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Secretarial Service wants MYOB training

Had an email from a secretarial service in Parramatta – that’s how it works with your online admin. The lady wants some MYOB training, so that she can “do the bookwork” for one of her clients. Read more… »

Business Activity Statements, for business owners reporting quarterly, are due on 28 July 2009.

For many small business owners and especially for their bookkeepers, July is always a busy time of year in Australia.

With end of financial year reporting, together with reporting of the 01 April to 30 June quarter, businesses that are behind in their paperwork can struggle under extra pressure that they really do not need

Cash flow has certainly tightened up in the economy. As bookkeepers, we’ve seen that invoice payments are being dragged out longer and longer, as suppliers wait to be paid by customers, and service providers wait to be paid by their clients

The phone’s been ringing as desperate business owners in a panic wanting help with their MYOB and Quickbooks files. In most cases, they can simply email us the files and we’ll have a look at their reporting and can generally work out where the problems are within a short time

One lady contacted us after spending two days trying to reconcile her Quickbooks bank accounts. We had a look at her file and solved the problem in 35 minutes. Look at the time and stress she would have saved if she had contacted our bookkeeping company when she first noticed that there was a problem

As a small business owner we encourage you to focus on what you do best, and we’ll do the rest

July and August are busy months for many registered tax agents and bookkeeping services around Campbelltown and Bankstown – as individuals hurry to lodge their income tax returns in the hope that they’ve been paying too much PAYG tax and hope to get a tax refund.

Wham, Bham, thank you, ma’am, and it’s all over!

This time of year brings many enquiries for our bookkeeping service. The main questions are, for a basic Tax Return: “How Long, and How Much Fees?”

Stroll through any large shopping centre around Campbelltown and Bankstown, and you’ll see that centre management have rented out the floor space in the middle of the mall to tax agents who’ve set themselves up like a fast-food outfit.

Wham, Bham, thank you, ma’am, and it’s all over!

Get ‘em in, sit ‘em down, fill in a form, and click a button …. Gone!!

We get quite a few enquiries from individuals, on a salary, with little expenses that they can claim, so their tax return is very straight forward. We are not registered Tax Agents and cannot advise / lodge tax returns on their behalf.

Normally if you go to Bankstown shopping centre you’ll most likely find a registered tax agent – they’ll most likely set up a table at this time of year, and be sitting with their laptop waiting for the next customer to come along – costs about $100 and takes about 20 minutes, with about 3 or 4 weeks to get answer from ATO

Some of these tax agents only operate for a few months of the year, specifically to help individuals with their tax returns.

Small business owners may find that the service offered by these quick-fix-tax-return booths are not set up to handle your needs, and that’s where a mobile bookkeeping service such as ours can be of great benefit to you

As bookkeepers, we can help with any bookkeeping requirements you may have, so please feel free to contact us to discuss your bookkeeping setup

The Rudd Government is telling everyone how the new stimulus package is helping small businesses with the Small Business and General Business Tax Break.

The package is such that small businesses can claim a bonus 50 per cent tax deduction for eligible assets costing more than $1,000 acquired from 13 December 2008 until 31 December 2009, and installed ready for use by 31 December 2010.

To benefit from this Tax Break a small business must have a turnover of less than $2.0 million a year.

Forget the tax break, shop at your locally owned store

This may look good on paper, but unless you actually need to make any investment in capital purchases such as motor vehicles or equipment, how does it actually help small business?

It certainly helps large businesses – the suppliers of motor vehicles, national stationary / office equipment suppliers, hardly normal electical chain stores and the like, but how does it help you, the small business owner in Robina or Burleigh?

Speaking to an accountant of one of our bookkeeping clients recently, he said that whilst the incentive looks very rosy, you should actually look at the costs involved in the purchase of a new vehicle.

“Ha Ha !! You don’t believe what the Government tells you, do you!!!”

Taking all things into consideration for this particular client, the client was going to be worse off purchasing a new vehicle compared to finding a cheaper second-hand vehicle

We asked our accountant about reducing the PAYG for this quarter – after receiving notification from the ATO that the quarterly payment had been increased.

“You can’t” replied the accountant – But what about the Government telling us that they’re reducing the PAYG installments to help small business?
“Ha Ha !! You don’t beleive what the Government tells you, do you!!!”

Many small business owners are understandably looking to save money wherever they can, believing that’s the only way that they can increase their income. Yet at the sametime, they also want to increase their turnover by attracting more customers or upselling existing customers.

Why do small business owners have a problem with supporting other small-to-medium enterprises?

Many of our bookkeeping clients take their shopper dockets from the major supermarkets, to get discount fuel, rather than paying a few cents more (perhaps) for fuel from independent service station operators.

The same clients buy all their fruit and vegetables, meat and other groceries from the large supermarket chains instead of supporting small independent green-grocers or butchers

Why do small-to-medium enterprises complain that your potential customers are going to the large companies or multi-nationals instead of shopping from you? Maybe we should stop pointing the finger at other people, and start asking ourselves, why do small businesses have a problem trading with other small businesses?

Do large companies really care about the local Campbelltown or Bankstown business owner? Not when the head office is overseas

The positive effect on the local economy would be far wider reaching than all of those small business owners that continue to support large companies who are only interested in making huge profits for their shareholders (many of whom are large multi-nationals themselves).

Go shopping at your local independantly owned business, take business away from large corporations and bring back competition to the market place – you’ll be helping the local econmy which will in-turn help your smal business