Over its 60-year-old history, Moore has seen many times how the shipping industry and companies adopts to changes and it has used this experience to be able to offer a “roadmap” so that shipping companies can move forward quickly and with the minimum of costs and disruption. 

According to Costas Constantinou Managing Partner | Global Maritime Leader, “throughout our lifetime as Firm, we have never stood still. Innovation has been native to us for six decades and -as such- it is fully embedded in our culture. At the moment we offer a full range of accountancy and consulting services, primarily audit and assurance, tax consulting and assurance, governance risk and compliance services, accounting and bookkeeping. In addition to those services that are considered more ‘traditional’, we have developed innovative products and services”.

Moore, formerly known as Moore Stephens, was founded in Greece in 1963 by Mr. Damianos Constantinou, one of the pioneers of the accounting profession in the country. Mr Constantinou was selected by Moore Stephens London to open one of its first offices outside England to serve its Greek clients.

Moore was the first international accounting firm to come to Greece and for 6 decades Moore has been instrumental in the development of accounting, auditing and advisory services in Greece, while supplying the market with experienced executives in senior positions. The accumulated experience of the company is unique, making it the leading accounting services company in the shipping industry with a significant presence in other sectors such as media, hotels and tourism.

Shipping companies are facing a period of change with new diverse challenges at the forefront, from technological developments and digital transformation to sustainability challenges, industry consolidation and increasing regulation. In addition, there are day-to-day needs such as access to finance, tax compliance and reliable financial reporting for decision making. How does Moore Greece support its clients in such a dynamic environment as shipping? 

Throughout our lifetime as Firm, we have never stood still. Innovation has been native to us for six decades and -as such- it is fully embedded in our culture. At the moment we offer a full range of accountancy and consulting services, primarily audit and assurance, tax consulting and assurance, governance risk and compliance services, accounting and bookkeeping. In addition to those services that are considered more ‘traditional’, we have developed innovative products and services. Our most recent launches were:

• Maritime Accounting Software, which is an accounting and reporting solution based on EPICOR ERP that we tailored for the maritime sector along with Athens Technology Center

• Financial Reporting Masterclass, an online suite containing short tutorials to tackle tricky financial reporting areas in maritime such as loan restructuring, compliance with covenants, impairment, dry docking and more, developed with SQLearn.

• Moore Maritime Index 2022, which went live last week and is a widely used free research tool that allows shipping companies to benchmark their running expenses, dry docking costs and TCE rates against those of similar vessels. 

• Last but not least, we are launching our own ESG assurance and advisory services. 

Maritime Accounting Software is a cloud-ready solution that provides shipowners, financial managers and accountants with the information they need to make real-time decisions. Give us more information on how exactly it works and what are its benefits?

Maritime Accounting Software (MAS) is the result of a unique partnership between three leading companies to bring to the maritime industry a solution for their financial reporting. Built on Epicor ERP, a globally acclaimed, well-established, full suite ERP with thousands of global clients, customised by Moore Greece, a global shipping leader in accounting and auditing, with a decades-long association to the maritime industry and developed, maintained and supported by Athens Technology Center (ATC), Epicor Authorised Partner. 

MAS is a cloud-ready solution provides ship owners, CFOs and accountants, each, with the information they need for real time decision-making. It is designed so that users can navigate intuitively through a multi-company and multi-currency accounting data that shipping companies generate and interfaces well with pre-existing software infrastructure.

Being based on a world class ERP system, MAS offers unique capabilities to the shipping companies like automatic bank reconciliations, full integration with Excel and other software that enable finance departments minimize their workload and make it more robust and secure. It can interface easily with existing systems and the default customization by Moore ensures that all reports that are relevant to shipping are fully covered and therefore only minimal time will be needed for each company to customize it to their own needs. Its pricing is very competitive and since it is based on a successful ERP, all future technology development will be covered seamlessly with minimal effort. Technical support is provided locally by ATC, which is a leading Greek software company and an experienced Epicor partner is able to provide quick support to all technical matters. 

Recently released, the updated Moore Maritime Index (MMI) is a proprietary tool for statistics and analysis of ship operating costs and revenues and includes information on more than 1,500 ships, across more than 20 ship types. What are the newest findings that differentiate it from last year?

The Dry Bulk sector reported significantly higher revenues across all vessel types compared to 2020, reaching up to +150% for Handy vessels. Total operating costs presented a slight increase of +6% in all dry bulk categories. This is mainly attributed to an average increase of +4% in the crew costs, insurances increased by 12% on average, while stores, lubricants, repairs, maintenance and administrative expenses were also higher in 2021. Management fees are the only part of the operating expenses which were reportedly decreased compared to 2020. They dropped by 2% in smaller vessels and by 5% in the larger vessels. Overall, 2021 was a strongly profitable year for the bulk carriers’ sector. 

The Tanker sector, on the other hand, reported significantly decreased revenues compared to the prior year, since 2020 was a year of skyrocketed rates for the sector. The larger in size vessels were affected the most, with the VLCCs having reported a drop in the average daily income of up to 76%. As far as the operating expenses are concerned, their movement was different depending on the type of tankers. Small, Handys, Aframax and Panamax tankers reported an increase of 3% to 6% in operating expenses while Capesize tankers reported a small decrease compared to last year. The same picture is presented for the crew and insurance expenses, while management fees reported a significant decrease in the smaller tankers.

We have also updated our studies that compare Operating Expenses with fleet size and vessel’s country of build and the 2022 results are consistent with what we found in the previous years. We are undertaking more studies and we will publish them as soon as we can as we believe that these provide useful insights to owners and managers alike to help them understand how operating expenses behave.