Bishop Fleming's Finance Seminars: key takeaways

Recognising the importance of staying current with the ever-changing financial landscape, our recently concluded Annual Finance Seminars—held across the South West and West Midlands—were designed for business owners and senior finance professionals.

The seminars aimed to provide expert insights into the latest tax, accountancy, advisory, and general business developments.

Here is a brief recap of key points from the expert-led sessions:

Navigating amendments to existing Financial Reporting Standards

For accounting periods beginning on or after 1 January 2026, changes in UK accounting standards will impact revenue recognition and lease accounting, affecting a company’s financials in terms of the timing and amount of revenue recognised, as well as lease liabilities and assets. In summary:

Revenue Recognition: The amendments align UK GAAP more closely with IFRS 15, requiring revenue to be recognised based on the transfer of control of goods or services to customers. Depending on the contract specifics, this can affect the timing of revenue recognition, potentially leading to more deferred revenue or earlier recognition.

Lease Accounting: Following a model similar to IFRS 16, lessees will need to recognise almost all leases on the balance sheet, with a right-of-use asset and a corresponding lease liability. This change will significantly increase reported assets and liabilities for companies with significant lease agreements, impacting key financial ratios.

We recommend that business owners start discussions early with key stakeholders, particularly funders, since the changes may impact financial ratios and covenants, necessitating renegotiation of terms to avoid breaches.

ESG for SME’s: Integrating Sustainability into Business Strategy

Due to new regulations and supply chain pressures, businesses in the UK are increasingly being required to disclose their Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) credentials. These requirements directly affect larger companies, but small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in their supply chains will also be indirectly impacted.

The landscape of ESG regulation is constantly changing and includes many acronyms and terms, which can be confusing to even the most diligent finance professional. In addition, mandatory financial statement disclosures and other reporting requirements depend heavily on the size of the company, and employee numbers add to the complexity.

While all these additional regulations can seem quite a headache to a busy owner-managed business, proactively addressing ESG and integrating it early into business strategies can ensure that SMEs comply with regulations and gain competitive advantages in their market.

Enhancing Decision-Making with Real-Time Management Reporting

Leveraging technology to automate data collection and reporting processes can significantly improve the accuracy and timeliness of financial reports, enabling better decision-making and strategic planning.

Our Accounting experts explained how incorporating KPIs and non-financial data into your management reporting provides a holistic view of business performance. KPI Reporting focuses on the financial side of the business and is more important than ever as it can give real time insight into how your business is performing against targets, prior periods and other market data, enabling you to benchmark your performance against the outside world.

Investors/funders like to see the business tracking as it should. Likewise, other key stakeholders are keen to understand the performance in easily digestible ways.

We also expect that as the focus increases on ESG, future reporting standards will likely integrate ESG metrics alongside financial performance, and key stakeholders will want assurance that businesses are tracking and meeting certain ESG criteria and objectives.

Strategic Tax Planning

Our Tax experts discussed how implementing new tax incentives such as improved benefits packages, bonus or phantom share schemes, and awarding growth shares, can help retain and motivate key staff.

In addition, we discussed how succession planning is crucial for ensuring a business's long-term sustainability and success. Key approaches to succession planning include approved share option schemes, Employee Ownership Trusts (EOTs), and management buyouts (MBOs).

See our most recent article: Share Option Schemes – could they change after the election?

VAT Update

Our VAT experts highlighted the practical issues with HMRC's move towards online VAT services and how this has led to issues and delays, with online forms containing ambiguous questions and restricted fields and difficulties obtaining a single officer to deal with cases that cross HMRC VAT teams. Equally, there is still overlap with old processes and paper forms being used for some aspects of VAT.

The team advised planning well in advance for any changes affecting your VAT reporting and applications. For example, VAT Group applications are particularly slow in terms of processing times.

We also reported that VAT fraud is increasing and businesses in a repayment situation should be particularly vigilant in ensuring that repayments are received in a timely manner, as fraudulent traders are using forged old paper format forms to change bank details for unsuspecting businesses.

Exploring Funding Opportunities – debt & equity

Our Corporate Finance team gave a general update on the status of debt and equity in the market. This included a detailed review of available debt funding in the current market and highlighting that new debt activity in recent times has been lower. However, a significant amount needs refinancing between 2024 and 2027, which will cost an additional £25bn (3-6% higher) in annual debt service.

The equity market appears more settled, and the outlook is positive but cautious. Our experts highlighted that decisions are taking longer to be made in our deals generally, and both funders and buyers are more sensitive to changes in commercial performance.

The key takeaway was that businesses need to align funding strategies with long-term business goals and explore the market beyond the high street. Debt and equity are available in sectors such as technology, health tech, and financial services.

July 4 Election: Preparing for Potential Impacts

The upcoming election could bring policy changes affecting taxation, employment law, and regulatory requirements. Businesses should monitor developments closely and be prepared to adapt their strategies accordingly.

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Take a look at our Finance Seminars

Looking Forward

The Bishop Fleming Annual Finance Seminars provided essential knowledge and practical strategies for navigating today's complex business environment. The overwhelmingly positive feedback and high attendance underscore the event's success.

Stay tuned for future events and updates, and do not hesitate to contact our team with any questions.

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