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

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 Robina, Varsity Lakes, Burleigh or Mudgeeraba, 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

As the economy weakens, we’ve noticed an increasing number of potential clients that are phoning around “getting prices” for their bookkeeping.

When times get tough, and cash-flow slows right down, looking for a cheap bookkeeper may not be the easiest task. Where do you go, and how do you find a cheap bookkeeper?

Over a cup of coffee recently we started looking at the benefits of a small business owner engaging a cheap bookkeeper to look after their bookeeping.

So, we came up with ten possible benefits of a cheap bookkeeper. We must stress that occasionally you’ll come across a very experienced bookkeeper who is charging out their services far too cheaply, in which case the following points will most likely not be applicable:

1) The first benefit of a cheap bookkeeper is that you’ll save money on bookkeeping fees

2) You’ll have a warm, fuzzy feeling, and the satisfaction of knowing that you’ll most likely be sponsoring a bookkeeper to learn how to do bookkeeping

3) You’ll enjoy the company of your bookkeeper for longer as s/he chats all day instead of getting the work done

4) You’ll have someone to answer the phones and do some admin work for you, as your bookkeeper hasn’t got (m)any other clients to rush to

5) You’ll not be surprised when your phone starts ringing with suppliers complaining that they haven’t been paid, or customers complaining that they’ve been billed twice

6) You may get some friendly phone calls from your accountant who’s generated a long list questions relating to your P & L and / or balance sheets

7) Many months down the track you’ll discover that what appear to be a perfect set of books have many hidden entries because the bookkeeper couldn’t make the figures balance without some creative bookkeeping

8 ) When the Australian Taxation Office decide to undertake an audit, your bookkeeper will pass out because suddenly s/he will have been caught out

9) You can sit back satisfied that you’ve got yourself a bookkeeper at half the rate, so you’ve more money to pay your accountant or another bookkeeper to come in and fix up the mess made by the first bookkeeper

10) In a few more months you’ll have a new challenge of letting your bookkeeper go as you repeat the whole process of seeking a reputable bookkeeper

Ask yourself this question: Are you willing to reduce the value of your good / services to pick up new business? The idea that undercutting your competitors to increase the market share can work short term, but is it sustainable over a medium or longer term? You know too well, that if you buy cheap, you expect to receive cheap. Consider how much your business is worth for you to know where you are financially week by week and month by month.

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

As a small business owner in Robina, Varsity Lakes, or Reedy Creek, 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 servicing the Burleigh to Nerang area of the Gold Coast, 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 on the Gold Coast, 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.

With the BAS (Business Activity Statement) due on 3 March 2009, if you don’t want to pay the ATO more than is absolutely necessary, then contact our Robina mobile bookeeping service 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. However, in Western Australia there’s a public holiday on 2 March, whilst they all get over the Hopman Cup and presumably still recover from the aftermath of the Australian Open

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 our Robina mobile book-keeping service right now so we can help you out