Services

One of the first hurdle that businesses have to go through is the legal requirements to set up businesses. The Government has recognised the need to improve the processes for setting up businesses in Mauritius. A World Bank Report on Doing Business in 2017 relegated Mauritius by 17 places from 32 to 49 in the worldwide league table of nations. The Business Facilitation Act was amended in 2017, the aim of which remains the setting up of a business within 1 working day.Central Business Registration Database (‘CBRD’) has improved its processes so that registration of businesses and incorporation of companies can be made within 2 hours. Issue of Electronic Certificate of Incorporation is now possible.

Oregon Consulting Ltd acts as a catalyst in the process on setting up its clients’ businesses.

Our business facilitation services are not restrictive. Our engagement does not end with incorporating your company and applying for your business licenses. We do more. We advise you of the various incentive programs which the Government has put in place to incentivise certain qualifying investments. The Finance Act 2016 brought changes in the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Act 2009. Small enterprises incorporated after the 2^nd June 2015 shall qualify for a tax holiday of 8 consecutive accounting years subject to satisfying a number of conditions.

Visit http://www.smeda.mu/index.php/schemes/sme-certificate

Mauritius has taken space over the years to become an important international financial sector. We advise our clients of the different vehicles that exist under the Financial Services Act 2007 to structure the domiciliation of their companies in the Mauritius Financial Services centre. Mauritius has concluded 43 tax treaties with a number of countries giving a worldwide coverage for businesses which want to use the Mauritian jurisdiction for channelling their investment. Our business facilitation services provide a handful of information and advises them on the way to route the investment. Tax consideration is the focus when structuring international cross border investments. Our dedicated tax experts would be the persons to speak to get assurance that the right structure is used for investment routing.

Mauritius in an exotic island with a blend of cultures living peacefully together. It is a vibrant democracy with clear cut separation of powers between the judiciary and the executive. Foreigners dream to live and work in Mauritius. All start with holding an Occupation Permit. Thereafter, on fulfilling a number of conditions they can apply for a Permanent Resident Permit allowing them to live and work in Mauritius for a period of 10 years. See our Work and Live section for more detail.

Oregon Consulting Ltd assists foreigners who want to work and live in Mauritius.

Business mentoring services(“BMS”) is a consulting package particularly adapted to small and medium sized enterprises . OCL has a number of consultants who provides mentoring services to small entrepreneurs. We analyze their business ideas, reflect on the market for their products and services, work out their business plans and submit them to public and para-statal organizations which work to promote small and medium sized enterprises.

We advise our customers on the various financing schemes which are specially packaged for small entrepreneurs. We promote our clients with institutions like the Development Bank of Mauritius, Smeda , and SME Partnership Fund.

The cost of setting up IFRS compliant financial statements is increasing year on year on.

This is because of the many changes happening each year with new standards, new Interpretations and IFRIC being issued and older non-relevant standards being withdrawn in response to the fast change in the business environment.

We have a dedicated technical unit which keeps abreast of the changes when they occur. The technical unit responds to these changes and assess whether compliance to a standard and /or IFRIC is relevant to your organisation’s business or that its application may not be warranted.

Besides compliance to standards we ensure that the financial statements are in agreement to requirements of the Companies Act.

Whether you intend to make future short-term or mid-term planning to further develop your business or undertaking important business decisions or looking for serious investors, financial projection is an important aspect that cannot be left out.

In its simplest form, a financial projection is a forecast of future revenues and expenses. Typically, the projection will account for internal or historical data and will include a prediction of external market factors.

While preparing your financial projections, it’s most important to be as realistic as possible. You don’t want to over- or underestimate the revenue your business will generate. It’s a good idea to have a trusted business partner to review your financial projections.

At OCL we may assist you to build up your short-term to mid-term financial projection.

Internal audit is not putting a dog behind your management team to look after what is being done.

It is a process by which the Board of Directors is given independent assurance that the processes, internal systems in all spheres of the business are operated according to set internal guidelines. The internal audit also focuses on the risk evaluation and risk management of a business. It also functions to identify suboptimal practices and advises management to take corrective actions.

OCL provides internal audit services on an outsourced basis to many businesses. Whether your business is too small to set up a dedicated internal control function or the need is felt to set up and train a full fledged internal control department within your organization, contact OCL who will assist.

If you think that most of the time of your HR is lost in working your payroll , then you should stop this wastage.

Outsourcing your payroll will give valuable time to your HR to focus developing the human capital of your enterprise.

Talent search and HR development have now become challenging to the HR function. Recruiting the best to take the enterprise to new heights is becoming a tedious job. Many academics have failed in the practical world of work. The challenge has now shifted to find an optimal blend between knowledge and skills. Identifying training needs and setting up training plans to ensure medium to long-term sustainability of the enterprise is paramount to the success of the enterprise. Performance Management systems are important motivational tools in enterprises to achieve efficiency. These need an important amount of time .Outsourcing your payroll is an important decision towards achieving an efficient HR function in your enterprise. Our payroll processing staff reckons years of experience in the field. We have dedicated software for payroll processing. All data processed are treated with great care. Confidentiality remains a paramount consideration. As a normal routine control, we carry out payroll reconciliation to ensure that variations are picked up and confirmation is received from clients.

We make all statutory returns on behalf of our clients. Annual returns for tax purposes and national pensions schemes are completed and submitted to relevant authorities.

We also accompany you in payroll audit from the tax authorities.

The successive world crisis is compelling businesses to be more and more efficient. Businesses have to produce more at lower costs and at the same time attain high quality. Product and market researches are the key long-term survival of businesses. Resources are not unlimited. Resources have to be constantly reallocated and retrained to meet new changes in the business environment.

Process review and process improvement is important for long-term business sustainability. OCL carries out business reengineering with a view to increase efficiency to face challenging market circumstances. Recent management information systems development helps in the integration of a wide number of business functions. OCL accompanies firms which want to analyse and re-design workflows within an organisation with a view to cut operational costs, dramatically improve customer service and become world class competitors.

Convince your customers that your products and services are the best , produced based on standards that are compatible to world quality standards like ISO 9001:2008 , ISO 14000.
Get the trust of your competitors and overtake competition by getting certified to international quality standards.

OCL team of quality experts understands your current processes , establish gap analysis of current processes against desired quality standards set up quality processes, write up your quality manual , train your staff prior to implementation , support you in the implementation and carry out pre-certification.

OCL reckons proficiency in implementation of food safety standards like HACCP. Do not lag behind and give assurance to your customers that your products are safe and respond to the exigencies of the highest quality standards.

Strategic planning is an organizational management activity that is used to set priorities, focus energy and resources, strengthen operations, ensure that employees and other stakeholders are working toward common goals, establish agreement around intended outcomes/results, and assess and adjust the organization’s direction in response to a changing environment. It is a disciplined effort that produces fundamental decisions and actions that shape and guide what an organization is, who it serves, what it does, and why it does it, with a focus on the future. Effective strategic planning articulates not only where an organization is going and the actions needed to make progress, but also how it will know if it is successful.

Please contact us to for further information.

Far from tax evasion , OCL encourage tax planning to its customers. OCL assist all its clients with tax issues ranging from PAYE, Value Added Tax through to income tax , both corporate and individuals. OCL assist its clients at the Mauritius Revenue Authority for tax returns and discuss tax assessments.

OCL file all statutory returns on behalf of its clients.

OCL carry Value Added Tax Reconciliation and assist in payroll audits.

OCL assist its clients at the Mauritius Revenue Authority to submit tax returns and discuss tax assessments.

Where there exist genuine cases for objecting to tax assessments, OCL lodge assessments on behalf of its clients and support their claims at the various informal meetings with the officers of the Mauritius Revenue Authority.

XBRL stands for extensible Business Reporting Language, developed by accountants and technologists. It forms part of the family of “XML” languages which is becoming a standard means of communicating information between organizations and on the internet. It is an open and an international standard for the exchange of financial and non-financial information in a digital format.

The main advantages of XBRL is better accuracy ; better data management ; time saving ; easier document reading; transparency ; reusing data, data validation, faster, more reliable and so on. It also makes data readable. Taxonomy defines the elements and their relationships based on the regulatory requirements

XBRL in Mauritius

Mauritius had launched XBRL data collection in November 2016. The Corporate and Business Registration Department (CBRD) of Mauritius used XBRL to collect annual financial statements from registered businesses. The agency has partnered with Mauritius Network Services, which administers a template-based instance document generator for filers to use. Once the data has been validated the system generated a .zip file that companies can upload to the CBRD. Since the data is also validated when filed to the CBRD, companies can also generate their own XBRL files for submission.

At first, only large companies classified as Public Interest Entities is affected by this XBRL initiative. These are companies whose activities are regulated by bodies such as the Bank of Mauritius, the Financial Services Commission and the Financial Reporting Council. All financial statements for the accounting period ending June 30, 2016 will have to be submitted in XBRL format. These companies had until December for their respective annual general meetings to approve the balance sheet. This document must be submitted to the Registrar of Companies 28 days after the annual general meeting is held.

In January 2017, a communique from CBRD on XBRL is out mentioning that it is mandatory for all listed companies to file their financial statement in XBRL format as from financial year ending June 2016. It also stated that the XBRL platform is accessible since 18th November 2016 and for those companies which have already filed their financial statements, they are required to file again in XBRL format

Moreover, according to Practice Direction No. 3 of 2017 pursuant to Section 12(8) of the Companies Act 2001 stated the following:

1. Pursuant to Section 215(1A) of the Companies Act 2001 as amended by the Business Facilitation (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2017 and this Practice Direction, listed companies and public interest entities are required, henceforth, to file their financial statements in XBRL – (Extensible Business Reporting Language) format as from financial year ending 30 June 2016 and 30 June 2017 respectively.
2. Companies which have already filed their financial statements with the Registrar are required to file again in the XBRL format.
3. Companies which are required to file the financial statements in XBRL format should access the ifile tool by logging on http://portalmns.mu.cbris

Furthermore,  according to Practice Direction No. 01 of 2018 pursuant to Section 12 (8) of the Companies Act 2001  stated that  Public and Private Companies with turnover exceeding fifty million rupees for the last preceding accounting period, are required, henceforth, to file their financial statements in XBRL format – (Extensible Business Reporting Language) as from financial year starting 01st July 2018.

A listed company is whose shares are traded on an official stock exchange. Some example of Listed Companies in Mauritius are: CIM Financial Services Ltd; Mauritian Eagle Insurance Co Ltd; The Mauritius Union Assurance Co Ltd; Swan Insurance Co Ltd; Air Mauritius Ltd; Harel Mallac and Co Ltd; Omnicane Ltd; Rogers and Co Ltd; Phoenix Beverages Ltd Vital Water Bottling Co Ltd; ABC Motors Co Ltd; Associated Commercial Co Ltd; Ciel Textile Ltd; Mauritius Secondary Industries Ltd; RHT Ltd; United Bus Service Ltd; Gamma Civic Ltd.

XBRL Taxonomy

Taxonomies are the reporting-area specific hierarchical dictionaries used by the XBRL community. They define the specific tags that are used for individual items of data (such as “net profit”), their attributes and their interrelationships. Different taxonomies will be required for different business reporting purposes.

 XBRL procedures

Step 1- Download the taxonomies. A taxonomy is a dictionary of tags used in the mark-up process followed by download the zip file containing the taxonomies, and save it on your hard drive, since this will be used in setting up the entity’s profile.

Step 2- Open Dragon Tag and the file you wish to tag. In Dragon Tag, choose “Start Excel with Dragon Tag Add-in.” If the Rivet menu option is not visible in Excel, go to Add-ins and select Rivet Software. Open the Excel file you wish to tag.

Step 3- Set up the entity profile. In this step you define the entity for which you are reporting. Enter a unique ID for the company, such as a tax ID or ticker symbol. For public companies, a common identifier is the company’s Central Index Key (CIK) code used in SEC filings. In the “Address/URL” field, enter an address that will help identify your unique ID (but the URL must be an approved authoritative body or the Web address for the entity (see screenshot below).

Step 4-Mark up the data. To mark up data efficiently, it is recommended that you set up a hopper to contain all the common elements for the data items. A hopper is a time-saving technique which applies more than one setting to a data item at one time. For instance, you do not want to enter the calendar year for each item individually. To set up a hopper for your reporting entity, choose “Hoppers” at the bottom left side of the screen. Then right click on “My Hoppers” and select “Add Hopper.” Next, click the scenario (“Audited,” “Unaudited” or “Proforma”), the calendar period and the units in which your data is reported. The precision factor determines the number of digits for your data, and you may choose thousands or millions for the scale factor. For instance, if numbers are entered in thousands and you select the scale as thousands, three zeroes will be added to each number in the marked-up data.

Step 5- Validate. Validation is completed in two steps: (1) validation of the mark-up and (2) validation of calculations. When validating calculations, there are two options: Enhanced Validation and Strict XBRL Validation. If you choose Enhanced Validation, you will have errors if only the summary (parent) elements are tagged and the taxonomy’s detail (child) elements are not present in the statement you are tagging. Strict XBRL Validation allows you to omit some of the child elements. Notice that for items labelled “income/loss” in the taxonomy, you must enter a negative for loss items.

Step 6- Export. Once the data has passed validation, you are ready to export the data as an XBRL file. Select “Export XBRL” from the dropdown menu. You may filter files for export by worksheet for a particular client, by files using a particular taxonomy, or by files from a particular time period.