A No Fuss Guide to Book Keeping and Budgeting!

It's That Time Of Year Again.........June Tips

2011-06-02T02:30:00.000-07:00

What are some of the practical things that I like to think about in June, ready for the end of financial year?

1. Send out statements as early in June as possible to all your customers to try to encourage customers to fully pay their account before year end;
2. Review whether your business needs to purchase any big ticket items, that is assets over $300.00, for your business that can gain a depreciation benefit this year eg. office equipment, computers/laptops, tools of trade;
3. Ensure that you have all your creditor invoices before 30th June for items that may otherwise arrive from 1st July so that you can claim this year rather than next;
4. Ensure that you have all your bank statements reconciled;
5. Ensure that you are up to date with your BAS lodgements;
6. Pay any Memberships or Subscriptions in advance including insurance policies if you haven't already;
7. If you employ staff, ensure that your payroll records are up to date as you will need to prepare 'Payment Summaries' (aka Group Certificates) after 30th June;
8. Check you are up to date with your Superannuation Contributions (SGC) for employees, if you can afford personally, consider making a Personal Contribution to your Superfund before the end of the financial year;
9. Ask your accountant if there is anything you should be doing before 30th June?

If you are not on track with your record keeping - ask The BookSitters, we are here to help!!

Happy New Year and Happy Record Keeping

2011-01-18T04:42:00.000-08:00

Well, I am nearly 3/4's of the way through completing my Certificate IV in Book Keeping. Despite having a Degree in Business, this is essential to conform to the new regulations for book keeping effective as from 1st March 2010. All subcontract book keepers must be able to prove certain qualifications and experience to be able to offer such a service. I had a friend comment that such regulations were simply the governments way of putting another tax on people trying to do a job and earn an income. I say not so. Book Keeping is an essential service and a position of trust and I welcome any changes that protect small business and ensure that they get a professional and well qualified person to do a fit and proper job. We are talking about people's business....their livelihood...their babies.......their future in many cases and sometimes their families future.

I was shocked to hear at a recent ATO Seminar that apparantely some 40% of small business (ie under $2 million a year turnover) have no form of official record keeping. That is, they do not know their current expenses, sales or budget or plan any of their financial matters. I call that.....'Trading in the Dark'. This is certainly setting ones self up to fail!!

We had a planning session before we started back after the Christmas break and developed a very simple 3 page plan which outlined how we would be managing the business over the year, what our objectives were and how we were going to get there. I recommend this for all business - start the year by determining where your focus will be and the path that you will take.

If you don't keep clear, concise and well documented records on the financial state of your business so that you have a budget to work to and an understanding of how your business is tracking against that budget each step of the way.....you are not giving your business - absolutely best chance of success that you can. If you need help, call in The BookSitters.......

Lead Up to Christmas

2010-12-05T01:49:00.000-08:00

The lead up to Christmas is always a busy time for book keepers. Trying to finalise all our clients books as current as possible as soon after the new year it will be time to prepare Quarter 2 BAS for 10/11 and lodge with the ATO.

It is also a busy time as many of our clients with Payroll will need holiday leave and loading worked out for their staff and will want to know budgeting wise how much they need to put aside from the companies revenue to cover these additional costs.

Remember to make sure that someone within the organisation prepares leave records for each individual staff member so that entitlements can be worked out. These must be signed off by the owner or manager of the business prior to payment and of course confirmed with the employee involved.

BAS Agent Registration

2010-08-01T19:22:00.001-07:00

Any book keeper who wishes to provide a BAS service for a fee, or indeed code expenses and provide a book keeping service where decision are made in relation to GST must be registered as a BAS Agent. This was implemented on 1st March 2010. It is of course a good thing as it provides protection to business and individuals seeking the services of a book keeper without necessarily understanding themselves the skill set of a compliant book keeper.

The BookSitters have lodged applications to become BAS Agents for both the Company The Sitters Pty Ltd and our book keeping staff as individuals. I lodged our applications in early April and have just received confirmation of both my registration (Justine Day) and Michele Gorman (co owners of The Sitters Pty Ltd). We are more than happy to provide our Registration Numbers for verification where required to our clients, potential clients or clients Accountant.

Do You Run Payroll

2010-06-17T06:31:00.000-07:00

A note on the upcoming end of financial year 2009/10. If you are using a computerised system for running your Payroll, like MYOB, make sure that you have the latest version loaded ready for your first payroll run post 1st July 2010 - tax tables are changing and if you are running old software, your PAYG Liabiliies may not be correct. This is an issue for both your business and your employees take home pay calculations.

Remember that the ATO requires Payment Summaries (aka Group Certificates) to be issued to staff by 14th July 2010 and that Annual PAYG Payment Summary Statements are to be lodged to the ATO by 14th August 2010, this is an orange form the ATO provides for your business which totals all wages and PAYG for the year withheld by your business and is a means of the ATO reconciling the Payment Summaries provided to individuals verses what is reported by business.

There is a step by step process that must be completed prior to rolling over a new payroll year to obtain this information. A new payroll year must be rolled to run wages post 1st July, however, Payment Summaries and various payroll reporting MUST be completed first as it cannot be done retrospectively once rolled. If your business needs assistance, we would be happy to help.

End of Financial Year Approaches

2010-05-23T18:29:00.000-07:00

Well I can hardly believe that it is just 8 days away from the 1st of June....,meaning 4 weeks away from the end of another financial year. This year seems to me to have gone even quicker than usual. Maybe its because our business has been growing and we have been able to look after more business' book keeping needs??

Now is a great time to have a good look at the state of your financials and in particular, if you are on a Cash System, look at putting a plan into action to pay for as much of your supplies as possible and clear out the Accounts Payable (Trade Creditors) for the start of the new year....and in the same way.....get as many of your customers to pay for your services as possible Accounts Receivable (or your Trade Debtors).

Another thing to think about for the start of the new financial year....is ensuring that your Tax Codes are all correct in your MYOB file ready for your Accountant to lodge the final Quarter BAS with any end of year adjustments and that all your accounts can be reconciled successfully. This is not always the case if your BAS has not been lodged by a registered BAS Agent or Accountant. That is, not just your bank accounts and credit cards, but your Trade Creditors, Trade Debtors and BAS accounts too.

If you are not sure if this is the case in your business, we would be happy to assist. Putting these things in action before the end of the finanical year means that your books can be forwarded to your accountant quicker and cleaner post the end of the financial year.

New Legislative Changes

2010-03-04T14:57:00.000-08:00

There are a number of new legislative changes that become effective from 1st March 2010 with the purpose of regulating the Book Keeping industry.

We believe this is a good thing and support these legislative changes.

For example, when utilsing a sub-contractor book keeper, you should make sure that:

1. They provide you with a 'Letter of Engagement' so that you know the service that you are going to be provided with and the fees associated with this;
2. They have Professional Indemnity & Public Liability Insurance Cover;
3. They have the necessary skills, experience and qualifications to provide you with a professional book keeping service;
4. Your BAS should be completed by a Registered BAS Agent.

We are aiming to keep up to date with these legislative changes to make sure that we are ahead of things through the various bodies of interest like AAT (Association of Accounting Technican's Australia) and The Institute of Certified Book Keepers.

What the.........how many years did you say it was since you last did your tax?

2009-08-14T05:15:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how many clients we get coming to us with boxes of receipts, unpaid bills, outstanding customer invoices needing a lot of help to get their businesses' books back on track......and that's just the way we like it.

Book Keeping isn't everyone's forte, and sometimes there just arn't enough hours in the day to do everything. We're banking on it, because Michele Gorman aka Tiny and I (Justine Turner Day) absolutely love getting our clients 100% organised and feeling on top of the world and in control of their business.

This is a blog that we have started to share our experiences and book keeping and budgeting tips with you. It's our online version of a newsletter that we can update whenever we like and you can check-in with us whenever you like - even post us a question and we will be only too happy to try to assist wherever we can. Talk later....