Fremantle Bookkeeping Services

As bookkeepers servicing the Fremantle area, we are often asked: “What Bookkeeping Records Does the ATO Need?”.

When a business gets started, the first thing you should do is to make sure that you keep track of all the costs involved in setting up you business, so that you can set up a book-keeping system correctly from day one.

If you need some help in establishing your bookeeping, then contact us right now.

What’s become a nightmare for her, is a bookkeeper’s dream

A new Cockburn bookkeeping client has been running her graphic design business for over a year operating on one bank account for everything. What’s become a nightmare for her, is a bookkeeper’s dream, using the same bank account for both her personal and business expenses. That makes our job as mobile book keepers in the Fremantle area quite a challenge. We have to ask her which items on her bank account relate to business, and which are personal.

What Bookkeeping Records Do You Need?
The type of business you operate affects the type of records you need to keep for ATO purposes. You should have your bookkeeper set up your books using an accounting method that clearly shows your income for your selected tax year.

From a bookkeeping viewpoint there are a few basic bookkeeping matters that every small business owners should focus on to reduce the fees you will otherwise have to pay your bookkeeper or accountant

Depending on your business, whether you are located in Canning Vale or South Perth, you should get into a habit of keeping records daily

• Identify the source income that you’ve received
• Ensure you keep your dockets for expenses, and a note of any petty cash expenses
• Keep a record of all your assets

The Australian Taxation Office requires you have supporting documentation such as invoices and receipts for all transactions incurred in running your business such as purchases and sales. You might generate invoices electronically using an accounting software package such as MYOB or Quickbooks, or you may hand write your invoices using an invoice book Read more… »

Every small business owner in and around Cockburn, Melville, Fremantle, Canning Vale, and South Perth, Western Australia needs to keep bookkeeping records for the ATO.

Why? Because it’s a legal requirement. If you want help with setting up a book-keeping system, then contact us now

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) requires you to keep business records:

• for five years after they are prepared, obtained or the transactions completed (whichever occurs later), and
• in English, or in a form that the ATO can access and understand in order to determine your tax liability.

Whether your business is in Fremantle of Melville, you should keep records Read more… »

The importance of Book keeping: Here’s 10 Tips that businesses in and around Cockburn, Melville, Fremantle, Canning Vale, and South Perth, Australia can use to help manage 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

For example, 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.

It doesn’t take much for a property developer to collapse 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… »

Bookkeeping records the flow of money in and money coming out of your business. A fundamental factor of any healthy small businesses in and around Cockburn, Melville, Fremantle, Canning Vale, and South Perth, Australia, is whether there is more money flowing in, than is flowing out.

Tracking the flow of money in and out of your business occurs through the recording of each transaction by the person responsible for your bookkeeping. Contact us NOW and we’ll help you determine whether there is more money flowing in, than is flowing out of your business.

In basic terms there are four sources of income, and four reasons why money flows out of your business.

Depending on your business, income is generated through the sale of goods and services, or the sale of business assets. Other sources of income can be through loans to the business, either from yourself, or money that you have borrowed from relatives, friends, or formal channels such as financial institutions.

There are very few businesses that incur no expenses to generate the income. Thus money flowing out of your business will be to pay bills for overheads, such as power, telecommunications, rent, wages etc.

Other expenses include buying or replacing assets to run the business. Then there’s your remuneration, as drawings etc, and also your business may lend money to others.

The recording of each transaction by your bookkeeper is critical to protect all parties concerned. Each transaction should be supported by the appropriate documents. When the Australian Taxation Office decides to audit your business, they will often need to see all your supporting documentation.

Your bookkeeper needs to ensure that all the documentation is filed in such a way that it can be easily traced. Each transaction recorded in the bookkeeping system should be supported by the relevant documentation also.

Consider the day that a piece of equipment fails, and you wonder if it’s still under warranty. Your bookkeeper should be able to tell you when you bought the equipment, how you paid for it, and also be able to located the documentation relevant to that equipment.

A logical and ordered filing system is just as important as the balance sheet or P & L reports for your business. For more information or a free appraisal of your bookkeeping system, contact one of our Cockburn, Melville, Fremantle bookkeepers NOW, and we’ll help you determine whether there is more money flowing in, than is flowing out of your business.

Bookkeeping: Are you prepared for the end of the financial year? Before you realise, Easter will be upon us, then we’ll be in a new fiscal 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

How bad do you feel when you’ve realised that you’ve paid a supplier’s invoice twice?

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

Would you get a Bank Loan if you had no way of repaying the debt?

As a small business owner, what response would you get from the Bank when you asked them for a loan with absolutely no plan to pay the debt back?

As freelance bookkeepers, we are often asked to get the bookwork upto date for small business owners. Preparing the Profit and Loss Reports, ensuring the balance sheet is correct, so that the small business owner can seek extra capital to develop their business. Contact us for more information

If you have no plan, if you cannot prepare a budget to show how the debt will be repaid, what are the chances of you getting finance from the bank?

The Federal Government’s monetary policy has been totally misunderstood

Obviously the situation is very different when you run the country. You can stand up in Parliament in Canberra, with a majority of “yes men” behind you, and share your monetary policy with the nation.

To give Kevin Rudd full benefit, we should point out that the Federal Government’s monetary policy has been totally misunderstood. How silly of us not to realize that in fact it’s a “money-tree” policy.

Rudd, and Swann seem to have a money tree in their back yard, and at the sniff of any trouble they can turn to their money-tree policy and throw the country into more debt.

Everybody is wondering how effective Government’s $10.4 billion spending package before Christmas has been!

Many economists predict that the recession has a long way to go. So the Rudd Labor Government reckons the best way out of this situation is to spend money that he hasn’t got – Is that how his family have amassed a $millions fortune?

For those small business owners that can remember the previous “Recession we had to have”, you’ll know that the previous Labour Government left a legacy of $96 billion in government debt and the Budget had been in deficit for six successive years.

It only took the Australian people a decade to repay this debt (after selling off much of the family jewels in commodities.

According to the Kevin Rudd, the simple solution to Australia’s current problems is to demand that all us hard working Australians to agree to plunge headlong back into large deficits and significant debt, to the tune of $9500 for every Australian.

Well, they say”: If you’ve got it, flaunt it!” If you don’t have it, and you happen to run a country, then just create it! The Labour Government’s Money-Tree policy seems to be to throw Australia deeper into debt with a poorly considered and ineffective $42 billion “fiscal stimulus” package.

Meanwhile Malcolm Turnbull (who’s always quick to look for an opportunity to improve his popularity) is pushing for the Australian Government to bring forward the proposed tax cuts currently scheduled for 1 July 2009 and 1 July 2010 be brought forward, and backdated to 1 January this year.

By the middle of 2010 this would leave a two-income household earning $80,000 approximately $1700 better off.

As a hard working Australian, and small business owner, you must have a real “warm and fuzzy” feeling knowing that your taxes are being so wisely invested while you struggle to make ends meet.

If you need help with your BAS, and don’t want to pay the ATO more than is absolutely necessary, then contact us right now so we can help you out

The December Quarter 2009 (Q2) Business Activity Statement is due on 3 MARCH 2009

If you’re hoping to get an extension, you’ve got buckleys as the Australian Taxation Office have already given you an extension from 28 January to 3 March.

Really, you’ve got an extension on the extension, since the ATO normally ask for the BAS lodgment to be submitted by 28 February, which this year falls on a Saturday,

If your chart of accounts is not set up correctly, or the allocations are incorrect, you could find yourself believing that you owe Wayne Swan far more than you need.

So the next business day would be 2 March 2009, except that we’ve got a public holiday here in Western Australia, so the ATO has moved the deadline to 3 March 2009

Do you need help with your BAS lodgment?
We get many frantic calls from clients who are struggling to complete their Business Activity Statements. The few weeks leading up to the BAS deadline can be very hectic for freelance bookkeepers

Our mobile bookkeepers can come to your premises, or even better, you can simply send us your data files and we can review your work, run a few reports and make sure that you’ve got all the figures in the correct allocations.

Business Activity Statements can appear daunting. What many small business owners do not realise is that the completion of the BAS form is not where the problems can be. Where the challenge may in fact be, is the fact that the data entry is not correct.

Maybe you’ve been down to your local computer supply store and bought your accounting software at a Hardly Normal Sale. You’ve rushed home and wacked the CD into your PC and then followed the prompts thinking that everything will fall rapidly into place

If your chart of accounts is not set up correctly, or the allocations are incorrect, you could find yourself believing that you owe Wayne Swan far more than you need. And rest assured, our illustrious Treasurer will soon find a way of spending other people’s money. He’s had many years of experience at that as a Trade Unionist

If you need help with your BAS, and don’t want to pay the ATO more than is absolutely necessary, then contact us right now so we can help you out

Congratulations to all those Australians honoured for Australia Day

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!

Can A Financial Planner Do Bookkeeping? Well, the one that contacted us enquiring about a local freelance bookkeeping services was looking for help. 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 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 detailsRead more… »