By An Executive Editor

The Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Uganda – ICPAU – reports that many small businesses in the country struggle with bookkeeping.  

CPA Constant Othieno, the Institute’s President said at the 2022 Financial Reporting Awards in November at Hotel Africana in Kampala that because the small businesses lack the will or skill to prepare financial statements, many of them cannot pay the right amount of taxes, while other evade taxes, and hence the country’s narrow tax base predicament.  

According to Otheino, the Institute has often advised small businesses to use the services of accounting technicians to help them with bookkeeping.

“As our contribution towards recovering from the effects of Covid-19, in March this year (2022), ICPAU introduced probono business advisory services through which small businesses are paired with accounting firms to provide them with the basics of accounting, assurance advisory, and other accountancy services,” Othieno said.

If more small businesses can get their record keeping in order, then “we can have a basis of growing our businesses in particular and the economy in general.”

Small businesses dominate most economies in the world.
They account for about 80% of the total industrial labour force in Japan, 50% in Germany, 46% in USA (Allouche & Amann, 2002; Dana & Ramadani, 2015; Kenyon-Rouvinez & John, 2004; Kuratko, 2003).