In discussions with our business clients, it has become apparent that business conditions have been excellent in the past twelve to twenty-four months, however, there are handbrakes being applied to future growth.

The lack of trained and competent team members is adding to inflationary pressures and restricting the output of all businesses.  With unemployment at very low rates, most business owners have mentioned that they could grow their businesses further if they had an additional team to carry out the work.

This problem is most acute in trade-related services where the pressure to retain people has led to increased wage demands and less productivity. As employers have increased their worker’s hourly rate, they have decided to decrease the number of hours they are willing to work.  In some cases, overall wage costs have remained steady, but the amount of production has reduced as employees choose to work less.

In professional services like accounting, the lack of quality staff has impacted almost every firm.  We have also noticed that our alliance partners in banking and share trading platforms are slowing their quick turnaround times and we are expecting less from their normal delivery times.  Businesses large and small are short-staffed and there is not much they can do about it.

Without a major economic downturn (resulting in higher unemployment which we do not wish for) we are expecting this situation to continue for some time.  For business owners and clients who work for companies, producing more for the same cost will be increasingly difficult unless significant changes are made to the way this work is performed.

Small to Medium businesses across Australia must look to innovate to make up for reduced productivity.  AI may be touted as the cure for this pain, but ignoring other solutions would be a mistake.  Training and developing our own talent straight out of high school may sound downright medieval, but it may not only benefit the business but also the trainee who gets to start their working life free of HECS debt.  Mindset change would be required to trust the businesses of Australia to give the skillset that is currently solely reserved by universities.

Our challenges at Supervision are the same as every other small/medium business operator who is dealing with this. The accounting industry is facing some additional challenges created by the Government’s desire to increase ATO’s digital data collection whilst implementing more complex tax concepts that require closer compliance scrutiny.  The amount of data that needs to be collected by Supervision and supplied to the ATO would be unrecognizable to people completing the same compliance work 10 years ago.

So, what does that mean for you?

We will continue to work on bringing you educational material designed to make the complex – understandable.

We will also work with you to introduce more data out of your SMSF and the opportunities that they lead to.  How can you make decisions if you don’t know what is possible?

We will not stop advocating for strong relationships between our SMSF Trustees and their advisers.  We see the role of financial advice as highly advantageous for clients for multiple reasons.  If you currently do not have an adviser, we would encourage you to speak to Supervision about starting your journey.

Lastly, we want to provide bespoke advice to you when you need it.  Dealing with life’s challenges and helping you go from A to B to C.