When Benjamin Franklin said that the only things certain in life were “death and taxes” most people didn’t consider that they may be closely linked.

But problems with taxes can lead to the death of your small business unless you take steps to keep the taxman off your back.

With sales meetings, recruitment, salaries, cashflow issues, marketing, suppliers, and a whole string of other things for small business owners to worry about, there’s no need to add the taxman to the list...Read more

There’s a saying in business, “You can go broke making a profit.” And another, “Cash is king. Profit is theory.”

As you know only too well, you don’t pay rent, meet payroll or pay your bills with profit.

You pay them with cash.

A business can make a lot of sales, have a book full of orders, have delighted customers and clients, have a great reputation, be growing, and yet still go broke...... Read more

 

As much as we hate to admit it, the best business owners and executives can drop the ball on occasion. This is particularly true of the little things, which can be easily overlooked.

When it comes to keeping track of business expenses, even the most attentive and mindful can fall behind. Physical receipts and invoices can easily be misplaced before you set foot back in the office. Hunting around for them causes headaches, wastes time and hurts productivity.

When a business or its employees don’t stay on top of filing receipts, it usually results in...... Read more

 

Are you worried that your hard-earned money is not working hard enough for you? That your dream of your golden years spent on the golf course or with loved ones on the beach is fading fast?

Think you can do a better job yourself - by managing your own super?

You may be right. A Self-Managed Super Fund (SMSF) may provide an excellent opportunity to better build wealth for your retirement. But only if you get the right advice and set it up correctly...Read more

Debtors and late-payers—the bane of every business owner.

No matter how profitable your business is, it won’t survive without good cash flow. If you can’t pay your bills on time, you may end up trading while insolvent. And that’s not just bad business—that’s illegal.

But to do that, you need your clients to pay their bills on time. And that’s something you can’t always rely on. Sometimes they forget. Sometimes they don’t have the money. And sometimes they just decide they don’t want to...Read more

Starting a business is part science, part art, and a large part hard work! It can get lost in all the excitement but you need to get the balance right.

Approximately 20 percent of all small businesses fail in their first year; and your chances of your business making it to five years are around 50/50.

One thing is for sure: leaving your success up to chance is not an option. Get clear on where you want to take your business and how you are going to get there.... Read more

Where some businesses have tripped up in the past is where the source of benefits provided is not clear cut - that is, where non-cash components of remuneration are sourced not directly from an employer, but from an associate, a related company or from a third-party provider.

For fringe benefits tax (FBT) to apply, the conventional wisdom is that the benefits involved are provided instead of cash salary, and further that such benefits are usually paid in respect of an employment relationship. Hence the pool of accepted FBT-attracting items - laptops, cars, entertainment expenses and so on.

But as mentioned, it has often been the case that employer taxpayers have made the mistake of assuming that because a benefit is provided by "someone else", they are...... Read more

 

Single Touch Payroll is a government initiative to streamline business     reporting obligations, which is due to become compulsory from 1 July 2018. When a business pays its employees, the payroll information will be sent to the ATO via the business’s payroll software.

Reporting under the Single Touch Payroll (STP) system removes the requirement to issue payment summaries, provide annual reports and tax file number declarations to the ATO. During the first year of its introduction, the ATO says employers will not be liable for a penalty for a late STP report.

Important points to keep in mind for the transition to STP include...... Read more
 

If you are operating a small business and at the end of the income year you estimate that your trading stock's value has not changed by more than $5,000, remember (especially if you are new to business) that you can choose not to conduct a formal stocktake.

By making a decision to do this, you will not be required to account for the changes in the trading stock's value. The estimate you use to make this decision (known by the ATO as an "election" to use the "simplified trading stock rules") will be deemed to be reasonable by the ATO if either...... Read more




 

The days of a lax approach to valuations are over.

While there is not always the need to employ a qualified independent valuer for each valuation, there are important circumstances where it is mandated, and others where it is recommended.  Where one is not used then appropriate documentation needs to be kept of how valuations were determined. Back-of-the­ envelope or simply made-up valuations will not suffice.

Whilst in the old days the ATO had little it could do against SMSF trustees, the current penalty rules provide...... Read more