and starts allocating appointment related customers to service staff. Thinking I had an appointment in the system I waited until everyone else was in the shop.

The staff member with whom I was speaking last night is the one greeting the customers and cheekily grins in my direction because my name is not on the list. He was fully expecting everything to roll over and fix itself. I overheard him suggesting to a “walk in” that the entire days appointments had been filled already which makes me fearful given my name was not called but, the apparently pow wow that was going on before the doors were opened evidently was about my situation and the most senior of the staff has allocated herself to deal with me.

I am ushered to a desk and we open everything, the laptop, the dongle and my phone at the MyTelstra App page. Everything now working in front of her, suggests I am on a 60gb plan and that I have exceeded my limit and not the 400gb plan I upgraded to almost a month ago. Tess, the Telstra staffer, is able to access all my usage and clearly I have most definitely exceeded the 60gb but nothing like the 400gb I have paid for. She also is able to see that the entire system should have reset itself negative one day ago and not the “in 2 days” as suggested by the Dongle.

She is unable to proffer a reason or better fix the issue. All she can do now is escalate the issue to Telstra’s complaints department. Here we go again, I lament to her as I am still waiting on a response to the last time I was speaking with them more than a month ago when I was promised a call within 72 hours. Their track record with dealing with me is not the best. I cheekily suggest to Tess I should not have written that scathing Google review on the staff in the Darwin outlet. Funnily enough she actually knew of the post and furthermore it wasn’t the only one about that establishment she noted. She also suggested none of what was happening was “good enough” either.

In the short term the Dongle will not work as according to it, I have exceeded its capacity to deliver, but that should reset tomorrow (not going to hold my breath). There is excess download capability available on both our phones so she suggests that in interim measure is to Hotspot form the phone.

Unfulfilled we head back to the van and sit down to set up the Hotspot and at least check emails. We have had a number of leads for Property Portfolio Solutions and I want to ensure we are remaining in contact with them.

Then the “fun” starts again. My new phone wont Hotspot to the laptop without first having internet available. Sorry Mr Catch 22 (with reference to Joseph Heller), I need a Hotspot because I don’t have internet. The phone settings are no help either. I resort to calling the HP Support Hotline. Finding the serial number for the laptop is nothing short of impossible. It is in very small writing with a colour that blends nicely into the case of the machine.

The HP team worked me through their options but its the phone that is the issue and I should go back to the Telstra shop. Politely I thank them for their time, they were most helpful and considerate of customers getting angrier by the moment. If they only knew the angst that was building up to consider a return to a shop where all the appointments for the day are already taken…..

In a fit of desperation, we try to Hotspot to Robyns phone and we have success. I have the internet for the moment and look to check the large number of emails that have come in. All is good, responses where required are made and all is good in the world again. I would hate to think  what my blood pressure might be at, but we are managing.

Things should just work.

I set very high standards for myself and have an expectation of receiving in a similar manner. As much as anything I get frustrated with myself for inabilities finding many times “user error” is the root cause of frustration. 

The highest of ideals always centred around dealing with clients within the professional accounting practice Banks Consultancy.

Sure as an accounting firm, we started with the ideal that we would reduce your liability to taxation as much as possible, legally. That aside the other three ideals all client centric were:

1. We will speak in your language
2. We will drag you kicking and screaming to compliance
3. We will be MORE than a silent partner in your business

It wasn’t until I expanded these ideals with coach Jon Dale that the suggestion of the catchcry “Not Your Ordinary Accountant” came into being.

The aloofness hidden behind “professionalism” often has clients, especially taxation accountants, scratching their heads. Not wanting to seem “dumb” we saw many new clients astounded at the efforts we went to to ensure they knew exactly the consequences of their actions. It was this ideal more than any that sought to set us apart.

For Jon Dale thought it was more the adherence to  “dragging kicking and screaming to compliance” was the shining light. Accounting firms are bound by deadlines and extensions they are able to, with performance boundaries, to obtain for clients. Rather than seek extensions for errant clients, I took the view that we as a firm would chase clients and ensure lodgement without the need for extension. 

Jon was amazed at seeing this in action. In his experience no accounting firm ever actively chased clients, simply dealing with the work that turned up. Whether or not they could complete the work within the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) deadlines, was more a product of their firm’s workload rather than client requirement.

This at its “worst” manifest itself in August being a 7 day a week operation with no staff holidays and lots and lots of overtime. To me, a small business needs to be on top of all of its liabilities, especially the much maligned taxation. As well as GST the Business Activity Statement (BAS) deals with several other taxes including PAYGW (the tax deducted from wages) and PAYGI (the installments of tax against the final tax bill). 

The June BAS should be the final chance to reconcile all the taxes allowing for modification of salary levels for the small business person of where results are different to that expected by ATO estimations. This meant, many times adjustments could be made to ensure tax refunds which might have been received when tax returns were lodged could be arranged in the form of reduced BAS payments.

We put in place a regime of reconciling taxes, preparing financial statements to ascertain profits and losses, then in association with the client plan the best way to mitigate taxes across whatever entities or personal income tax payers were available to spread the liability and soak up any lower taxation thresholds on offer. 

This was after we had already had a look at potential profits as we set up the BAS reconciliation format with the lodgement of the March BAS, and in association with the client’s financial planner, discussed the potential opportunity of accessing superannuation taxation deductions with excess cash flows.

Cash flow is everything to small businesses and the best place for any spare cash is the bank account of the client, be it the main account or invested appropriately in superannuation, and not in the ATO coffers, was my opinion.

For Jon Dale it was this adherence to the three client-centric ideals that set us apart. Preparation of BAS on a regular basis either monthly or quarterly gave us the perfect medium to check on our clients performances. As well as the statutory requirements, it also gave us an opportunity to open discussions should we see issues arising.

To me, this ultimately is the job of the professional accountant, not so much the compliance issues. But so many accounting firms are so fixated on the output of paper, they lose sight of not just the opportunity to bill for preparation of statutory services but becoming a true “advisor”. 

The advisor, craved by the business owning public.