No Accounting for Taste ep179: Bench’s collapse, self assessment deadline and audit reform

Our tech editor, Tom Herbert kicks off the podcast with the shutdown and acquisition of online bookkeeping giant Bench. He details who Bench are, what happened when the company ceased operations, why we should care and the dangers of using technology without proper oversight. With January being a busy month for accountants and the 31 January self assessment deadline looming, Richard Hattersley talks about HMRC’s statistics that 5.4m taxpayers are still left to file their return. The team questions whether it is just human nature that a deadline is a deadline for a reason and they see how accountants are coping. Finally, Matthew Ord reports on the calls for change in audit. He looks at whether any progress has been made so far and the Financial Reporting Council’s (FRC) desire for audit to be more effective.