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Last year, an amendment to the Commercial Register Act was passed, which meant more fines for companies for the purpose of making the Estonian business environment more transparent.

In their work, internal auditors often come across a situation where clients want to have an internal audit done in their organization, but since they have no previous contact with an internal audit service, they have a number of questions.

A high-quality accountant who uses modern technological solutions – up to and including AI – can do more for a company than ever before. An accountant can be closer to a CFO’s skillsets than a data entry role.

Grant Thornton Baltic provided consultation to OptiPRO OÜ, which operates a retail chain of optometry stores under the brand Pro Optika and acquired the holding company of the Pere Optika chain, Optiland Eesti OÜ. After receiving a merger permit from the Competition Authority, the transaction was completed on June 10, 2024, and OptiPRO OÜ acquired a stake in Optiland Eesti OÜ.

Where to start if your company doesn’t have a human resources director and HR policy, and on top of it, has a negative employer net promoter score? Grant Thornton Baltic’s HR director Marge Litvinova and recruiter Kätlin Treima share some valuable experience.

On 16 April 2024, Parliament adopted legislation allowing those on sick leave for extended periods to continue working under adapted conditions.

Business operators are hard-pressed to find an auditor to go over their annual report, since there are fewer and fewer auditors every year, but the amount of work just keeps on growing. The worsening quality of the work done by auditing companies is also a concern.

Transfer pricing is often talked about solely in a tax accounting context but actually determining transfer price requires the existence of a strategically good budgetary and cost accounting system in managerial reporting. If a company has designed a detailed, adequate cost accounting system, a key precondition for shaping transfer prices has been met, especially when it comes to transactions related to goods and services where a clear cost base is even more important than mark-up.

All of us have a work life and a private life, and no matter how we try, it is hard to keep them completely separate. Problems at work come home with us and vice versa. That is the underpinning for my belief that an employer who genuinely cares about its people will see investing into maintaining mental health as an investment in its employees.

For years, the Commercial Register allowed companies to operate in the Estonian business environment as if disclosure of economic figures was optional. Last year, an abrupt change in direction occurred.

Many foreign nationals doing business in Estonia recently received an unpleasant surprise: they are unable to submit their annual report for their company to the Business Register, since they failed to renew their digital ID by the deadline. Meanwhile, the Estonian Police and Border Guard Board (PPA) has imposed additional conditions on applying for a new digital ID.

The most important aspect of extraordinary cancellation of an employment contract is that the notice has to be reproducible in writing. The employee should thus be precise in their wording, and the employer should be quick to respond.

For years, Grant Thornton Baltic has lent a helping hand to those in need, donating both funds and our employees’ time to charity organizations. In 2023, MTÜ Peaasjad, which focuses on promoting mental health in Estonia, was the latest non-profit to be added to the line-up.

Studies conducted in Estonia and other countries show that there are many female mid-level managers but women all too often hit a glass ceiling in trying to get to the highest tier of business leadership. Why is it that way, and are quotas the only way to break the glass?

Starting on 1 October 2023, amendments come into force under which construction contractors must register the construction site and contracting chain in the Tax and Customs Board’s subcontracting chain and working time information system.

More and more Estonian companies prefer to outsource payroll functions rather than have a staff position. The reason is that it’s a time-consuming job and requires use of the latest software and keeping up to date with frequent changes to legislation.