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

Our Robina mobile bookkeeping service starts planning for the Christmas period in September.

In a certain department store in Robina Town Centre, even before we were into September, they were setting up their Christmas Decorations ready for sale.

Yes, in one way, many Robina businesses would like to be celebrating Christmas already – even if it’s just a valid reason to spend some quality time with loved ones.

There’s still around fifteen weeks to go until Christmas

For clients that utilise our Robina mobile bookeeping services, we recommend planning ahead for Christmas, because it will be here before you’re ready for it.

On the Gold Coast, Christmas tends to lead to an increase in population, and for some the festivities start in early December and continue through until the end of January

Whereas Christmas should be a time of goodwill, as we pause to consider the true meaning of this pivital event in the Christian calender, the management at Robina Town Centre are so afraid of offending the minorities that they actually offend many Christians by failing to recognise or acknowledge that Jesus is the reason for the season

After all, if Christians did not focus on the celebration, and the tradition of giving gifts, many retailers would not benefit from the increased level of shopping transactions that occur around the Christmas season

Without having your bookkeeping in order, and your cashflow forecasts upto date, Christmas can be quite stressful with the extra budren of spending that is imposed on some families.

Rather than struggle with getting your finances in order, take the first step and engage a professional Robina mobile bookkeeping service such as ours to help get your bookkeeping upto date and be able to make informed decisions about your finances over the next few weeks and months

How do you know if you’re eligible for a tax refund in Robina?

Maybe you’re having trouble getting all the paperwork finalised for your income tax returns for year ending 30 June 2010

We saw a temporary kiosk set up in Robina Town Centre to handle tax returns where there’s straight forward bookkeeping for employees

Book keeping can get tricky if your self-employed and have a number of expenses that you think can be claimed to offset your taxable income

Contacting a professional bookkeeping service can be of great benefit, though some people may regrd that as an unnecessary expense.

Consider the situation of saving a few dollars on your bookkeeping by trying to do it yourself, and paying the ATO more than you really need to.

Clients utilise our Robina mobile freelance bookeeping service because they understand the benefits of having all their paperwork in order and the potential savings when declaring their taxable income after we’ve helped them claime all their legitimate business expenses

We’re not registered tax agents and cannot advise in matters of taxation, but we can potentially save you a heap of headaches and show you ways to reduce your taxable income so that your tax agent is more informed when lodging your income tax returns

We’ve upgraded one of our Laptops to Windows7 – more like Xp than Vista. You’ve heard the wise old adage “If it ain’t broke, why fix it?”

Seems that IT techies haven’t heard that – or feel they have to make changes to justify their existence.

Back to the problem of how to print the screen image on the laptop.Using the “print Screen” key on the windows keyboard had no effect.

We then tried F13 function key – still no result. Why? Because Windows7 (and apparently Vista also) has a little application called a Snipping Tool to make capturing screen shots easier.

How to operate the Windows7 Snipping Tool
1. Find the tool by clicking on the Start Menu and typing “snipping” into the search box.
2. The Snipping Tool should be visible in the Programs list above the search box – so click on it.
3. A new window will appear on your screen , the Snipping Tool. You can move it to the edge of the screen out of your way.
4. The Snipping Tool assumes you want to create a new clipping as soon as you open it. Your screen will dim, and you can click and drag your cursor to select an area to copy. As you drag, the selected area will be darker, and surrounded by a red border if you’ve never changed the Snipping Tool options.
5. After releasing your mouse button, the captured area will open in the Snipping Tool window. If you’re not happy with the selection and need to try again, click the “New” button.
6. When you are happy with your clipping, press the second button to save the screen shot as an image file.
7. You can then paste the image into your Paint program or other graphics editing software

See, much easier than just pressing F13 …….. ????!!!!

Bookkeeping is a drudgery for many business owners in Robina, but do you realise the importance of bookkeeping in YOUR Robina business?

Recently the e-e-e-e-asy electrical store Clive peters collapsed following a $20million accounting scandal, but the demise of the company was of little surprise to many in the retail sector.

There’s some lessons that evry small business owner in Robina, Mudgeeraba, or Varsity Lakes, can learn from this episode:

Discounting
Many business owners believe that discounting their products or services is a healthy business strategy. However, whilst you may be able to survive for a short time, eventually your margins and profits become so small. Then all it takes is for a competitor to run a short campaign undercutting you and taking your clients way

How come some of the airlines manage to price cut? Well, they don’t offer everybody the cheap seats, it’s a first-come first served basis. You can be sitting beside someone who’s paid three or four times, or even ten times as much for the same flight!

Find Your Niche
Crazy as it sounds, the tighter your niche, the stronger your position, unless you’re a huge organization. Have a look at restaurants. They could most likely cook any dish that you asked them, so why do some only serve Italian, others Greek, Indian, etc? They focus on their niche and get very good at it

Debt – The Killer
Rapid expansion based on debt is very dangerous. Clive Peeters expanded their empire when times were good. Cash was freely available, and they gambled that their sales were going to continue to grow. Even when the global financial crisis hit, and our then Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, gave everybody a handout to go and buy widescreen TVs, the writing was on the wall

Bookkeeping – watching your cashflow
How many businesses would not notice a few million dollars missing from their accounts? You’ll read about bookkeepers and accountants that manage to siphon off funds from right under the noses of business owners, and that’s just one why it’s important to have a handle on your finances.

The numbers are the lifeblood of your business. Without an efficient bookkeeping system in place, how can you know where your business stands? How can you make informed decisions about buying new equipment, running marketing campaigns, employing more staff and the like?

Your bookkeeper is a critical cog in the wheel of your small business, so you should ensure that they are well suited for the position, competent, and experienced to give you the necessary information regarding the financial status of your business. Contact us RIGHT NOW for more information

QuickBooks EasyStart Lite is ideal for start-up businesses and first-time users of accounting software. It uses easy-to-understand language so special accounting knowledge is not required.

Track GST and prepare for your BAS
QuickBooks EasyStart Lite automatically calculates GST collected or paid as you enter transactions. When it’s time to lodge a Business Activity Statement, simply run a Tax Liability Report and all the figures you need for the tax office are there.

QuickBooks EasyStart Lite 2010/11 QBi series is designed for start-up businesses needing a simple accounting solution, who don’t have a large customer and supplier base. [Read more .... ]

Whether you use MYOB or Quickbooks accounting software, you may need to get an update for the new financial year 2010/11

There’s been some changes to the packaging of the MYOB products as they continue to fine tune the software. As you’ll realise they are in the business of selling and promoting their software rather than in the bookkeeping business.

Quickbooks have also brought some upgrades and changes to improve their accounting software

For more details of the new software versions, and for ordering products visit our product pages

Have you heard the bookkeeping term “Bank reconciliation“? If you’re wondering what it is, this may help you get a better understanding.

A bank reconciliation is the process of comparing and matching figures from the accounting records against those shown on a bank statement. The result is that any transactions in the accounting records not found on the bank statement are said to be outstanding.

A bank reconciliation allows companies or individuals to compare their account records to the bank’s records of their account balance in order to uncover any possible discrepancies.

Such discrepancies could include:

• cheques recorded as a lesser amount than what was presented to the bank
• money received but not lodged
• payments taken from the bank account without the business’s knowledge(eg bank fees)

A bank reconciliation done regularly can reduce the number of errors in an accounts system and make it easier to find missing purchases and sales invoices.

Here’s a simple formula that may help you :

Balance per Bank Records + Deposits in Transit – Outstanding Cheques = Correct cash balance

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) announced that their E-Record system will not be available from July 2010.

So where does that leave small business owners? There’s a free accounting software package that’s available online. For details click here

Many of our clients around Robina, Mudgeeraba, Varsity Lakes and Burleigh do not have accounting software, they simply hand us the paperwork and we prepare the bookkeeping on their behalf. Companies like MYOB and Quickbooks offer a basic software packing starting at around $50 and there are other options of free accounting software on the internet.

• Check out the free accounting software system here
• You can browse through the range of Quickbooks and MYOB software HERE
• Need MYOB or Quickbooks Training? Contact Us HERE
• Want to know if Quickbooks or MYOB is the best for your business?
  Contact Us HERE

As we all know, there ain’t such thing as a free lunch, so before you rush into a new accounting software program, have a chat with us and we’ll offer some economic solutions for your business.

Whilst the staff at Hardly Normal and similar electrical stores sell software, they know little about accounting or bookkeeping and will endeavour to sell you the most expensive package they can!

You can browse through the range of Quickbooks and MYOB software HERE or Contact Us HERE and we’ll help you determine which accounting software may be most suitable for you, to replace ATO E-Record.

Small business owners believe one way of saving money is by doing the bookkeeping themselves, or paying a spouse, friend, or relative a minimal fee to get their bookkeeping done.

Cash flow is the blood of any small business, and the control of cashflow is an important part of bookkeeping. By hiring an inexperienced bookkeeper to save the business money can often lead to failure down the track

Bookkeepers that do not have sufficient experience don’t always understand the importance of financial management in a small business, and the necessity to keep accurate and up to date accounting records. A small mistake through lack of bookkeeping experience can be extremely costly to a small business.

We’ve all heard stories about taking the car to a “cheap” mechanic, or using “fly-by-night” tradespeople. So why would you contemplate handing the lifeblood of your business over to an inexperienced bookkeeper?

Professional bookkeepers are working everyday on bookwork for a variety of small business owners. They see patterns, they notice trends, they have the benefit of experience behind them that you can take advantage of in your small business.

Business owners that have hired their spouse, friend or relative to help them out may not realise the true state of their bookkeeping until it’s too late. The accountant may not get to see the books until the end of the financial year. Indeed, many accountants are too busy to look in depth at the bookkeeping.

As professional freelance bookkeepers, we’ve come in behind “cheap” bookkeepers and have seen the devastation that’s been left behind.

Having a handle on your financial position will affect the decision making in your business. How else do you know if you can afford to replace or upgrade equipment? Or whether you can afford to employ more staff, or take on a new client?

Business owners that look at bookkeeping fees as an expense rather than an investment do not understand the full benefits of engaging professional bookkeepers. Without having a full understanding of their finances, these are the types of businesses that tend to fail within a few years, They throw away all their hard work to save a few dollars each week or month.

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) is spending upto around $800million on upgrading their computer systems, and announced that their E-Record system will not be available from July 2010.

Released E-Record in March 2000 the ATO provided E-Record – a free electronic record-keeping system, for small businesses to help them move from paper-based record keeping to commercial electronic record-keeping systems.

Want To Know Which Accounting Software To Replace ATO E-Record?

• You can browse through the range of Quickbooks and MYOB software HERE
• Need MYOB or Quickbooks Training? Contact Us HERE
• Want to know if Quickbooks or MYOB is the best for your business?
  Contact Us HERE

So where does that leave small business owners? Many of our clients do not have accounting software, they simply hand us the paperwork and we prepare the bookkeeping on their behalf. Companies like MYOB and Quickbooks offer a basic software packing starting at around $50 and there are other options of free accounting software on the internet.

As we all know, there ain’t such thing as a free lunch, so before you rush into a new accounting software program, have a chat with us and we’ll offer some economic solutions for your business. Whilst the staff at Hardly Normal and similar electrical store sell software, they know little about accounting or bookkeeping and will endeavour to sell you the most expensive package they can!

You can browse through the range of Quickbooks and MYOB software HERE