The third tranche...

[Colesman Ballz]

In principle, more information would be good, but two caveats. The formal accounts don't tell you very much and in any case cannot be published until after the Club's AGM in January, whereas the Trust AGM is in the autumn. And how much detail is given is a matter of judgement: while some would want to know what everyone is paid, there are confidentiality and other issues. Personally I'd be happy if we published just a little bit more detail, e.g. turnover by broad category, and the total playing, football management and commercial cost breakdowns by function, without identifying any individuals.

The desire for the club to publish fuller accounts has long been a thorny issue with the Club Board using the excuse that the additional Accountancy

Expenses of £3 -3.5k were not justified even though the Trust Board indicated its willingness to pick up the tab.

At the 2013 Trust AGM, Martin Lawrence was involved with submitting resolutions that would require the TB to propose and vote through resolutions at the Club AGM to require ECFC to publish such accounts. However the resolutions were withdrawn before Trust AGM. I was told by a member of the TB that this was at the specific request of the TB, due to technical problems with the wording, and that the TB were taking it on board instead. I havent seen a copy of the Club AGM minutes, (have they been published yet ?), so am unaware if anything has actually happened. Certainly the TB did not put forward any replacement resolutions at the 2014 Trust AGM. So can PETE MARTIN and any other current TB Member reading this post advise us if action has indeed happened ? or if the answer is sod all, get cracking !

There will never be full disclosure of individuals salaries of course, but it would be reasonable to expect to see the Total number of high earners, with earnings above a specified threshold. We are a Fans Controlled Club and on principle should be as open as possible without compromising commercially sensitive information to our rivals.

 

[Terryhall]

Sorry but im lost now, if a Business sells anything then VAT is inc, so if i sell an engine then 20% of that amount is VAT, is 20% of the 1.75 million is indeed VAT then that makes a massive difference, and we will have to pay tax on it at our year end tax bill

VAT doesn't apply to all goods and services though... I've not got time to check in lots of detail but a quick google turned up this - https://www.gov.uk/rates-of-vat-on-different-goods-and-services - which at a quick skim doesn't include football transfers (or compensation paid between businesses for transfers of employees).

 

[STURTZ]

Looks like a return to tranch warfare, bit over the top if you ask me.

 

[hatch4england]

There's no reason at all why extracting that sort of information should come with a £3.5k price tag. It is probably a lot less than a day's work, assuming the accounting system isn't a total shambles (it would be about 30 minutes work in either of the business I am on the board of and one is a lot bigger and more complex than ECFC). Even if you couldn't find someone who has appropriate qualifications etc who might do it for free, our accountant (an ex KPMG man, very solid) would, I am sure, not charge more than £1k for this...he does our final accounts (depreciation and final adjs), tax calcs and advice, co sec work and all filing for that. To be fair, what he gets is bloody good and up to date (we'll be putting in our 31 Dec accounts to be finalised next week), but even so...we do trade every day (unlike ECFC) and have multiple product lines to divide costs between.


besides why do they need an external accountant to do this at all? Surely the management accounting does this already or how the hell else do they make business decisions?

I think that excuse is flannel.

 

[hatch4england]

No sooner had I posted that than this arrived in my inbox
http://bit.ly/1zWpvRE