Frivolous Friday is here again and I thought I’d share my experience meeting Sadhana Smiles.

With thanks to Leadership Great South Coast and Telstra, Sadhana appeared at Warrnambool’s Lighthouse Theatre this week as part of the Great South Coast Small Business Festival.

You can read about Sadhana’s achievements here…

I embrace any chance I can to hear inspirational women speak, and the things I took from Sadhana’s presentation relate to:

• having courage, determination and self-belief
• being street smart and disruptive
• creating a plan for life
• investing in yourself and thinking of your brand
• give people a compelling reason to say yes to you
• do the right thing by yourself and you’ll do the right thing by others, and
• give back!

However there was one opinion in regards to gender specific networking that I feel I need to challenge.  Sadhana indicated that the concept of gender specific networking was not sustainable – I have to disagree!

While I fully support mixed gender networking, I know there are many women who do not feel comfortable in those situations and many close themselves off from the experience.  Since being involved with Business in Heels, I have witnessed first hand how women who may be less confident have grown and advanced beyond their expectations or wildest dreams – and that is the reason there will always be a place for gender specific, and in particular women only, networking events!

Regards

Did you know that last year the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) cross referenced the information provided in individual income tax returns with over 600 million transactions provided by third parties?

This cross referencing was used to identify if income or capital gains had been omitted from income tax returns, and to ensure offsets were claimed correctly and exemptions from surcharges were correctly applied.

In doing so they contacted almost 400,000 taxpayers who appeared to have discrepancies between the information they reported and that of the third parties – and in most cases the result required a repayment of money to the ATO and the cause was the taxpayer not providing ALL of their information to their tax agent…

With the advances of technology and increased reporting requirements, the amount of data being matched by the ATO is going to rise – their focus is extending beyond omitted interest and employment income to areas including capital gains on the sale of shares and property and employment related foreign source income.

I hope that by hi-lighting this process, you will all appreciate the importance of good record keeping, and if you feel you may be lacking in this area…now is the time to learn more…

Regards

In keeping with our Mondays featuring Xero, I thought I’d tell you a bit about what I was doing last week…

As much as I’d love to say I spent last week at “Comicon” (does anyone watch The Big Bang Theory?)…my outing at “Xerocon” was a tad more serious…if you can call a CEO skateboarding around the Melbourne Showgrounds serious??

First up for me was Uni Day at Crown Promenade, where I was able to have a face-to-face workshop session with my Xero account manager and the head of Accounting at Xero. We set some goals and had the chance to bounce ideas off our fellow Xero certified partners – you see in our business, there’s no sitting still.  You must continue to learn and enhance your skills, and for me, it’s also about how I can enhance the service to my clients…

Following Uni Day were two days of conference – two FULL days of learning new tips and tricks and finding out all the new developments the team at Xero have been working on.

But it’s not only the team at Xero who’ve been busy – users of Xero may be aware of the “Add-on Market” – Xerocon was a great chance to meet a number of these developers and see their products (you should see how many pens, stress balls, drink bottles and branded lollies I’ve come home with!)

In all seriousness though, I look forward sharing more of Xero with you – keep an eye on Mondays!

PS of all the facts and figures thrown around, for some reason the only one I can remember is that the development team drank 180,000 cups of coffee last year…go figure!?!?

Regards

Every now and then you need to give yourself some credit…and I’m choosing today to pat myself on the back!

Most of the time, like most of you, I simply get on with things.  But since I’ve been working for myself and with my mentor, I’ve come to realise that it is important to celebrate your successes – from my perspective, doing so reminds me how far I’ve come and provides the encouragement I need to continue forward.

Over the past couple of weeks, in addition to running The Tax Chic, teaching Body Pump and First Aid and just living in general, I’ve celebrated the following achievements:

• Spending two days with six accounting teachers visiting from China and taking them through the approach we use in vocational education
• Launching Business in Heels – South West Victoria
• Presenting a workshop and hosting an expo display at BizFest, and
• Participating in Xero Accelerate and Xerocon 2015

…it certainly has been a busy time.   While this doesn’t make me any more special than the next person, only I know just what I’ve needed to do in order to make it through – and this is why we should never compare ourselves to others!

After the Business in Heels – South West Victoria announcement, I received some absolutely wonderful and positive feedback, not only on the concept but directed to me and the way I live life – I am so very thankful to those who took the time to let me know their thoughts, it was very kind.

Now it’s your turn, have you reflected on your successes of late? I’d love to hear your stories, either in this forum or by private message – go on, celebrate your success!

Regards