Bhanot & Co

A Message from Lord Pickles and Lord Blunkett, followed by Bhanot & Co's best practice article

The ability to listen and learn from one another has always been vital in parliament, in business and in most aspects of daily life. But at this particular moment in time, as national and global events continue to reiterate, it is uncommonly crucial that we forge new channels of communication and reinforce existing ones. The following article from Bhanot & Co is an attempt to do just that. We would welcome your thoughts on this or any other Parliamentary Review article.

Rt Hon The Lord David Blunkett

Rt Hon The Lord Eric Pickles

www.bhanot.co.uk

THE PARLIAMENTARY REVIEW

Highlighting best practice

36 | BHANOT & CO

Anil Bhanot, Founder

Anil Bhanot started his career as an actuary, but, after

a short spell in the life assurance industry, changed to

chartered accountancy in 1980 and has never looked back.

After gaining audit experience with large firms, tax experience

with medium-sized practices and managerial experience in

commerce and industry, Anil set up his own practice, Bhanot

& Co, in 1990. He tells

The Parliamentary Review

about the

company and the philosophies that underpin their activities.

My primary drive was to provide good service to the public first, leading

automatically to mutually agreeable fees; it didn’t take long for me to develop the

practice through word of mouth and recommendations. The normal accountancy,

tax and audit services were well complemented by my actuarial experience; this

helped me to add the investment and mortgage business services for clients,

building their personal balance sheets. Finally, my commercial and industry

experience was useful to help clients report not just on historical data, but to look

forward and build their businesses through forecasts and cashflows.

Today’s Bhanot & Co

We have six members of accounting staff, including a practice manager, and we

service the SME sector. We have minimal staff turnover, and we enjoy working

with people from a variety of cultural backgrounds as a result of the diversity that

London offers; our clients are likewise from diverse business and professional

sectors. We screen all clients from the outset with various checks including, of

course, anti-money laundering regulations.

For overseas clients, we generally advise registering a branch of their overseas

company with Companies House, or the formation of a new company altogether

before we take on their work. Furthermore, when a client becomes too big for us,

we recommend that they go to a larger firm, though invariably these clients retain

us for the odd piece of financial advice.

Statutory audits of companies, by virtue of the large minimum thresholds, are

beyond our capacity, but sometimes smaller subsidiaries of large companies have

required audits, which we undertook successfully. We now, however, concentrate

more on what our SME clients see as our real value: providing a comprehensive

accountancy and taxation service along with business advice, and thus these

services remain our core practice area. We have also curtailed investment and

mortgage business this year to concentrate on our core activity of accountancy.

Client relationships are important to us, and our mode of work is to take responsibility

for some of the deadlines clients have to meet. These include company accounts,

various tax returns including VAT returns, payroll and auto-enrolment. Staff are

encouraged to communicate with clients regularly to keep on top of their financial

affairs – avoiding any nasty surprises at the end of the tax year.

AT A GLANCE

BHANOT & CO

»Founder: Anil Bhanot

»Based in Ealing, London

»Established in 1990

»Services: General accountancy

»No. of employees: 6, including

a practice manager

»Anil Bhanot was awarded an

OBE in 2010

»www.bhanot.co.uk

Bhanot & Co

37BHANOT & CO |

BEST PRACTICE REPRESENTATIVE 2019

Innovation through technology

Technology has enormously helped the

way any accountancy practice works

in the current market, and at Bhanot

& Co we’ve always had the benefit

of an IT consultant. We are excited

by HMRC’s drive toward real-time

information reporting and we are

looking forward to the VAT returns

RTI regime that will be introduced this

April. We will be informing all of our

clients this year of the VAT returns

RTI filing change and work with them

so that their systems are in place in

preparation. Making Tax Digital is

the right way forward. Technology

is bringing great benefits; we have

already seen this with auto-enrolment

on pensions for all employees.

Social media has become a great

means of sharing financial news

directly with the public, which should

help them to make well-informed

decisions. With the current era of

information overload, we believe it

is important to continue to add the

correct data and legislative information

for people to sift through and to

remember what is relevant to them.

Ethics in public practice are very

important to us, as we are advising

and dealing with clients’ financial

affairs, something that sits at the core

of many of our clients’ wellbeing. Our

advice is better tailored to develop

their businesses in the long term even

if there is a hardship in the short

term. We’ve found that clients, even

if they leave due to some changes

in circumstance, come back to us

citing our advice as being beneficial in

thepast.

Our practice work from 1990 allowed

me the flexibility to provide some free

service where necessary, culminating

in the last decade with my voluntary

role as the general secretary of Hindu

Council UK, a faith-based national

umbrella body. I was humbled at

the end of the decade in 2010 to

be awarded an OBE. I then moved

on to chair various social enterprise

charities, including the Ethnic Minority

Foundation for social justice and the

Peepul Centre in Leicester, which

works to empower local communities

through its theatre for performing arts.

The Peepul Centre is supported by

two bars and a restaurant, conference

rooms for local businesses, both a

ladies’ and mixed gym, a sports hall,

a dance studio and children’s nursery

facilities, all at an affordable cost.

This charitable work added a different

dimension to the traditional practice

work, not least through my experience

of consulting on draft EU directives

and UK legislation that impacted

all communities. As a result of this

experience, we can provide some

additional services free of charge, for

instance, advising on the governance

of charities.

In our opinion, the future looks

bright. Although the high street may

be undergoing online sales pressure,

British businesses will find a way to

adapt. We have seen the benefits of

the IT revolution relieve accountants of

tedious number-crunching tasks, and

we look forward to the AI revolution to

help bring more of a “substance over

form” audit approach.

The Bhanot & Co

team

Although the

high street may

be undergoing

online sales

pressure, British

businesses will

find a way to

adapt

“

www.bhanot.co.uk

This article was sponsored by Bhanot & Co. The Parliamentary Review is wholly funded by the representatives who write for it. The publication in which this article originally appeared contained the following foreword from Rt Hon Kwasi Kwarteng.

Rt Hon Kwasi Kwarteng's Foreword For The Parliamentary Review

By Rt Hon Kwasi Kwarteng

This year’s Parliamentary Review reflects on a tumultuous and extraordinary year, globally and nationally. As well as being an MP, I am a keen student of history, and I am conscious that 2020 would mark the end of an era. It will be remembered as the year in which we concluded Brexit negotiations and finally left the European Union. Above all, it will be remembered as the year of Covid-19.

In our fight against the pandemic, I am delighted that our vaccination programme is beginning to turn the tide – and I pay tribute to the British businesses, scientists and all those who have helped us to achieve this. But the virus has dealt enormous damage, and we now have a duty to rebuild our economy.

We must ensure that businesses are protected. We have made more than £350 billion available to that end, with grants, business rates relief and our furlough scheme supporting more than 11 million people and jobs in every corner of the country, maintaining livelihoods while easing the pressure on employers. The next step is to work with business to build back better and greener, putting the net zero carbon challenge at the heart of our recovery. This is a complex undertaking, but one which I hope will be recognised as a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Through the prime minister’s ten point plan for a green industrial revolution, we can level up every region of the UK, supporting 250,000 green jobs while we accelerate our progress towards net zero carbon emissions.

With our commitment to raise R&D spending to 2.4% of GDP and the creation of the Advanced Research & Invention Agency, we are empowering our fantastic researchers to take on groundbreaking research, delivering funding with flexibility and speed. With this approach, innovators will be able to work with our traditional industrial heartlands to explore new technologies, and design and manufacture the products on which the future will be built – ready for export around the globe.

And I believe trade will flourish. We are a leading nation in the fight against climate change. As the host of COP26 this year, we have an incredible opportunity to market our low-carbon products and expertise. Our departure from the EU gives us the chance to be a champion of truly global free trade; we have already signed trade deals with more than 60 countries around the world.

As we turn the page and leave 2020 behind, I am excited about the new chapter which Britain is now writing for itself, and for the opportunities which lie ahead of us.

Rt Hon Kwasi Kwarteng
Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy