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Business Activity Statements (BAS), for business owners reporting quarterly, are due on 28 July 2009.

For many small business owners, and especially for their bookkeepers, July is always a busy time of year in the northern subuirbs of Perth.

With end of financial year reporting, together with reporting of the 01 April to 30 June quarter BAS due 28 July, businesses that are behind in their paperwork can struggle under extra pressure that they really do not need – contact our Perth bookkeeping service today for help with your BAS

Cash flow has certainly tightened up in the economy. As bookkeepers, we’ve seen that invoice payments are being dragged out longer and longer, as suppliers wait to be paid by customers, and service providers wait to be paid by their clients.

Some small business owners use their GST money as cash-flow for their business, forgetting that these GST funds are monies collected by the business on behalf of the federal government – then they seem shocked that they have no cash to pay what’s owing on their BAS lodgement

The phone’s been ringing as desperate business owners in a panic wanting our Perth bookkeeping service to help with their MYOB and Quickbooks files. In most cases, they can simply email us the files and we’ll have a look at their reporting and can generally work out where the problems are within a short time

One lady contacted our Perth bookkeeping service after spending two days trying to reconcile her Quickbooks bank accounts. We had a look at her file and solved the problem in 35 minutes. Look at the time and stress she would have saved if she had contacted our bookkeeping company when she first noticed that there was a problem

As a small business owner we encourage you to focus on what you do best, and we’ll do the rest – contact our Perth bookkeeping service today for help with your BAS

Happy New Financial Year – In Australia, the financial year starts on 1 July and ends 30 June

Have you made any New Year’s Resolutions?
We always encourage our clients from Stirling to Warwick, Gwelup to Balga, Inner Northern Suburbs, Perth, Western Australia, to get a better handle on their paperwork – it save us time, and thus save our clients money in bookkeeping fees.

A very simple bookeeping habit to get into is simply this: everytime you pay an account, be it an invoice, or even making a cash purchase, you can do a little bit towards your bookkeeping.

Write the date you paid the invoice, the amount you have paid, and the source of funds used for the payment.

Straightaway you are asking:”Why do I have to write the amount that I have paid on the invoice, when there’s already an amount printed on the invoice? Well, we do not know whether you are paying the whole amount as stated on the invoice, or whether you are making a part payment.

Why write the date of payment, when the invoice clearly states the invoice due date – Again, how does your bookkeeper know when you actually paid the invoice, without spending a few minutes chasing up the payment

Why write the payment method? You may have paid by cash, or by cheque, or by credit card, or Internet Bank Transfer

So which bank account, credit card account or other source of funds did you pay the invoice from?

A simple extra minute spent adding this information on your bookwork could dramatically reduce your bookkeeping fees each year

There’ many other New Year’s Resolutions that you could be making for a successful twelve months in your business

Our team of bookkeepers will travel to your premises and work on your computer helping you keep your bookkeeping up to date.

Whether you are based in Stirling to Warwick, Gwelup to Balga, Inner Northern Suburbs, Perth, Western Australia, we can service all your bookkeeping requirements

Our mobile bookkeepers can assist you with all aspects of your bookkeeping. You may be using MYOB or Quickbooks, or other accounting software.

Contact our team of Perth Inner Northern Suburbs bookkeepers to help you get your accounting in order

So you’ve bought Quickbooks or MYOB – What Next?
Our team of bookkeepers will show you how to install the accounting software package. Just let us know when would be a suitable time, and we can spend an hour or so getting everything functioning to suit your individual business

We can show your bookkeeping staff how to use the software. Many business owners raise invoices directly with MYOB or Quickbooks – We’ll show you how to customise the invoices and add your company logo, address details and any other information that you may need on your invoices

Software Installation Service
Our mobile bookkeeping team offer businesses in and around Inner Northern Suburbs of Perth a software installation service for businesses that have purchased an accounting package, such as MYOB, Quicken or others, and have no idea were to start.

Our installation service of computer accounting package includes

• Setting up all your Chart of Accounts to suit your business
• Entering Customers, Supplier & Employee information (or showing you how to)
• Enter Opening balances, including accountants, customer & supplier Opening Balances.
• Training you and / or your staff on inputting YOUR own business day to day data in plain English.

We recommend two hours for the first site visit. It may take longer if you require us to enter all your data in the first visit. We can then organise a second visit after 2-3 weeks, to check what you have done and give additional training if required.

Our Inner Northern Suburbs of Perth Bookkeepers save you time, worry and most importantly you will save MONEY!! For your business’ sake and your sanity Contact usNOW!

For a limited time are offering a FREE consultation.

To take advantage of this offer Contact Us TODAY!

Secretarial Service wants MYOB training

Had an email from a secretarial service in the northern suburbs of Perth. The lady wants some MYOB training, so that she can “do the bookwork” for one of her clients.

“What experience do you have as a bookkeeper?”, we ask. “None. I just thought I could help my client out”

Yes, lady, you sure can. Since the client is looking at outsourcing their bookkeeping needs, then doesn’t it make sense to turn to a professional bookkeeping team that can do the job properly. One wonders that if her client wanted a plumber, would she ring up a local plumber and ask for some training, because she “just wants to fix a leaking pipe” for one of her clients?

Well. Why should we care? She wants MYOB training. We can certainly provide that for her.

We care because our goal is to help clients by solving problems, not hinder clients by creating more problems.

“I’ll only be doing some data entry, nothing difficult!”, she told us. If it was that simple, everybody would be doing their own bookwork, and nobody would need to outsource their bookkeeping to professional mobile bookkeepers.

Her client is no doubt under the impression that the lady provides bookkeeping as part of her secretarial services – do they know the truth is that this lady is just wanting to “help out” her client and believe she can just start doing bookkeeping for her clients

How irresponsible is that?

We should be very happy and eager to train this lady, because we know she’ll stuff up her client’s bookwork, and then she’ll need us to come in and clean up the mess

Those that control the purse strings have the power.

In any society, money talks. So why should it be any different in your business? Many small business owners in the Northern Suburbs of Perth are so busy being focused on the every day stuff in their business, that they look at the bookwork as being a chore rather than a fundamental part of the business. Whatever accounting software package you use, be it MYOB or Quickbooks, you should be able to access financial reports showing your business position in seconds.

Have a look at your daily operations, and ask yourself this one question:

Who is in control of your business? Are you, the business owner in control? or is it really you clients that are dictating your daily tasks?

Do you have a handle on your financial position each day or week or each month or quarter? Is your bookkeeping upto date? Can you ask your bookkeeper for the relevant MYOB or Quickbooks reports each day or each week, so that you can make informed decisions regarding your business?

Is the tail wagging the dog, or is the dog wagging the tail?

Have a serious look at the operations of your business. Is it your clients that are dictating when you can take time off? Or do you have that choice? Is it your clents who are deciding when you should be paid, or are you in control of your business cash flow?

Contact our bookkeeping team and let’s have a chat about how we can help you manage your cash flow and get a handle on your business. We can show you how to maximise the potential ow whatever accounting software package you use, be it MYOB or Quickbooks or any other package

Are you struggling to complete your BAS form?

No sooner have we finished lodging BAS for the December Quarter, to find the January – March 2009 Quarter will soon be due. Contact us for HELP

Quarterly BAS
Most businesses submit quarterly, and the 1 January – 31 March 2009 (Quarter 3) BAS is due 28 April 09 for lodgment and payment with the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).

A new client contacted us out of desperation. Struggling to prepare all the documentation for the Business Activity Statement, she could not get the figures to balance.

We suggested she email us the MYOB data file, so that we could get a clearer understanding of where she was at with her bookwork. Contact us for HELP with your BAS

“I had trouble with my MYOB files and contacted Carol and her team and they were just excellent.
They listened and then explained what they could do to help.
Everything was done speedily, efficiently and most of all cost effectively.
They emailed me how to send my files and worked on them that day!
Most of all “they listen” and don’t treat you like a dummy!
It got me out of a potentially tricky situation and literally saved the day!
Thanks Carol.
Liz Bird, Perth WA”

Monthly BAS
If your business submits the (BAS) Business Activity Statement monthly, then 21 March 09 was the due date for lodgement and payment of the February 2009 monthly activity statements

Superannuation Guarantee Contributions
Also on that date are due the Quarter 3 Superannuation guarantee contributions (1 January -31 March) contributions to be made to the fund by this date.

If you are struggling to complete your BAS form, contact our team of Perth Bookkeepers for HELP

The importance of Book keeping: Here’s 10 Tips to help you manage your 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

Whilst world leaders have a money-tree policy to create cash, the average small business owner has limited opportunities when cash flow gets very tight, as in the present economy.

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.

On Australia’s Gold Coast a large property developer has collapsed 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… »

Before you realise, Easter will be upon us, then the end of the financial 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

Are you a small business operator struggling to keep your bookkeeping in order? The main problem that business owners have is not having a system set-up to handle their bookkeeping.

What you do with your paperwork, and how you handle your record keeping at the beginning can make a big difference at the end of the financial year.

Here are some basic tips to ensure that your record keeping is in order

1) Open a separate bank account for the business.
It may seem an expensive option at the beginning to be paying fees on two separate bank accounts – however you can claim the running costs of your business bank account as a business expense.
The same applies to a credit card. Even if you simple have another credit card in your private name, keeping a separate credit card for the business makes the bookkeeping so much easier

2) Don’t mix your personal expenses with your business expenses.
A simple example of this is when you buy fuel; if you happen to buy some milk or chocolate etc, pay for them in a separate transaction. You need to make sure that you have Read more… »

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 Stirling to Warwick, Gwelup to Balga, Inner Northern Suburbs, Perth, we are often called up to tidy up the mess that has accumulated over the past few months. Contact us for details

Even with purchasing an accounting software package such as MYOB or Quickbooks, the business owner is still faced with the task of having to find a few spare hours a week or a month to enter all the book-keeping data.

Unless you have a passion for doing the bookeeping yourself, you’ll always find excuses for putting it off. After all, why should you make bookkeeping a priority of your Stirling, Warwick, Gwelup or Balga business?

A widget-maker may know all about widgets, the different sizes and colours, the various strengths and applications for widgets, and have many others skills and knowledge involved in widget making.

So why do you want to spend time away from widgets to have to learn how to use an accounting software program? Then you’ve got to learn where to allocate your sales invoices. Maybe you need to make up a template with your company logo to issue invoices from MYOB or Quickbooks to send to your customers.

Then you have to prepare any reports that are needed by your accountant to lodge your tax return. And what if you make a mistake when entering the data. If you are not experienced in bookkeeping, or have not used a book-keeper, then you could find that you either produce a set of accounts that are not a true reflection of your business, or you find that the bookkeeping figures do not balance.

Meanwhile, you’ve got yourself totally stressed out, and discovered that you’ve spent so much time on trying to be the bookkeeper in your business, that you’ve lost a couple of very valuable sales orders because you haven’t had time to make any widgets.

Your financial planner would probably suggest to you that you need to spend time and effort in your business making the money. Just as you’ve turned to a financial planner for guidance in your financial future, it makes sense to turn to a professional bookkeeping service that covers Robina, Burleigh, Varsity Lakes and Mudgeeraba to look after your bookwork

By outsourcing a bookkeeper, do not feel that you will lose control of your finances. Indeed, in many cases the result is quite the opposite. By having your financials kept upto date by your bookkeeper, you can get regular reports, do month by month comparisons, and see if your business is heading north or south

Many small business owners will say, “Yes, but I leave all that to my accountant!” Well, that’s all well and good, but is your accountant basing decisions on current financial data, or is he looking at your bookkeeping figures from last year?

If your paperwork is in disarray, don’t panic!

Contact our bookkeeping service from Stirling to Warwick, Gwelup to Balga, Inner Northern Suburbs, Perth, and we can come in and tidy up the mess that has accumulated over the past few months.

Contact us for details