Business Tax Tips – Prepare Now – Early Start on Year End Preparations!

 

Business Tax Tips – Prepare Now – Early Start on Year End Preparations!

It’s never too early to start preparing for Year End – that is 30 June in Aust. You can begin now, even though some tasks have to be completed AFTER 30 June.

Before you start year end complete the main basic regular tasks for the financial period being closed:

• Bank account - you have fully reconciled your account and it agrees with your actual bank statement balance.
• Invoices – you have entered and approved all invoices.
• Bills – you have entered and approved all bills.
• Expense claims – you have entered and approved all expense claims.
• Payments received – you have banked all payments received.
• Financial adviser role – make sure you email or call to ask if there are any issues to complete before 30 June

Once the above have been completed, accounting software company Xero recommends the following (adapt according to your own needs and software – the Reports mention are specific to Xero, but similar reports are in all the major accounting software). Xero accounting software have a great step-by-step list that also applies to all business accounting software, so take advantage of their help, as follows from their Help Centre – (Note – links are for Xero-specific topics and reports, ignore if you are on MYOB or QB or other – year end tips for these will come soon also – email us or sign-up Free for updates!)

1. Run a GST Reconciliation report. From here you can drill down and tab to the GST Audit report for each period. Check each GST category, for example, the GST charged on income, GST charged on expenses, BAS Excluded and GST-Free Expenses for any coding and GST treatment that looks incorrect.
2. Run a Trial Balance.
3. Reconcile all accounts on your Balance Sheet:

• Bank account – make sure any unpresented cheques or payments are correct. Check your imported bank balance in Xero against your actual bank balance from your bank. Use the Bank Reconciliation report to help with this.
• Run an Aged Receivables and an Aged Payables report. Xero is designed to ensure the balance of your aged receivables and payables matches your general ledger at all times. Write off any bad debts using the credit functionality.
• Check your BAS Return and balance for the period.
• Ensure you know what makes up the balance of all accounts in your Balance Sheet, including loans and fixed assets.

1. Let your financial adviser know you have finished entering data so they can log in to your organisation in Xero to see/update what you’ve done and potentially complete the rest of the process.
2. Your financial adviser can add journals and adjustments directly into Xero. They don’t need to re-key this information.
3. Your financial adviser is likely to verify balance sheet items and add entries for:

• Year-end manual journals
• Tax liability
• Accruals
• Work in progress
• Depreciation
• Loans
• GST adjustments.

If your financial adviser is completing your accounts, they may want the paper copies of items on your Balance Sheet (such as loans, bank accounts, prepayments, GST statements) to check these against your Xero balances and ensure they are correct.

In Xero there’s no need to do a specific year end (‘roll up’) journal to bring the profit and loss balance back to 0.00. Xero’s reports are created in real-time and in the case of the Profit and Loss report it is run directly off the year-end date you’ve specified in Xero. So on any date the report is run it will be from the start of the financial year anyway. Once the new financial year starts, as long as you haven’t entered any transactions into Xero for that year, the Profit and Loss report will show 0.00.

Need help? Not sure? Call for FREE 30min advice / strategy session today!

and also get Free “Avoid these GST mistakes” – there’s 18 that the Tax Office see regularly – get them right!

 

Wondering which software to get? Click on the “Get FREE Download” button above for your FREE report!

Quickbooks – Catching Up Customer Payments

 

Client rang, saying they have just taken over as volunteer treasurer for the local cricket club.

While going through the books they discovered that the previous treasurer had been depositing the payments from the members, but not entering them into the program.

How can I give the members credit for past payments without altering the books?

Answer - If you invoice your members, you match the payment on the bank statement to the invoice with receive payments, but if no invoices have been created and issued, you can still create an invoice and then use receive payments when the payment is received. If you don’t invoice your members, you just use a sales receipt which will deposit to the bank at the same time.

In both cases, you may want to consider depositing the payments to undeposited funds so that when you find deposits you can select the payments in the deposit. That way your deposits in QuickBooks will match the deposits on your bank statement. And the undeposited funds account will keep a record of any missed, but should clear out back to zero.

Need help? Not sure? Call for FREE 30min advice / strategy session today!

And also get Free “Avoid these GST mistakes” – there’s 18 that the Tax Office see regularly – get them right!

 

Cashflow Tips – 4 Tips to Help Cashflow

Cashflow Tips
4 Tips to Help Cashflow

Cashflow can easily get out of hand and some studies suggest that financial mismanagement is one of the top causes of business failure. Here are 4 tips to help get cashflow under control – remember it is an on-going requirement!

1. Plan for the ups and downs
Be aware of when lean cashflow patches are coming up and plan accordingly. Avoid major purchases from your business’ working capital unless you are sure you have cash to cover it. A cashflow budget will help you see this – eg revenue down on forecast (eg the average monthly required).

2. Have finance products working to your benefit
Overdrafts, premium funding, lease facilities and cashflow funding products can all be excellent tools to help boost a business’ cash. Even the business credit card can be a good way to ease the squeeze as long as you are sure the debt can be paid before interest kicks in, which is the best way to handle credit cards!

3. Avoid vehemently – tax and other statutory penalties
Save the money and the stress!

4. Keep your hands out of the till
Make cash drawings for personal purposes as minimal and following conservative cashflow forecasts.

Need help? Not sure? Call for FREE 30min advice / strategy session today!

And also get Free “Avoid These GST Mistakes” – There’s 18 that the Tax Office see regularly – get them right!

MYOB – Can I Have The Software On Laptop To Go Away?

 

MYOB – Can I Have
The Software On Laptop
To Go Away?

Past client we set-up called and said he was going away, can he load the software on a laptop so he can keep working while away?

The only problem was that he had lost his MYOB software disc.

We advised he needed to find out what version he was on – as Certified Consultants we have access to past versions, and even though the company cannot offer support past the last 2 versions, we could install for him on the laptop.

How to find your version?

Open your MYOB, go to > Help across the top, drop down, > About MYOB.

Look for the Version eg 18.5.01 or 16.3

• Email back what version you are on
• When you get the laptop, have Outlook or Outlook express installed and ready
• Good to have Word and Excel installed and working also – BEFORE MYOB is installed (as it does a search and links with all these programmes, But not if they are installed AFTER MYOB)
• Then I can arrange to have Lisa come out and bring that version and install, and we can check that the back-up opens ok properly

Wondering which software to get? Click on the “Get FREE Download” button above for your FREE report!

Business Tax Tips – Should you have a Company?

 

Business Tax Tips –
Should you have a Company?

It is good to seek advice and regularly consider your business structure – such as whether using a company to operate your business is best. Operating as a company has some tax and commercial benefits, eg many organisations prefer dealing with companies rather than individuals or trusts, but it could be cheaper to operate as an individual, especially in the initial stages.
The 30% individual marginal tax rate (31.5% including Medicare) now applies in 2012 onwards to income up to $80,000 and the top marginal tax rate of 46.5% applies above $180,000. This means the company tax rate of 30% is becoming less attractive with taxable income up to $80,000 – that is, revenue less expenses.
So a couple with a family business can have an annual net income of up to $160,000 before their salaries will be worse off from a taxation perspective if they retain profits in the company. Best to seek a tax professional to see what is best for your situation.
Need help? Not sure? Call for FREE 30min advice / strategy session today!
And also get Free “Avoid these GST mistakes” – there’s 18 that the Tax Office see regularly – get them right!

MYOB – How Many Companies/Data Files Can I Create?

 

MYOB – How many
companies/data files
can I create?

You’ve been asked to do the accounts for the sporting club (not for profit) and was wondering if you can use the MYOB disc on a separate laptop as well as have your business on our PC. If the laptop doesn’t arise can you use your existing MYOB on the PC and have 2 companies set up on it?

Account Right V19 and prior were licensed for 5 company files (attached to your serial number), whereas a new AR2013 licence comes with one company file (or you can purchase more). If you have a 5 company file licence, you can do either option you give without any licensing problems – install application on laptop or create a new company file on PC. Be careful to ensure you are using the correct company file and backups should be saved to 2 different folders to ensure you don’t mix them up.

MYOB monitors licensing via the company file rather than the MYOB application. Each company file gets a File ID allocated to it. Remember after a new file is created, you will need to activate it within 30 days.

Need help? Not sure? Call for FREE 30min advice / strategy session today!

 

Business Tips – Marketing Consistently

Business Tips – Marketing Consistently

Your business needs clients, but you can’t stop to get them! It feels like you’re being pulled in many different directions (both personally and professionally) that you can’t find the time to do any marketing. When it comes to marketing, what is most effective for businesses these days? It used to be you could pay a lump of money annually (or break it into monthly payments) for a Yellow Pages ad and the phone would ring. Or attending a local networking event from time to time. But things have changed. There are so many choices, and advertising doesn’t really seem to work anymore, at least not in the traditional way. Most of us are not outgoing and hate the idea of reaching out and “selling” our services .
So, for many, the marketing just doesn’t happen.
Yet we know it’s necessary to market our business to build and grow a stable income and reach our goals. But given the time and budget limitations, how can we get past the marketing hurdle?
By doing small consistent tasks that don’t take much time. When you approach it this way, you’ll actually get BETTER results!
In this age of online technology, doing small actions consistently is one of the BEST ways to get and keep your marketing rolling to consistently attract new clients and grow your business.
Some quick and effective things to do that you can spread out over a week, one per day. And then repeat the process.
• Create / Update Your LinkedIn Profile – This is a most powerful social media profile you can have for your business. Get it done one chunk at a time.
• List your business in online business directories – These get picked up by the search engines and you never know who will find you this way. Most are free or low cost. Be sure to include a key benefit you have to offer that sets you apart from your competition. This works for both local and virtual bookkeepers.
• Make one or two phone call per day to a present or past client – The point here is to talk to someone just to warm up the connection and let them know you are available if they have a need. This also works for connecting with colleagues, strategic networking partners, and any business connections you have or want to establish.
• Update your Association/Industry profile – If you’re a Certified XXX (or have a listing in any other type of certification or partner program directory) update or improve your profile information so it is attractive to potential clients who see it. Maybe make a special offer that is time sensitive.
• Making connections in Social Media like Twitter – Start following people you would like to make a real connection with. Then start sharing (tweeting) helpful information that would be useful to the type of clients you want to attract. Ultimately, you will want to be spending a little time on Twitter daily, if possible.
Getting the word out about your services so it can reach the small businesses who need your help can be a lot of work, the load is much lighter when you can approach it with just one small action at a time. When it becomes a habit, you will build a true, rock-solid business as a result.
Marketing is not something that should be done all at once and then stop when you get too busy.
Try out this simple daily plan above, and see if it works for you.
Do you already have a daily marketing routine that works well for you? Tell us your tips!
Need help? Not sure? Call for a FREE 30min advice / strategy session today!