61 year-old UK origin Chartered Accountant and business consultant, and of late hotelier, who loves languages, literature, history, religion, politics, internet, vlogging and blogging and lively written or spoken discussion, plays backgammon and a few other board games. Walks and listens to Audible for hours a day usually, and avoids use of the car. Conservative Christian, married to an angel with advanced Multiple Sclerosis. We have three kids, two of them autistic, and we live in the forest near Zielona Góra, Poland. We have a small hotel called Agroletnica which you can book either on Agroletnica.com or on Booking.com. David has own consultancy called Quoracy.com delivering business governance and audit/valuation solutions as well as mentoring. Author of the GoldList Method for systematic optimal use of the long-term memory in learning. We have two greater Swiss Mountain dogs, nine cats, bees and a fine collection of tropical fishes.
In Monopoly, whichever player is banker is supposed to keep the bank money separate to the money he’s also doing business with in the market. He’s also supposed to run the bank according to certain rules and if he was cheating it’d be game over. They should bring out a new version of Monopoly in which the Banker is allowed to cheat all he likes and always automatically wins, and another player is called The Government and that player chooses from the Chance and Community Chest cards for the other players instead of just getting them to take the next one in a shuffled pack. The Government cannot only do it to the banker – they automatically give the Banker the best card. Banker and Government get to throw three dice instead of two, and they are also allowed to compulsorily purchase other player’s properties, and also send them to Jail for two turns if they complain about the unfairness of the rules.
That modern update to the famous board game would be most enlightening. Nobody would play it given the choice, but in reality of course we don’t really have a choice. After all, there’s a monopoly of government in any country and there’s an oligopoly of banks.
Could Poland become the new leader in monetising laundry? A "pralka", yesterday.
Poland’s production of household appliances is expected to grow some 5% this year. The country is expected to produce and export 15.5 million washing machines, dishwashers, refrigerators and cookers. Poland has already beaten Germany and is about to get ahead of Italy “Dziennik Gazeta Prawna” reports.
The so called large household appliances made this year in Poland will be worth the record amount of PLN 3 billion, the newspaper underlines. A lot of it is owing to Samsung Electronics who purchased a washing machine and refrigerators manufacturing plant in Wronki from Amica and announced that it would invest nearly USD 170 million in the development of this plant. Samsung Electronics is also to transfer its production from other European plants to Wronki. The investments are underway.
“Dziennik Gazeta Prawna” found out that Samsung Electronics says it is possible that production in Poland will be expanded with manufacturing heating equipment like ovens, stoves and plates. There is a large demand for this kind of appliances in the EU. According to analysts, demand for heating equipment will remain at around 30% of total annual production, “Dziennik Gazeta Prawna” notes. (Source: gazeta.pl)
16 June 2011, 8.00am – 11.00am
(Language: English)
This event is aimed at introducing Cyprus companies as vehicles for international transactions and investments covering the key requirements applied by the authorities and the banking system in Cyprus and Poland.
The event is addressed to Owners, Chief Executives, Financial Executives and Board Members of companies with international perspectives.
Experienced professionals and speakers of Baker Tilly Poland and Baker Tilly Klitou of Cyprus will be presenting a range of topics, suggesting practical solutions and sharing their experience. A Q&A session before the close of the event will give participants the opportunity to talk directly with our speakers in order to raise their queries or obtain additional information.
David James, International Liaison Partner, Baker Tilly Poland
10.25 – 10.55 am – Questions & Answers
11.00 am – Close of Conference
In order to obtain your free registration, please contact mjaniga@bakertillypoland.eu by Wednesday, 8th June 2011. If demand exceeds space available, registration will be first come, first served.
At University, one of my Northern Irish friends used to say “What are you on?” if he heard anyone saying or saw anyone doing something he found strange. I believe he meant “what medications are you on, to make you say or do that?”
Well, today I’d like to ask my viewers the same question but in a slightly different context, namely, what social media platforms are you on?
I’m going to put a few of them, by no means all, into a poll, and please put a tick by all the services where you BOTH have an account AND use that account fairly regularly – the benchmark would be if someone you knew or an old friend tried to get in contact with you on there, could they do so and you see it and get back to them reasonably quickly, as in within a couple of weeks, say.
I have included Facebook, Myspace, Digg, Youtube and Twitter, which are largely of non-business use, and the rest are more the business networking sort of platforms, liked Linked-in, Viadeo, Xing, Ushi, Goldenline. I also included Google Latitude, which is in my view a new class of social media linking in GPS location to all the other things going on in social media. I’ve included in one line the fora of any newspaper you read that has discussion of articles where a regular crowd sometimes gathers.
Please add in comments, other than anything else you might wish to say about the relative advantages or disadvantages of these social media sites, any social platforms I’ve left off.
And please check back in after a few weeks, if you’re curious how it pans out, especially if you’re among the first to answer.
Remember – this poll has multiple tickable options, and there’s a supplemental question of how many ticks you put in – this is just so we can all see how many services our fellow internet people are using.
This morning on social media I added the following to a discussion on the above question. Some others had given similar answers, but there were other divergent answers.
The most important jurisdiction is where the property in question is physically located. This determines whether the mortgages or charges which the lender will wish to place on the property are properly drawn up and registered.
Let’s imagine a scenario where an inhabitant of country A buys a building in country B and receives a loan to do so from country C. If Country B has law that says a resident of country A needs a permit to buy property from country B, and the person from A has bought without the permit, then in that scenario any rights that the buyer has granted the lender will automatically also not be enfoceable on the property.
Which doesn’t mean that I can’t use Country C law for the loan contract – probably you can, but in a way that also takes account of the risks and vagaries of the law in country B and also maybe even Country A.
For these things you need firms of real estate lawyers and tax accountants that are international. Not just networks, but firms where the people putting the deal together include experts from the different countries involved working in each other’s offices or working together so closely and regularly, that they may as well be in each others’ offices. Good professional international communication is the key to success in these cases, and not every firm seems able to deliver it.
Tax is also a consideration, but most of all you have to make sure that you are compliant with the laws of the place the property is. The worst things that can go wrong will go wrong if that isn’t sorted out first and foremost.
I am writing to relate a story based on true events which came to light last week when one gentleman came into one of our offices and spoke to me. To keep matters confidential, I won’t say the country – the same can happen in any country – or identify anything about this company the gentleman had – even the sector. It can happen to many sectors.
This gentleman had given his company bookkeeping and tax affairs to an outsourced book-keeper for his business in that particular country. He used outsourcing back home in his own country (I’m not saying where that is either) and he appreciated the benefit of being able to have his bookkeeping professionally handled by experts without needing to employ anyone, worry about holiday cover, etc etc.
Some time ago this gentleman had included our firm in his search, and we gave him a price entirely fair for a company with our niche in the market, that is, internationally trained people, with English, with proper quality assurance, supervision and back-up. In other words, a peer-reviewed, branded service tailored absolutely to the needs of West European businesses in the middle tier coming to start up in East Europe, and also very good for businesses not exactly in the middle tier and from places outside West Europe.
That means that the fee offered was not nearly as high as a Big Four service would cost, but certainly higher than a purely local service.
Now I’m not knocking the purely local services – many of them are very good, but for purely local clients as they don’t tend to be claiming proficiency in foreign languages or have the ability to engage cross-culturally with the client (a source of just as many miscommunications as the language barrier on its own). They are not a great fit with the international client, and often their cheaper price becomes a false economy as frustrations rise on both sides of the desk.
The problem in this case wasn’t lack of English – this gentleman’s chosen bookkeeper spoke English, apparently.
But she was in business just on her own. With no back-up employees, probably very little insurance, probably very few resources to turn to, and very few overheads hence enabling a price no quality firm could ever compete with. That was the price that tempted this gentleman to take her bid over mine.
But since then, it became apparent that this bookkeeper was not entirely what she seemed to be.
Neither this gentleman nor myself are qualified psychiatrists, and we could only speculate on what might have gone wrong, or been wrong all along with this person. The fact is, though, that mental illness happens in the human population. We’ve probably all had employees or acquaintances who have had a mental illness, and in a larger company they quickly get noticed by colleagues, and steps taken to look after them and safeguard the clients’ affairs. When they are on their own, no such controls exist.
Suffice it to say this lady no longer was answering emails or picking up the telephone when he was calling, and when he rang from another number she didn’t know, she put the phone down when she heard his voice – the person entrusted with his company’s books and records and processing a VAT reclaim for more money than she would normally earn in many years. As you can see, the situation is now much harder – and therefore more costly – for us to repair than if he had simply given us the work in the first place.
It simply doesn’t pay to use these Bargain Basement Bookkeepers. You know what you get if you pay peanuts, and if a price looks too good to be true, it probably is.
David James et Lucia Rablova de Baker Tilly Tchequie ont ecrit cette article avec Mme Valerie Malnoy de Baker Tilly France, qui est apparu dans l’edition de decembre 2010. Nous esperons que ce contient sera interessant pour nos lecteurs francophones.
Les firmes associes de Baker Tilly sont a meme de servir des clients francophones en francais dans le plupart de la region de l’Europe de l’Est.
Quoracy Consulting & Publishing 
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