On Wednesday 23 October 2019, Harris Black’s Directors, Practice Manager (Kimberley Schluter) and Workflow Manager (Kath Healy) headed to the Sofitel Hotel in Darling Harbour, Sydney for another of the firm’s bi-annual Brentnalls Conferences.
As many of you will already know, the Brentnalls affiliation is a network of like-minded, independent Chartered Accounting firms across Australia with members in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Hamilton VIC, Perth and Auckland NZ. Harris Black has been part of this dynamic group of professionals for over 20 years. Each of our firms have a similar passion for improving client service and striving for best practice in all areas of business. In particular we are all very focused on helping our clients achieve their goals, develop their businesses and ultimately grow their wealth.
Our Brentnalls Conferences are generally held in October and April/May of each year and run across 2-3 days. They provide us with the valuable opportunity to share our ideas, further develop our capabilities through collaboration with our colleagues from other firms and ultimately improve our ability to better support and provide exceptional service to our own clients.
The focus topics for this conference were well received and considered by all. They included the following:
Compliance issues associated with the use of Electronic Signatures – guest speaker, solicitor David Reid;
Audit protection insurance and the increasing number of ATO Audits conducted by governing bodies – guest speaker, Michael Sexton from “Accountancy Insurance”
Innovation – what stifles innovation in the workplace and ways to create an innovative culture within your firm – guest speaker James O’Loghlin
Additionally, as is the norm for our October conferences, each firm provided an update on their internal practices which in turn generates further collaboration within the group to identify and implement best practices.
The Brentnalls group enjoys a great camaraderie given many of the participating professionals have known each other for a significant period of time. Whilst the days are hectic and packed with information and discussion, we do tend to enjoy our evenings with a few relaxing drinks, great dinners and plenty of laughter.