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Are you struggling to complete your BAS form?

No sooner have we finished lodging BAS for the December Quarter, to find the January - March 2009 Quarter will soon be due. Contact us for HELP

Quarterly BAS
Most businesses submit quarterly, and the 1 January – 31 March 2009 (Quarter 3) BAS is due 28 April 09 for lodgment and payment with the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).

A new client contacted us out of desperation. Struggling to prepare all the documentation for the Business Activity Statement, she could not get the figures to balance.

We suggested she email us the MYOB data file, so that we could get a clearer understanding of where she was at with her bookwork. Contact us for HELP with your BAS

“I had trouble with my MYOB files and contacted Carol and her team and they were just excellent.
They listened and then explained what they could do to help.
Everything was done speedily, efficiently and most of all cost effectively.
They emailed me how to send my files and worked on them that day!
Most of all “they listen” and don’t treat you like a dummy!
It got me out of a potentially tricky situation and literally saved the day!
Thanks Carol.
Liz Bird, Perth WA”

Monthly BAS
If your business submits the (BAS) Business Activity Statement monthly, then 21 March 09 was the due date for lodgement and payment of the February 2009 monthly activity statements

Superannuation Guarantee Contributions
Also on that date are due the Quarter 3 Superannuation guarantee contributions (1 January -31 March) contributions to be made to the fund by this date.

If you are struggling to complete your BAS form, contact our team of Perth Bookkeepers for HELP

The importance of Book keeping: Here’s 10 Tips to help you manage your cash flow

Bookeeping is an important part of any small business

Bookeeping is an important part of any small business – whilst it is historical, in recording past transactions of money coming into and going out of your business, book-keeping can also help with managing the cash flow of your business

Whilst world leaders have a money-tree policy to create cash, the average small business owner has limited opportunities when cash flow gets very tight, as in the present economy.

Contractors in the building industry can quickly run up large accounts with builders and developers, and forget that even large companies can fall over in a recession.

On Australia’s Gold Coast a large property developer has collapsed with millions of dollars debt, and often the sole tradesman or small business owner is at the bottom of the food chain, even though they are the ones that need the cash the most, not the Banks or Finance Companies

Our bookkeeping team of mobile freelance bookkeeprs have put together ten tips to help you manage your cash flow:

1. As bookkeepers, we’re amazed by businesses that issue invoices with no specific payment date or credit terms. There’s nothing wrong in specifying the date on which you expect payment – after all, don’t the utility companies do just that on the invoices they send you?

2. Why not issue the invoice the day that you provide the goods / services, rather than waiting until the end of the week, fortnight, or month? Some business owners choose to issue their invoices monthly, knowing their creditors only issue payments monthly

3. There’s been a recent trend, again with utility companies, to offer an incentive to pay early, such as giving a discount. Notice that in reality they are adding a penalty for late payment rather than a discount

4. Ask your customer for a deposit in advance, particularly if they are requesting a high ticket item that you have to purchase from your supplier before receiving payment from your customer
Read more… »

Before you realise, Easter will be upon us, then the end of the financial year

A client asked us today whether he should make the final balloon payment on his earthmoving equipment, even though he still has 12 more months to pay it off

We’re not registered tax agents and can’t advise whether he’s better paying the lump sum before the end of this financial year, or whether he should carry the payments over into next year.

If your bookwork’s not upto date, how do you make an informed decision about your tax liabilities?

If you don’t have your bookwork upto date, or if bookkeeping is the last thing on your mind right now, then how can you make an informed decision about your tax liabilities for the financial year ending 30 June 2009?

How do you know if you should make a lump sum payment on your vehicle lease this year? If you ask your accountant, you’ll most likely be told that without seeing any upto date figures for this financial year, your accountant cannot give you an informed answer

To prepare for the end of the financial year is not as difficult or as daunting as the task may appear. In fact, the ATO offer you encouragement to get your financials upto date with the quarterly BAS requirements.

Look no further, stress no more, simply contact us, as we provide an outsourced bookkeeping service. Our mobile bookkeepers can come to your premises, work on your computer, or pick up the paperwork and take it away to return with neatly filed and documented set of accounts ready for you to take to your accountant

Are you a small business operator struggling to keep your bookkeeping in order? The main problem that business owners have is not having a system set-up to handle their bookkeeping.

What you do with your paperwork, and how you handle your record keeping at the beginning can make a big difference at the end of the financial year.

Here are some basic tips to ensure that your record keeping is in order

1) Open a separate bank account for the business.
It may seem an expensive option at the beginning to be paying fees on two separate bank accounts – however you can claim the running costs of your business bank account as a business expense.
The same applies to a credit card. Even if you simple have another credit card in your private name, keeping a separate credit card for the business makes the bookkeeping so much easier

2) Don’t mix your personal expenses with your business expenses.
A simple example of this is when you buy fuel; if you happen to buy some milk or chocolate etc, pay for them in a separate transaction. You need to make sure that you have Read more… »

When a financial planner contacts a bookkeeping service because they are eighteen months behind in the paperwork, there’s a touch of irony.

It’s like the sparkie who still hasn’t wired up some extra powerpoints in his house though his wife’s been nagging him for three months

Or the accountant who has not lodged their own tax return for a couple of years

Business owners can get so caught up in the busy-ness of every day activities that they can never seem to find time to work on their business.

Even financial planners need the help of freelance bookkeepers to help them with the genera bookkeeping duties such as entering customer and supplier invoices, entering receipts, and calculating fuel expenses etc

Unless you’re passionate about bookeeping, you’ll always find excuses for putting it off.

As a bookkeeping service covering Stirling to Warwick, Gwelup to Balga, Inner Northern Suburbs, Perth, we are often called up to tidy up the mess that has accumulated over the past few months. Contact us for details

Even with purchasing an accounting software package such as MYOB or Quickbooks, the business owner is still faced with the task of having to find a few spare hours a week or a month to enter all the book-keeping data.

Unless you have a passion for doing the bookeeping yourself, you’ll always find excuses for putting it off. After all, why should you make bookkeeping a priority of your Stirling, Warwick, Gwelup or Balga business?

A widget-maker may know all about widgets, the different sizes and colours, the various strengths and applications for widgets, and have many others skills and knowledge involved in widget making.

So why do you want to spend time away from widgets to have to learn how to use an accounting software program? Then you’ve got to learn where to allocate your sales invoices. Maybe you need to make up a template with your company logo to issue invoices from MYOB or Quickbooks to send to your customers.

Then you have to prepare any reports that are needed by your accountant to lodge your tax return. And what if you make a mistake when entering the data. If you are not experienced in bookkeeping, or have not used a book-keeper, then you could find that you either produce a set of accounts that are not a true reflection of your business, or you find that the bookkeeping figures do not balance.

Meanwhile, you’ve got yourself totally stressed out, and discovered that you’ve spent so much time on trying to be the bookkeeper in your business, that you’ve lost a couple of very valuable sales orders because you haven’t had time to make any widgets.

Your financial planner would probably suggest to you that you need to spend time and effort in your business making the money. Just as you’ve turned to a financial planner for guidance in your financial future, it makes sense to turn to a professional bookkeeping service that covers Robina, Burleigh, Varsity Lakes and Mudgeeraba to look after your bookwork

By outsourcing a bookkeeper, do not feel that you will lose control of your finances. Indeed, in many cases the result is quite the opposite. By having your financials kept upto date by your bookkeeper, you can get regular reports, do month by month comparisons, and see if your business is heading north or south

Many small business owners will say, “Yes, but I leave all that to my accountant!” Well, that’s all well and good, but is your accountant basing decisions on current financial data, or is he looking at your bookkeeping figures from last year?

If your paperwork is in disarray, don’t panic!

Contact our bookkeeping service from Stirling to Warwick, Gwelup to Balga, Inner Northern Suburbs, Perth, and we can come in and tidy up the mess that has accumulated over the past few months.

Contact us for details

You may well ask how can a book-keeping fix a leaking pipe.

Simply this: As business owners and/or operators around Perth’s inner northern suburbs of Balcatta, Balga, Carine, Gwelup, Hamersley, Karrinyup, Nollamara, Stirling, or Westminster you need to keep a handle on your finances to keep your business running.

If you’ve got problems with cashflow, it’s hard to fix the problem if you do not know the cause. Contact us now for a free consultation
Read more… »

The Rudd Government recently announced that it’s found a way to help small business owners.

Australian Government Reducing December Quarter PAYG by 20%

In an attempt to weather the global financial crises, The Australian Government is reducing by 20% the quarterly PAYG (Pay As You Go) instalment due for the December 2008 Quarter. If you make monthly payments, the PAYG is due on 21 January 2009, while most small businesses that report quarterly, this instalment is due on 28 February 2009

However, the information released by the ATO then adds a comment. Note that as the date falls on a long weekend in some states, the lodgement and payment deadline has been extended to 3 March 2009 Australia Wide)

You may have already received a letter from the Australian Taxation Office in relation to the December quarter PAYG reduction. Just be aware that it’s not a tax cut and it will all be adjusted at the end of the financial year

PS We are not registered Tax Agents and cannot give advise in such matters – Speak to you accountant to see how it affects you

PPS Is Kevin Rudd the new face of the Nestle’s “Milky Bar”?

A new client contacted us out of desperation. Struggling to prepare all the documentation for the Business Activity Statement, she could not get the figures to balance.

We suggested she email us the MYOB data file, so that we could get a clearer understanding of where she was at with her bookwork. Contact us for details

She then admitted that there were two different data files being used in the office for the bookkeeping!

Here lies the problem: If you are working on the bookkeeping in one MYOB data file, and someone else is working on the bookkeeping in another data file for the same company at the same time, errors will arise - because MYOB is not designed to cater for that.

So we asked her to send us the other MYOB data file , and then we had to work out which file was the most current.

Often when clients around Stirling to Warwick, Gwelup to Balga, Inner Northern Suburbs, Perth ask us to help them with their BAS (Business Activity Statements) the problem is not with the BAS. The problem lies with somewhere within the bookkeeping process during the BAS preparation. You know the saying GIGO - garbage-in, garbage-out! The actual completion of the BAS form is the easy part.

After all, if the figures do not balance, you can simply make a general journal entry to fix it all up - right? WRONG Contact us for details

PS The ATO advises that:” if you make monthly payments, the PAYG is due on 21 January 2009, while most small businesses that report quarterly, this instalment is due on 28 February 2009
Note that as the date falls on a long weekend in some states, the lodgement and payment deadline has been extended to 3 March 2009 Australia Wide)

In a tight economy you need to ensure that you have a handle on what money you owe and to whom, and what money is owed to you and by whom.

If you do not use an accounting software package such as Quickbooks or MYOB, if you do not have a bookkeeper, or book-keeping system in place then you could be heading for disaster

Just remember, unlike Kevin Rudd’s government, you do not have an unlimited supply of cash, so as a small business owner in Stirling to Warwick, Gwelup to Balga, Inner Northern Suburbs, Perth you need to ensure that you have a handle on your cashflow. If you do not have a bookkeeper, or book-keeping system in place then contact us here for details
Read more… »

Many people are returning to work today after the Christmas / New Year break.

With lower interest rates, lower fuel prices and Kevin Rudd throwing money around like it’s burning a hole in his pocket, what is in store for 2009?

The Australian Taxation Office continue on their relentless search to hammer small business owners and squeeze every last cent out of them. Meanwhile, at the big end of town, multi-nationals and large corporations seem to get away with paying very little tax in comparison.

We’ve seen an increase in small business owners receiving the dreaded ATO letter chasing possible outstanding taxes. Maybe you’ve been a little slack in submitting your Business Activity Statements (BAS) lodgments, and need some help in preparing the paperwork to complete the returns. Contact us here for details

Next Quarterly BAS due 28 February 2009
There’ a few more weeks before the December 2008 quarter is due to be lodged, but bear in mind that the following quarter is then only due a few weeks later, 28 April 2009. It sounds like there’s plenty of time in between, but in Australia there’s a few short weeks in April with Good Friday, Easter Monday and ANZAC day

Don’t get stressed about your bookwork, leave it to professional mobile bookkeepers like us. You can outsource your bookkeeping needs, in the know;ledge that it will be taken care of in a speedy and efficient manner.

Who knows, we may even find some extra income in your business that you were not aware of. Don’t be fooled by believing that bookkeeping is an expense for your business.

Having a good bookkeeping service such as ours, can be a great asset to your business, and you’ll find that our service far exceeds the level of fees.

Smart business operators around Stirling, Warwick, Balcatta realise that an outsourced bookeeping service is an excellent investment for your small business Contact us here for details