Australians love an excuse for a public holiday.

And if it falls on a Tuesday, then there’s little option but to take Monday off, and make it a long weekend!!

Enjoy yourselves, have a good time, relax, and get on with living in Australia

Thanks, girls, whoever you are. And thanks to the photographer, where ever you are – Happy Australia Day

All you had to do was to show me a little courtesy

It’s been proven that customer service is critical to maintaining a happy client base. The following was seen in the local newspaper, attributed to a reader names “The Archeologist”:

Remember me? I’m the person who goes into a restaurant, sits down patiently and waits while the waitress does everything but takes my order.

I’m the one who goes into the store and stands quietly while the counter staff finish their little chit chat.

But who else am I?

I’m the one who never comes back, and it amuses me to see you spending thousands of dollars every year to get me when I was there in the first place ….

And all you had to do was to show me a little courtesy

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.

They are telling everyone how the Rudd Government 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 and around Cockburn, Melville, Fremantle, or Canning Vale?

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.

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

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 Cockburn, Melville, Fremantle, Canning Vale business owner? Not when the head office is in Sydney, Melbourne or even 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 whch will in-turn help your small business

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

Often it’s a simple mistake made because you are in a hurry, or panic about a particular order that you have to fulfil. Contact us for more information

We can all make mistakes in the course of our business day, whether you’re based in Cockburn, Melville, Fremantle, Canning Vale, and South Perth, good bookkeeping is an important part of your business.

9 tips to avoid paying the same invoice twice

Here’s nine tips to ensure that you and / or your bookkeeper never pay the same invoice twice:

1 Always make a payment from an invoice, and not a statement
The statement may not take into account a recent payment that you have made

When you look at the supplier statement and see the total outstanding amount you may get feelings of guilt and pay the whole amount showing on that statement

2. Have your book – keeper keep your accounting up to date.
By entering all payments and invoices regularly into the system before you pay your invoices, you can match the statements and outstanding invoices with your bookkeeping system quickly

3.Set aside a specific day for paying your bills.
You can ask your bookkeeper for a report of outstanding bills, or simply have a folder marked “Bills to pay”
So if you receive a statement, place it in the folder, and on the assigned bill payment day, you can match any outstanding bills with the statement

4. Use Purchase Orders and keep delivery dockets
Often small business owners may get their purchase orders and delivery dockets mixed up. In some cases your supplier may use the invoice as a delivery docket, and then send you another copy of the same invoice when requesting payment.

So, if you are not diligent, you can easily find yourself paying the same invoice twice thinking that they were two separate invoices.

5. Do not make a payment based on a phone call.
In a slower economy, when everybody is chasing payments from everybody else, it’s easy to make a payment based on a phone call from a supplier. Just because they are chasing a payment, it does not mean that a particular invoice is still outstanding

6. No invoice – no payment
Just as we suggest to our business owners that they shouldn’t pay any staff claims for cash reimbursements without a proof of purchase, neither should you make a supplier payment without an invoice in your hand

7. A Delivery Docket is not the same as an invoice
Your supplier may issue a numbered delivery docket with prices included, but it’s not a tax invoice. Ensure that your bookkeeper does not enter the delivery docket as an invoice, as well as entering the invoice relating to the same order. If they can’t find the invoice, then ask the supplier to issue a copy of the invoice

8. Reconcile your bank accounts each month
At the same time you should get a report of suppliers invoices and reconcile them against your suppliers statements
If the two do not balance, then your bookkeeper may have entered an invoice twice. Once you’ve paid your supplier twice, it’s not always so simple to get a refund

9. Enter suppliers invoices into your accounting system
By ensuring your have suppliers invoices entered, you can quickly check for duplicate in voice numbers, which may warn you that you’ve entered an invoice twice

Contact us for more information

We salute all those that make enormous contributions to the country in their own small way, but because they are not well known sports people, musicians or film stars nobody seems to want to honour them.

[would the Australia Day honours be political?]

Without Australia’s anonymous heroes this nation would not be what it is today!

This year Australia Day falls on a Monday, so the nation gets a long weekend!

Happy “Australia Day” Australia! Let’s just party!

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 Fremantle, Melville, and South Perth, Canning Vale, 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 Fremantle, Melville, and South Perth, Canning Vale 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 Fremantle, Melville, and South Perth, Canning Vale 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 covering Fremantle, Melville, and South Perth, Canning Vale, and we can come in and tidy up the mess that has accumulated over the past few months.

Contact us for details