An Introduction to professional
services
The professional services
The professional services support businesses of all sizes
across the economy, providing advice and support in a wide
range of different areas to help them improve and grow.
The professional services include lawyers, architects,
accountants, tax advisers, actuaries, engineers and
management consultants.
Professional occupations
The professional services include occupations like:
• Actuary
• Accountant
• Architect
• Engineer
• Lawyer
• Management consultant
• Tax advisor
Activity
In your groups, write down the type of work you might do
in each profession:
1. Accountant
2. Tax advisor
3. Management consultant
Role of an accountant
Accountant
Running a business involves a lot of financial activities, from
expenses and bills to taxes and payroll.
Accountants keep track of all these things and more to
make sure that businesses – both large and small – manage
their money properly.
What is an Audit?
• A financial audit is a process that accountants follow to
ensure the financial statements of a business are
accurate and / or profitable
• An audit seeks to provide reasonable assurance that the
financial statements are free from material error
Audit work scenario
Sarah works in Public Sector Assurance and is working on a final audit
at a large NHS trust hospital striving for Foundation Trust status. Sarah
and her team must ensure that their accounts are presented without
misstatement and are in line with accounting policies defined by
regulatory bodies, as there is incentive for the client to overstate
performance in year to achieve Foundation Trust targets.
The team will liaise with management, legal advisors and audit
specialists to obtain the necessary evidence to support any significant
transactions within the accounts and exercise professional scepticism
when testing account balances. The fieldwork concludes with drafting
management reports and also issuing the final year-end audit opinion.
Some of the tasks you might find yourself doing
• Reviewing financial accounts and data
• Selecting samples of accounts for testing
• Identifying staff and conducting interviews with them
about working practices
• Update the client on risks and errors, and advising on the
action they need to take
• Preparing and submitting clear and concise audit reports
Role of a tax advisor
Tax Advisor
• A tax advisor is a financial expert specially trained in tax
law
• Tax law is the system of rules and regulations which
governs economic transactions
• Tax advisors are able to help both companies and
individuals interpret issues of a financial nature
What is Tax?
• Everyone pays taxes in one form or another
• Mostly the tax you pay is on your salary – known as
income tax
• Or tax on goods you have purchased – sales tax
But why do we pay these taxes?
Tax
• The government uses our money to support public
services
• Everyone needs to make a tax contribution in some
aspect including businesses
How can a Tax Advisor help?
Companies and high wealth individuals might seek advice
on how they pay their taxes in the most efficient way
A tax advisor will be able to use their knowledge of tax
legislation to provide advice
Main areas of work
There are two main areas of work:
• Tax planning - staying abreast of changes in tax law and
advising clients lawfully to minimise future tax costs. Tax
planning is normally carried out by tax professionals
operating within an accountancy practice or lawyers
working within law firms
• Tax compliance – ensuring a client meets all tax
obligations by preparing and submitting tax returns. And
dealing with tax authorities. This work is usually
undertaken by accountancy practices
Tax Work Scenario
Nabeel is working on a project for a large family owned company. The
company is primarily owned by the father and has accrued cash of £10m from
its trading profits. The father is concerned about the inheritance tax position
of the company and how best to pass the business on to the next generation,
as well as how he can extract the cash from the business. The work required
will involve initial discussions with the father to understand what concerns he
has and also to find out more about what he wants to use the excess cash for.
The team will also try to understand if there are any wider family or
management concerns about how the business will be passed on to ensure
that before putting forward any tax structures we fully understand the client's
needs. The project will then involve looking at the tax implications of any
structures put forward.
Some of the tasks you might find yourself doing
• Making sure the tax compliance process runs smoothly
• Researching, analysing and interpreting changing tax law
• Researching business issues that will affect clients’ tax
issues
• Preparing and submitting tax returns
• Planning ahead to help clients understand their financial
futures
Role of a Management Consultant
What is Management Consultancy?
• Management consulting refers to helping businesses to
improve their performance
• They are primarily concerned with the strategy,
structure, management and operations of an
organisation.
• Consultants can assist by identifying options with
recommendations, providing specific expertise and
designing / implementing solutions.
Work Based Scenario
Matt works in Management Consultancy and is working on a project for a
large retail business. They are faced with rising costs, and Matt's project team
have been tasked with helping the organisation to improve the efficiency of
their Finance function (e.g. paying suppliers and budgeting and forecasting).
The work involves undertaking an initial assessment of how the organisation
currently operates, i.e. how many people currently work within these
functions and what they spend their time on, as without understanding the
current situation it is difficult to recommend improvements.
The team also carries out interviews and runs workshops with employees to
gather as much information as possible. This allows the team to identify
opportunities where processes can be run more efficiently and whether
processes can be shared with other business units through shared services for
example
Work Based Scenario
Saeeda works in Management Consultancy is working on a Strategy
project for a large retail business. The organisation is faced with
reducing demand for their products; currently their products are very
expensive due to the high quality, however in the current economy
people are simply not buying their products.
Saeeda’s team are tasked with assessing the organisations strategy and
helping to come up with a new strategic 'direction' if that is what is
found to be necessary. This involves undertaking competitor research
to see what others are doing and researching the market in order to
understand what the trends are likely to be in the near future, to
ensure the organisation is offering the right products to meet the
needs of their customers.
Some of the tasks you might find yourself doing
• Carrying out research and data collection and conducting
analysis
• Interviewing clients’ employees, management team and
other stakeholders
• Preparing business proposals/presentations
• Identifying issues
• Formulating and implementing
recommendations/solutions
• Ensuring the client receives the assistance needed to
implement the recommendations/solutions