​The Cost of Insurance working group run out of the Department of Finance has asked us to survey our members.
 
The survey is hosted on SurveyMonkey and can be found on the following link:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ChambersCostofInsurance  
 
We will distribute the results following the closure of the survey.
 
The survey needs to be completed by the 8th of September.

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​The Bottleneck that stops Cashflow
 
Understanding the importance of cash flow is something that is not always considered. Business focuses on selling and invest heavily into this area and of course rightly so! No customers no business, but business owners on their endeavours to expand their organisations often forget that the cash has to flow from those lucrative sales.
Where cash stops flowing is in the often-overlooked Debtors ledger or Accounts receivable file. It bottlenecks in Days Beyond Terms waiting for action and becomes the bane of the sales person and the worry of the business owner.
How do you ask to be paid without upsetting the customer? The answer is simple don’t let the customer go beyond the payment terms you agreed but if they have start immediately on a collection process as everyday counts.
But what about the relationship, they won’t buy my services again if I look to get paid or send a debt letter? If the customer valued the service you provided would they delay payment to such an extent it puts your business in jeopardy. Business goes out of business because of business! You need to find out why they are not paying you and It’s usually one of the following three bullet points.

• Can’t- they don’t have the financial bandwidth to pay you
• Won’t- they are using the extended credit to pay a more preferential suppler or to service their own bank account.
• Shouldn’t- they have queries or disputes and are not happy with service they have received.

So how do you get paid on time and grow your business whilst improving your
cash-flow?
At the Ward Group, we provide a unique professionally managed service to SME’s called Ledger Management Services {please see more detail below}.
It is an outsource credit control solution covering the domestic and international markets  at a fraction of the cost of employing a full-time credit controller/accounts personnel and in a short space of time it pays for itself. It is an always on service that “Gets you paid on Time”.

For More Information Contact:
​
​Paula Carney-Hoffler E.I.I.C.M Credit Mgt.Cert,DipLaw
Client Credit Risk & Compliance Manager
Hugh J Ward & Co Solicitors
9 Seville Place
Dublin 1
 
Mobile: 087 2681891
PCarney-Hoffler@hughjwardsolicitors.ie

We are currently collecting feedback and insights through our online questionnaires aimed at Employers, Professionals, and Stakeholders both inside and outside the region. Pixelpod are also busy developing the branding guidelines, the alignment of the existing brands, and developing the marketing strategy to support the brand id. We will be meeting with several groups in early September to discuss our progress and include their feedback, including Fintech/Global Business Services; Tourism; and the Local Authorities. We hope to reconvene this marketing and branding group in late September and I will revert in due course with a proposed date/venue. 
 
In the meantime if you can complete our main questionnaire: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SouthEast-Professionals-and-Employers.
​Thanks for your assistance and I look forward to meeting you again soon.           
 
Kind regards,
Richard
 
Richard Hickey
Project Executive, South East Action Plan for Jobs,
c/o EI Regional Offices, Waterford Industrial Estate,
Cork Road, 
Waterford.
M: 087 6729820
E: richard.hickey@seapj.ie

​The GDPR is the single biggest change in Privacy Legislation in a generation and the clock is already ticking. The GDPR (Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the 27th of April 2016 comes into force on the 25th of May 2018.

It clearly focuses on the rights of the Data Subjects, security of data, consent, data breaches, Data Protection Officers, processor liability and the requirements of organisations to meet those rights. The GDPR is applicable to all business from the Small Home Operator/SME to the Large Multi-National and all Public Agencies and Authorities.

GDPR is not a fad or a Y2K scenario but a substantial piece of regulation that needs to be met and administered from Board level in an organisation. If an organisation does not meet the regulation the fines are substantive and dissuasive. In plain language from the 25th of May 2018 if your organisation is not in compliance with the regulation you will be fined and ignorance of the regulation is not a defense. Where we talk about substantive and dissuasive, you are looking at fines as high as €20 million or 4% of Worldwide Turnover, or €10 million or 2% of Worldwide Turnover from the prior year, whichever is the greatest. Additionally, Data Subjects who have been impacted by a breach in the regulation are now afforded the right to compensation through judicial process.

The first significant item to note is that this is a Regulation and not a Directive and does not require any Local Law to facilitate it. It is to be adopted immediately by all member states and those that process EU natural persons’ data be they processing the data in the EU or not.
There are some significant areas of change that need to be addressed immediately. Below we have highlighted just a few of them;

• Big Fines & Rights to Compensation
• Privacy by Design
• Right to be forgotten
• Data Subjects Rights Strengthened
• Access to Data
• Data Security & Breach Notification
• Extra Territoriality of the Regulation
• Self-Regulation & Certification
• Mandatory appointment of a Data Protection Officer (with the relevant skill sets) is required for certain organizations
• Significant requirements on International Organisations
• Liability of Processors

For further information and support of GDPR readiness you can contact
Paula Carney-Hoefler, E.I.I.C.M. Credit Cert, Dip Law,
Client Credit Risk & Compliance Manager,
​The Ward Group on 
+353 (0) 872681891
or pcarney-hoffler@wardgroup.ie
 For further

Pensions these days are pretty complicated contracts which simply shouldn’t be pretty complicated contracts. The whole purpose of a pension is to save money over your working lifetime so that you have enough, or at least something, put away to fall back on when income ceases. People are encouraged to save through a pension because the government allow you some tax relief and the pension itself allows the money you put in it to grow tax free making it a pretty attractive way to do things.
Now I could talk about all the different pension contracts that exist and the rules which state the contracts you can use depending on your employment status but this blog is about a particular contract called the Approved Minimum Retirement Fund or AMRF. The AMRF is a post retirement contract that you access after you have taken your pension benefits when you reach D Day. Without complicating this too much, if you decide to not buy a pension but look after your own investing whilst in Retirement then you will still end up with an AMRF, whether you like it or not!
So what is the purpose of an AMRF I hear you ask?
Back quite a while ago people were finding it difficult to put money away over the years to be forced to buy an annuity come retirement. The only option after all those years of saving was to leave your hard earned cash with a Life Assurance company and let them pay you a pension amount each year for as long as you lived. The issue was that as we hit a low interest rate environment the annual pension that your pot of money could secure was ever diminishing. As a solution the Approved Retirement Fund (ARF) was introduced. This allowed you, as an alternative, to manage your own funds and take income as you needed it but the proviso was you must also have an AMRF to the tune of up to £50,000 (€63,500 in modern money) and this pot could not be touched at all until age 75. This was seen to be a fall back fund if you messed up your main fund and spent it all too quickly. Sounds sensible really don’t you think?
The big problem now for a lot of people is that following the most recent crash and recession in 2008 their pension pots are not as large as they would like, so here lies the issue;
You have €100,000 total in your pension fund, once you deduct your tax free cash entitlement of 25% you are left with €75,000. You then have to lock away your €63,500 to age 75 leaving you with access to just €11,500 as your “main” fund.  Now recent changes do allow you to take 4% of the AMRF each year but that’s it until age 75. It gets worse if your fund is smaller and quite simply if somebody has a small fund then it is likely that they need the money now, but they can’t have it.
This whole concept is quite outdated, is causing unnecessary stress to a lot of people and in my opinion serves no purpose today…. ABOLISH THE AMRF.
Karl Daly QFA FLIA
Co-Founder and Director

The shortlist for the CSR Awards 2017 was recently announced. The Chambers Ireland CSR Awards are partnered with Business in the Community Ireland , sponsored by BAM Ireland and run in association with the Department of Rural and Community Development. 
 
Press Release with the announcement is online here
 
Details of the full shortlist is available here
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