Bookkeeping: Robina Bookkeepers, Gold Coast0415 453 536 – MYOB,Quickbooks, Robina, Varsity Lakes, Reedy Creek and Mudgeeraba

Do You Have Five Minutes to Expand Your Business?

Often our MYOB and QuickBooks bookkeeping clients are so busy involved working in their business that they tell us, their bookkeepers, that they’ve no time to work on their business.

Here’s a simple habit that you can form and stick to everyday. Then watch the results. All you need is five minutes.

Can you find 5 minutes to at least one of these things to expand your business?

• Send a quick note / email to a prospect, colleague, friend or acquaintance.
• Invite a friend or business associate to lunch for next week–even if they cannot go, spend a few minutes “just catching up.”
• Scan the local paper and jot a little note of “Congrats” to someone you recognize.
• Have a look at your diary. Think of another opportunity to develop with a client you saw yesterday, then follow up with your client.
• Call someone whose project you’ll be starting in the next two weeks and tell them you’re looking forward to seeing or working with them again. Ask how they’ve been.

If you’re looking for some more ideas Contact us

Struggling with your Business Activity Statement (BAS) lodgment?

You can email your MYOB / Quickbooks data file and we can do any adjustments and even lodge the BAS on your behalf

It’s time for the Business Activity Statements to be lodged! They are due in 28 days, and things get pretty hectic for bookkeepers in the weeks before the BAS are due for lodgment with the Australian Taxation Office (ATO)

We get enquiries from small – to medium sized businesses (SME’s) as they suddenly realise that the paperwork is all too much, and they need help in getting the bookkeeping upto date on time.

Many bookkeepers will be fully booked in the weeks leading up to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) deadline, and so last minute requests from clients can take some juggling of the calendar.

So when new clients contact us wanting urgent help, they need to get back to us with the same urgency to secure our services.

We rarely have to turn new clients away – as we have an excellent network of bookkeepers who we can call on to help out in times of need.

If you are needing a bookkeeper for the Business Activity Statement (BAS) lodgment that is due 28 October, then contact us right now so that we can schedule some time for you.

Remember, it’s never too late – and we may even be able to get an extension to the deadline on your behalf

David Finkel has some ideas on how to thrive in today’s tough economy…

Tip One: Use this as a chance to lean your business and personal S-Factors™.

Your S-Factor is your cost of living, or in the case of your business, your business’s cost of operating. Now is a perfect time to look closely at your expenses and trim, cut, prune, and diminish where you can.

This might include negotiating with your vendors for better pricing… Or getting on a better calling plan with your cell phone provider (a friend of mine saved close to $1,100 a year by consolidating all his family’s cell phones to a better plan.)

Take a look at your real estate’s tax assessments. If the values have dropped, how about petitioning for them to lower your assessment. I’m in the process of doing this one on two of my properties and hope to have it save me about $7,000 a year!

Tip Two: Forget about your expenses.

I know this one contradicts tip one, but what I mean is once you’ve made your cuts, don’t obsess about them. If you live your life immersed in stressing over your expenses you’ll never create the financial successes you want.

Instead, spend some concentrated time getting your spending in alignment with your best interests, and then focus all your working attention on growth–growing your business, finding great investments.

You’ll want to regularly review your expenses, but don’t lose sight of the fact that you need to play offense too!

Tip Three: Reach out to your peer group.

In tough times it’s quite common that people withdraw and go it alone. This is not only painful and lonely, but downright dumb.

It’s in tough times that your peers need you. Together you can keep your focus on the positive, on what you can do to move forward towards your goals, and to hold each other accountable for any “stinking thinking”.

Of course this assumes that you have a positive peer group of doers. If not, I URGE you to do whatever it takes to create one. Whether that be join your local business club, or attend our October 25-26th Financial Fluency workshop and network with 150 of the nicest people you’ll ever meet, or join our online community at Maui Mastermind® Online. You need to get yourself around positive and ambitious doers.

Tip Four: Focus on creating value and serving others.

No matter what is going on in the world you will always be rewarded in direct proportion to the value and service you share with the world. So focus on creating value, and on serving others.

Not only will this help you shift your focus to positive places you can make a difference, but it will also stabilize your position and ultimately help you grow your business and investments.

Tip Five: Remember to give thanks.

You are already a HUGE winner in life’s economic lottery. You live in an abundant society. You will never have to go hungry or sleep without shelter.

You have people who you love and who love you.

Take time to DAILY focus on the 10 things you are most grateful for, and where appropriate, tell the other people how you feel to have them sharing your life.

Article Source:David Finkel – InvestorFastTrack.com

We were approached by a client who’s been using her accountant to do her bookkeeping!

The accountant had set up everything for her, but things had got out of hand. We organised for one of our bookkeepers to go and see her, and let us sort out the mess.

In her wisdom, she decided that she’d speak to her accountant before we started. Then she came back to us explaining that the accountant would look after everything.

Maybe she doesn’t realise that accountants too outsource bookkeepers, and then add a nice little (big) markup to add to their profits – so the client actually ends up paying more fees for less work.

Anything that you can do that will save them time, such as keeping your books in good shape, will save you money.

You can dramatically reduce your accountant’s bills by taking care of your own day-to-day finances.

Ever wondered why your accountants’ eyes light up when you present them with a shoebox full of dockets at the end of the financial year?

The accountants will charge their time to you and pay bookkeepers rates to get the work done. So the accountant has just made a very nice profit from a business owner who desperately needs to tighten up business operating costs.

If you’ve been told that hiring a bookkeeper is expensive, then contact us for a free appraisal of your bookeeping needs

You’ve bought MYOB because your mate in Robina said that was the accounting software he was using. Now what?

It’s like buying a car, but not being able to drive. When you learn to drive, do you really need to know how the car works, or how many revs, or where to put the oil in the car?

Most people just want to get in the car and drive – with a goal of getting from Mudgeeraba to Burleigh (or wherever).

Most business owners do not have the time or the inclination to attend a MYOB course

Accounting software is much the same: you don’t need to know how it all works, you simply want to be able to enter invoices, receipts and spit out a few reports whenever required. That’s why many people contact us, and we teach them how to do the basics to learn MYOB for their business

Yes, you can go to TAFE and attend a MYOB training course if you so desire. Most business owners do not have the time or the inclination to attend a MYOB course. All they want is to know how to do the basics of bookkeeping to ensure they have a handle on their finances.

Smart business operators appreciate the benefits of outsourcing their bookkeeping requirements, so they’ll just do the minimum to keep on top of the bookwork, and have the bookkeeper can come in and do the rest. Contact us for details.

Ask many small business owners and operators around Robina and Varsity Lakes, and they’ll tell you that outsourcing your bookkeeping saves in wages, overhead cost and it’s a giant step in freeing up valuable time.

For many owners, just the effort of hiring, training and managing a bookkeeper can take as much as 5 hours a week and if you’re doing the books yourself the numbers are even worse.

Spend Time on what you do best, and we’ll do the rest!”

As a business owner you understand that your time is best spent doing what you do well — working with customers, and running your business.

Do you think that you’ll lose control of your business / finances, if you outsource the bookkeeping? In a properly designed system the bookkeeper only takes over the process of tracking transactions such as sales, accounts payable and balancing the books, but only the business owner makes management decisions.

If you have great books or pretty sloppy books for the most part your customers never know. A generally accepted rule in business is to focus resources on tasks that add value to the customer relationship.

Time spent on bookkeeping problems add little or no value to your customer relationship

Books that are inaccurate or do not reflect the true health of your business provide no clue to managing your business.

Being clueless at any level about where you are making money or who is a good customer is not being in control. Cash flow is never a problem in business it is a symptom of other problems, an outsourced bookkeeper can provide the answers and you will end up with more control of your business.

Outsourcing your bookkeeper solves the problem of hiring
Good bookkeepers with knowledge of accounting software are hard to hire, expensive to keep and in some cases difficult to manage.

In most cases outsourcing will save you money as well. The most common pricing structure for outsourced bookkeeping is to charge 10% to 20% less than the current bookkeepers salary. Not only do you save on salary but also you have no overhead, management, hiring or training cost when using an outsourced service. The overall annual savings can be up to 50%.

The most successful businesses of today have gone to outsourcing and now have time and money to spend on differentiating themselves in the marketplace.The most common reasons management chooses to outsource certain business processes are to reduce operating costs, improve company focus, improve quality, free up capital, increase capabilities not otherwise available and to reduce cycle time. If a buyer cannot receive an improved economic position as a result, then it should not outsource.

The decision to outsource can be an easy one. If there is a company or individual that can do it better, faster, and cheaper than you, then you do not want to keep the work in house. Outsourcing has become an accepted business tool worldwide.

By turning over business processes to companies that consider these tasks their core competency, organizations now have the ability to become more profitable, more efficient and far more competitive by focusing on the tasks that are most important.

A good bookkeeping system is recording Expenses and Income in appropriate accounts

As mobile bookkeepers servicing Robina, Varsity Lakes, Reedy Creek, Burleigh and Mudgeeraba, we are often asked how we can be of benefit to the small business owner.

Bookkeeping can be seen as an unnecessay expense by some business owners, whereas for others, it’s seen an essential part of their business.

Very often it comes down to a lack of understanding, or full appreciation of what book-keepers actually do, and how bookeeping benefits businesses in Robina, Varsity Lakes, Reedy Creek, Burleigh and Mudgeeraba.

The basic building block to a good bookkeeping system is recording expenses and income in appropriate accounts.

The tricky part is to make certain that whoever enters the data understands the true nature of each and every expense, and is able to put it in its right place. Contact us NOW for a free appraisal of your bookkeeping system

Data Entry
Businesses need to have up to date and accurate account of their business income and expenses. While concentrating on their core business, financial record keeping can easily become overwhelming for many business owners. Out of date or poorly prepared records can actually hinder their business.

Professionally prepared financial records provide powerful information tools that enable better management of the business.

These records and reports enhance any interactions with accountants and financial institutions, so the business owner has an accurate picture of the financial status to make better business decisions.

In any business, money comes in, and money goes out. Generally money that comes in (Income) is through sales of goods, products, or through providing a service (i.e being paid to do a job such as bookkeeping, for a client).

Need help with your bookkeeping?
Contact us NOW for a free appraisal of your bookkeeping system

Other money that may come in to a business could be through loans from the business owner (private funds), the Bank or financial institution, Grants or capital injection from other sources.

Money that comes out of the business can fall into a number of different categories also. This money may be classed as expenses, including purchasing raw materials / components/ products all involved in making up the goods being sold. Other reasons that money comes out of the business maybe for personal use (Drawings), wages or to pay back loans.

This is where a basic understanding of accounting is very important, and it is the where the skills of bookkeeping are truly recognised.

Not all businesses are the same, and where an item may be seen as an expense in one business (i.e cutlery for a catering business) would more likely be a personal expense in another business (i.e an electrician buying cutlery would most unlikely be using that cutlery to further his business).

When the tax office (ATO) comes to audit a business, claims for items that are not business related can result in heavy fines. A recent example has been with the Australian Taxation Office scrutinising owners of investment properties that have been making purchases for materials used in their family home and claiming them as a deduction for their investment properties.

Clients will often fill their work vehicle with fuel at a service station, and then buy confectionary, bread, milk and other grocery items at the same time, all in a single transaction. When that transaction is recorded, the bookkeeper must ensure that only the fuel component of the transaction is recorded as a business expense, and the other items would be reflected as a personal expense, (i.e Drawings).

Incorrect data entry would not only misrepresent the total spent on fuel at the end of the reporting period (which would affect calculations in costings and future budgeting) but it would also affect the total “Cost of Goods Sold” and “Profit and Loss” figures.

Contact us NOW for a free appraisal of your bookkeeping system

Gone are the days when a “cash business” could hide earnings – thanks to Bill Gates and others in Silicon Valley, the ATO now has sophisticated data matching software.

They can compare similar businesses and create reports showing “average” turnover for a particluar business, and then cross-check against the tax return / BAS lodgment of that business.

It would be a huge job to be a bookkeeper for the Australian Taxation Office. During 2006/07 the Australian Government collected $135billion from individuals, and paid out $17billion in tax refunds

It’s no surprise that the ATO has so many more resources now than in days gone by for extracting every tax dollar from individuals and small businesses.

As bookkeepers, it seems most days we are working for the Australian Taxation Office, yet being contracted to small businesses in and around Robina / Varsity Lakes / Reedy Creek area.

During the period 2006/07 the ATO collected $40billion in GST, so of course the ATO is going to be doing everything within its means to ensure that every tax dollar is accurately reported.

Can A Business Hide Cash in Bookkeeping?
You may have a Car Wash business in Robina, or you may be an electrician in Reedy Creek, doing cash jobs. The ATO can make a reasonable estimate of your tax liabilities and then come along and audit your books.

If the records appear to be disorganised, it will take the ATO longer to look through them. The longer they take, the more they will see, and the more questions they will ask.

If you can present them with an organised and tidy bookkeeping system, they are less likely to ask too many questions.

Whether you use MYOB or Quickbooks, or maybe you do not have any accounting software or even any bookkeeping system in place, then contact us NOW for an initial FREE consultation

In the last two days we’ve had calls from small business owners who understand that they cannot do everything that needs to be done to keep their business going.

The cost of hiring a bookkeeper may seem expensive until you consider the cost of trying to do the bookkeeping yourself. Contact us now for a free quote

One client had their brother-in-law set up the chart of accounts and show our client how to do the bookwork. That can work well sometimes, and can be a total disaster for others. Costly mistakes can occur by not setting up your bookkeeping system correctly, through giving an incorrect reflection of your business profit and loss, or incorrect calculations of the GST that is owed

As we fast approach the deadline for the September Quarter BAS returns, business owners begin to panic and search for quick solutions to their bookkeeping.

If you’ve been doing your own books and are not sure about how to complete the BAS, you can Contact us now.

We have clients that email us their MYOB / Quickbooks files and we can sort them out and submit the BAS electronically. If you are not sure whether you’ve done the data entry correctly, Contact us now and we’ll have a look over your data files.

Not only can we save you in accounting fees, we may also save you in your GST liabilities – after all, you can probably put the money to better use than the Australian Taxation Office, can’t you?

Struggling with your BAS?

You can email your MYOB / Quickbooks data file and we can do any adjustments and even lodge the BAS on your behalf

In a few weeks the Business Activity Statements are due to be lodged! Things get pretty hectic for bookkeepers in the weeks before the BAS are due for lodgment

We get enquiries from small – to medium sized businesses (SME’s) in and around Robina, Mudgeeraba, Varsity Lakes and Burleigh, as they suddenly realise that the paperwork is all too much, and they need help in getting the bookkeeping upto date on time.

Many bookkeepers will be fully booked in the weeks leading up to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) deadline, and so last minute requests from clients can take some juggling of the calendar.

So when new clients contact us wanting urgent help, they need to get back to us with the same urgency to secure our services.

We rarely have to turn new clients away – as we have an excellent network of bookkeepers who we can call on to help out in times of need.

If you are needing a bookkeeper for the BAS lodgment that is due 28 October, then contact us right now so that we can schedule some time for you.

Remember, it’s never too late – and we may even be able to get an extension to the deadline on your behalf