Category Archives: Accountants

How to be an accounting superhero

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To be an accounting superhero, you need to make sure you have the basics down. After all, even Superman had to walk before he could fly.

These days, people expect high quality work and if they don’t get it from you, they’ll go to the next person who can deliver.
In accounting, the basics expected by customers include:

  • Accounts prepared as efficiently and effectively as possible
  • All work delivered on or before time
  • No errors. An incorrect name or address on your cover letter or accounts has potential to devalue the work you have done almost as much as an error in the actual accounts themselves

Continue reading more here.

Sleep easy! Manage Australian payroll tax with ease

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PayrollMYOBSuccessful entrepreneurs beware! The easiest way to manage Australian payroll tax is simply not to mismanage it in the first place. Like all taxes, ignorance is no defence, and you will ultimately end up paying your dues, probably plus a penalty and interest.

Small businesses that are growing rapidly and medium sized businesses need to work closely with their business advisors. MYOB has Australia’s biggest network of accountants, bookkeepers and consultants, ready to help you and your business succeed. As small operations ride high on success, it need not be a ‘dangerous’ time for business compliance.

Read full article here.

Marketing your professional services firm

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IMG_1970The next graduate arrives, interviewing for a position at a small to medium-sized accounting firm: your accounting firm. This graduate will be one of the top performing employees for the employer of their choice. It takes you a while — nearly fifteen minutes into the interview, to fully realise that they are actually interviewing you.

Methodically, the graduate carefully crafts their answers and questions. When you look up from your notepad, direct eye contact takes a fraction of a second to re-connect: this graduate is absorbing the environment, the workspace and your body language. As you take notes, this graduate is also checking boxes on their own mental checklist: assessing you as a partner and the firm as a whole.

They don’t fit into your standard interview guide or assessment criteria: they are impressive in every aspect that a young aspiring graduate could be. They are energized and prepared to embark on a exciting career — just not with your firm.

Read more here

How much is my time worth?

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Photo motorbikesA few years ago, one of my first business coaching sessions was with an entrepreneur who had spent a year and a half in development. He’d given up a well-paid job and spent about $25,000 on developing an App. He had no real business plan. When I pointed out that he had notionally invested about a quarter of million dollars on the App, he drew a deep breath of entrepreneurial fatigue, and said disheartenly, “Well, I suppose so.”

This back of the envelope calculation was done as follows: see calculations and read more here.

A CEO start-up guide to personal taxes

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Communities

People depend on the CEO to get things right. A failure to manage your personal taxes may see you damage your reputation, send your startup belly up and let down all those people looking at you as an inspirational start-up CEO.

A chance to be the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of a startup company can be one of the most exciting, challenging, inspiring, risky and adrenalin-filled periods of your life. Particularly for young innovators and entrepreneurs, the dynamic and fast paced environment can leave little time to reflect on your own tax position or obligations to any new employees.

A lot of great startups come undone by neglecting the mundane — but essential — regulatory or compliance functions. So while I would love to write an inspiring story of innovation and success, Why? Because you are the CEO and it is your job to get it right.

Read my full blog here.

Will your business expenses trigger a personal audit?

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phone deer horns

Are you worried your business tax deductions will make you stand out? New techniques and ever evolving technology, may make you more obvious than you think. Photo © Andrew McIntosh CPA

Some of us went crazy with the Game of Thrones grand finale, with the show becoming the most pirated program in history. Australians were the worst offenders. Digital piracy is illegal; so too is tax evasion.

If you have cheated the tax system, it may not impact you now as a struggling entrepreneur or business owner, but perhaps years later when you are held to account for your actions. Long after the moment of greed, or seeming need, you may have a partner, child and a thriving business by then.

Do you participate in the cash or hidden economy? Read the full article here.

How do you get business inspiration (and keep it)?

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Go!

Go!

Think

Stop. Think. Get inspired.

The gardening crew has arrived outside my office. I hear a clunk and a bump as their truck and trailer bounces into the lot. I watch for a few minutes, and I’m inspired by the efficiency. They quickly rev up the ride-on mower and begin trimming the edges. It’s like a well-oiled pit stop team — every worker knows his place. Someone hands me the bill and everybody leaves as smoothly as they came in. In business, it’s important to be creative. Here are five sources of inspiration. See full article: Here

Entrepreneurs: are you running a one person show?

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TVF

Many entrepreneurs start out as a one-man (or woman) show. While this can be challenging, exhausting and incredibly rewarding, ultimate success may not be determined by your business idea, but by how organised you are.

Experienced freelancers and small businesses that are single person operations need to be ultra-organised. Whether you are flying solo for the first time or well established, technology can improve your efficiency and performance. Here are some pointers based on my own experience running a one-man show.

See full article here: The Pulse

 

Happy Easter!

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It is a Social Easter

Are you in LinkedIn? If you run a business or have a professional career, you should be. Take a look at the Optimize Business Company Page (press the Easter eggs!) and please “follow” as we are working to drive up linkages to our own page! Thank you: let us know if you have any questions or tips about the set-up or analytics of a “LinkedIn Company Page.”

Wishing everyone who celebrates Easter a happy one and the very best to everyone over the break! I’ve been reluctant to use my mobile phone for posting full blogs, but a link saying a new app for “WordPress for iOS” tempted me on Good Friday. So posted I did – all seemed to work well with uploading a “seasonal” image and text.

I prefer micro-blogging on my iPhone (Twitter app), but handy to have a WordPress blogging app just in case!  Do you do anything festive for the Easter period or does multiculturalism make it hard for your business to decide what to run with?

Survey: what technologies or APPs help your single operator small business the most?

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Most entrepreneurs face the issue, home based, single operator or small businesses face the issue. How can one person do it all?

What technologies or APPs do you use to improve the efficiency of a signal person operation? What are your top 5 tools or tips for running a lean and efficient single operator business?