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An annual report can be a great calling card and the secret to doing business more successfully, even though Estonian business people aren’t all that active in submitting them. Last year was an exception: the deadline for submission of annual financial statements was postponed by several months and a larger number of the reports came in on time.

Under a European Union directive, publicly listed companies must adopt the European Single Electronic Format, ESEF. But they will probably not have to file ESEF format annual reports for another year.

After the year of the coronavirus, there is good reason to review the value of a company’s assets with particular care. Even more, because the value of some assets may instead have increased in these muddled times, as we heard on the Äripäev Radio programme ‘Kasvukursil’, on which Mart Nõmper, Sworn Auditor and Head of Audit and Assurance Services, and Mikk Mägi, Head of Financial Advisory at the pan-Baltic audit, outsourcing and advisory services provider Grant Thornton Baltic, discussed asset valuation.

Mart Nõmper, Sworn Auditor and Head of Audit and Assurance Services, and Mikk Mägi, Head of Financial Advisory at the pan-Baltic audit, outsourcing and advisory services provider Grant Thornton Baltic, spoke about what distinguishes a good financial manager from a mediocre one on the Äripäev Radio programme ‘Kasvukursil’.

In certain cases, companies have an obligation to appoint a data protection officer. This obligation applies both to companies that process data themselves and to companies that process data from other companies. The data protection officer must also be recruited or outsourced by public authorities.

In January WhatsApp announced that it is changing its data policies so that the users only options are either to agree to their data policy and make data about them available to Facebook, the owner of WhatsApp, and any of its chosen third parties or not use the service. Grant Thornton Baltic's Head of Data Protection and Cybersecurity Maili Torma opens up the subject.

Cookies can't read data off your hard drive or cookie files created by other sites; they are one of the technologies tracking people’s behavior on the web.

On 16 July 2020, the European Union Court of Justice (CJEU) passed judgment C-311/18 (Schrems II), invalidating the US-EU certificate programme Privacy Shield, which ensures data transmission security.

In addition to the pandemic the 2020 is memorable as the year or record growth in cybercrime. According to the FBI the USA companies have reported a 400% growth in cyber-attacks and 68% more companies reported of fraud.

In November 2020, Grant Thornton Baltic conducted a limited financial and tax due diligence for the start-up company Modularbank, which offers customer-focused financial services as a next-generation banking platform.

The restrictions established due to the COVID-19 pandemic have disrupted transfer pricing within international corporations. Even if the restrictions were to be eased, undertakings would face major uncertainty about risks and comparables for determining market value.

Most companies view an IT audit as an expense, but experts say in reality, it helps companies to save money – especially if it’s conducted at the right time. An IT audit is a possibility to obtain an external view of the information system in current use.

The accounting and preparation of packaging reports has become better over the years and the awareness of the importance of accounting more comprehensive and precise but there are still shortcomings in packaging reporting. In some cases, the errors are specific and affect an individual company, but many are recurring. In this article, I list some of the standard errors we have noticed in companies’ reporting on packaging and I provide advice for avoiding these mistakes.

To give people freedom and responsibility in their work, these values must be a part of organisational culture. The precondition is a working environment where failures and mistakes are allowed and instead of routine feedback there is also feedthrough, says Grant Thornton Baltic’s Head of People & Culture, Marge Litvinova, who shares her experiences and knowledge in more detail.

We performed the statutory financial audit for consolidation group of Amserv Grupp AS, which includes several companies in Estonia and Latvia.

Grant Thornton is now third in the rankings of auditing firms. Interview with Grant Thornton Baltic's Managing Partner Mati Nõmmiste.