Most accounting programs can comfortably give you general accounting reports like the bank reconciliation, accounts receivable and accounts payable.

But unless you are 100% up to date with your bookkeeping (and lets face it, many small businesses aren’t), any profit and loss statement or balance sheet reports generated, usually won’t provide a fair or accurate picture – and this is  (yet) another reason why I love Xero.

You see, even if you don’t want to do full invoicing or run full accounts payable, if you process the bulk of your financial transactions through your business bank account or credit card, and you link that bank account or credit card to your Xero file, then you are never far away from having reconciled accounts!

So when you need finance, or you want to apply for a trade account with a supplier, or as and when you want to review your trading position – the profit and loss statement generated by your Xero file will be accurate enough to provide a good picture of your business to the recipient.

Xero also allows users to customise reports if desired, this might be by way of using colour in the reports so the look and feel of them ties in with your brand, or altering the format to summarise or group items together – lots of opportunities there!

Regards

Proposed changes to the Zone Tax Offset will hurt Fly-In,-Fly-Out (FIFO) workers.

The Zone Tax Offset is a tax rebate for taxpayers who are located in remote areas of Australia.  The amount of the rebate is a fixed amount, but is determined by geographical location.

At present, to be eligible for the Zone Tax Offset, a taxpayer must live or work in a specific remote area for more than 183 days in an income year – however this time does not need to spent consecutively.  This has meant that FIFO workers have been able to claim the offset without having to live in the remote area on a full time basis.

Draft legislation has been released for public comment addressing the proposed change that the Zone Tax Offset only be made available to people whose “normal residence” is located in the zone or special area of a zone.

These changes would exclude FIFO workers (and the like) affecting approximately 20% of the more than 500,000 taxpayers who currently claim the rebate.

Some would argue that FIFO workers should be compensated for the time spent away from their families and the travel they must endure, others may argue that this form of compensation should be exclusively for those who have committed to permanently reside in the remote area.

What are your thoughts?

PS This change is expected to take effect for the 2015/16 financial year.

Regards

You just cannot afford to be complacent…that is the message from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), and that is the message from me!

Once again the scammers are out in force, imitating the ATO, and trying to take advantage of everyday Australians.

Only this week, a number of residents in South West Victoria have been contacted by people purporting to be from the ATO – I only hope that they were all able to recognise this as a scam.

But scams aren’t exclusive to tax related topics, many people have fallen victim to scams in other areas of their life, so I’ve provided some tips below for you to consider:

• if paying an amount for a product or service to someone you don’t know, always check the refund policy
• take a look at their website to see how forthcoming they are with information
• does the website include some contact details? Don’t be afraid to get in contact prior to making a commitment, just to see if you receive a response
• review other social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, a scammer is unlikely to take the time to generate social proof

I urge everyone reading this to be aware of these schemes and please share with your family and friends.

More information about verifying or reporting a scam can be found on the ATO website, click here.

Regards

Its Monday Xero time again and today I am hi-lighting a feature I think you will find very useful!

Many small businesses, particularly sole traders and partnerships, see the owners often pay small expenses out of their own pocket.

It can be quite difficult and cumbersome to keep track of these expenses, and more often than not they are forgotten…and that’s not good!  Forgetting these expenses means a business may be forgoing a claim of GST input tax credits as well as a valid income tax deduction, not to mention the financial cost to the owner who paid the amount!

With Xero, recording and reimbursing these expenses is so easy.

Expenses can be recorded into Xero by creating an expense claim and at any time you can record a reimbursement of the amount by way of a cash payment or a capital contribution.

As a sole trader, most of the time I choose to record the amount as a capital contribution, but using the reimbursement function can provide a more equitable outcome when the trading structure is a partnership or company.

An added bonus is that the receipt for the expense can be sent to your Xero inbox and attached to the transaction – all avoiding the need to keep those pesky little pieces of paper (you’ll find out more about this in a later blog post…but it’s pretty cool!)

To find out how easy Xero is to use, just Contact me!

Regards