If you’ve been thinking of changing over to QuickBooks from another package or from the not so trusty spreadsheet, now is the time to do it.

Current QuickBooks Offers

QuickBooks Accounting 2010/11 Full Version

• 13 Months Advantage Cover
• $100 off official Reckon Classroom Training

QuickBooks Plus, Pro or Premier 2010/11 Full Version

• 13 months Advantage cover
• A free copy of QuickBooks Customer Manager V3 (RRP $329)
• $100 off official Reckon Classroom Training

QuickBooks Accounting, Plus, Pro or Premier 2010/11 Upgrade

• End of Financial Year Guide for half price (saving almost $30)
• $100 off official Reckon Classroom Training

QuickBooks 2010/11 new features

As well as helping keep you compliant, QuickBooks 2010/11 includes the following new features:

• The new, powerful Company Snapshot feature in QuickBooks 2010/11 provides a comprehensive view of all your crucial business information, including income and expense trend graphs, bank balances and customer and supplier accounts due, etc. The Company Snapshot helps you make informed decisions, fast.
• Reconcile your bank accounts while your accountant works on your data file, and import all Accountant Copy changes that your accountant sends you. Your accountant’s data and your accounts for end of year tax returns will therefore be identical.
• Quickly and easily clean up data files so you can increase transaction processing speed.
• Payroll Summary Reports are now in a new, elegant and easy to read format.
• Windows 7 32-bit and 64-bit compatible, helping you to process even larger files faster.

Contact me today to order your new software!

Cashflow can make or break a business and it’s something we as business owners don’t do very well.

So what is cashflow exactly?

Quite simply, cashflow is the movement of money both in and out of your business over a certain period of time. So if your cash is flowing out of your business and not back in at roughly the same rate, very quickly your business will run out of cash to pay it’s bills and you’ll be out of business.

So how can we manage our cashflow?

One of the first things we do here at Tilda Virtual Services with a new bookkeeping client is to take a look at the Aged Receivables report. We try to determine the accuracy of the report, the total amount outstanding and the periods in which the amounts fall. This report alone will tell us if the business is controlling it’s aged receivables effectively to remain solvent.

To manage your cashflow you will need to create an Aged Receivables Procedure. You need this procedure to make sure the relevant people within your business know when and how to follow up outstanding invoices. You need it to know how you will manage your cashflow.

Think about how you supply your product or service. Is it project based or ongoing? Do you have repeat business or are your clients/customers purchasing only the once? These questions will assist you in deciding on what trading terms suit your business. For example: let’s say you are a website designer who works with clients once only on a project basis. Your trading terms may very well be 50% deposit and 50% on completion. Or let’s say you are a Virtual Assistant who has some project based clients but the rest are ongoing repeat projects. You may decide to invoice once a week/fortnight or monthly depending on when your own bills and liabilities are due and that they are due 7 days from date of invoice. Once you have determined what your trading terms are, you are ready to move onto the next step in creating your AR Procedure.

Now it’s time to to think about how long it is between the supply of product/services to the time you get paid. If you supply a product/service on the 1st the month but invoice monthly on the 31st with trading terms of 30 days from date of invoice, effectively you are waiting 60 days+ to get paid. Does that seem right to you to have to wait that long to get paid? Can you see how if you changed how often you invoice and reduce your trading terms, you’ll get paid quicker?

You also need to think about when you’ll start to follow up overdue invoices. Do you call them on day 8 of your trading terms to find out when you’ll be paid? Do you send a reminder letter? Do you send a statement? Once you have decided on the sequence of events, write it in your Aged Receivables Procedure. Don’t forget to create the templates, phone scripts and record keeping forms to add with the procedure. They are all important elements of your new procedure.

Once you have done all the hard work of figuring out when you’ll invoice, how long until the invoice is due, when you follow up overdue invoices then start to actually do it, you should start to see an immediate difference to your bank balance. The idea here is to make sure your invoices are getting paid regularly and on time to make sure you can pay your own suppliers.

If you need assistance in creating your Aged Receivables Procedure, contact me today. I have templates for sale that you can use and I can coach you through the process. Don’t wait until your suppliers are hounding you for money before you start managing your cashflow. Start today and see the huge difference it makes to your business.

You recently decided to finally hand over your bookkeeping to a professional so you could spend more time on your business. Good for you!

You’ve done the hard work in finding your bookkeeper either through networking or through a referral from a friend. You’ve met with prospective bookkeepers, spoken to them about what they can do for your, how it will be done, what the end result will be and how much it will cost and now comes the hard part… handing over.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard “I’ve just got to catch everything up before I hand it over to you”. If I had a dollar for every time I heard that phrase, I could probably semi-retire!

The whole reason why you’ve decided to hand over your bookkeeping is because it’s taking up too much of your time to get it done or because your really really bad at it.

If you attempt to catch up your bookkeeping before you hand it over, odds are that you are creating more work for the bookkeeper which is going to cost you more money.

Typical issues I see with new client bookkeeping:

• Bank account doesn’t reconcile so therefore you ‘fudge’ the bank fees;
• You entered a cheque but can’t find it so you enter it again;
• Your customers have paid you too much so you’ve ‘fudged’ the payment
• Insert your own mistakes here.

If I can educate business owners on one thing it would be to NOT catch up their bookkeeping before handing it over. Doing a little bit of repair work or forensic bookkeeping is ok but if a client’s books are that bad I’ll often say no. I can’t do it for you because it will cost you too much money to fix.

Most business owners don’t realise just how important keeping their bookkeeping up to date and correct actually is. They’re too busy in the day to day aspect of their business that they underestimate the importance of bookkeeping.

So please, on behalf of all the bookkeepers in the world, DON’T catch up your bookkeeping, just hand it over! Your cheque book will thank you!

1. They ask questions
2. They refer back to GST legislation for verification
3. They’re experienced
4. They know double entry accounting and can troubleshoot anything in your software program of choice
5. They ask questions (yes this is a deliberate double up)
6. They’re happy to liaise with your accountant on your behalf
7. They give you all the reports you want and need in a timely fashion
8. They give you regular backups of your datafile and have an OCD approach to backing up their own network/computer
9. They’re a member of a bookkeeper association
10. They’re continually looking to improve their skills and knowledge

Unfortunately, not all business owners will find a great bookkeeper on their first try because not all bookkeepers are great. There are some who are ok, good even, but not great. In any industry you’ll find people marketing themselves when they don’t have the skills to back it up. and bookkeeping is no different. Fortunately for business owners, the new Tax Agent Services Act will help them to weed out the bad from the great.

For more information about the new Tax Agent Services Act, please visit the Tax Practitioners Board.

As published in the BAS Service Provider Edition 33 – February 2010

From the 2010-11 income year the Tax Office’s record-keeping product, e-Record will no longer be available.

The product has been reviewed and found to no longer be compatible with current commercial record-keeping systems. It would also need to be redeveloped to keep up with technology and new business directions.

Version 6.2 is the final version of e-Record and is available for download until 30 June 2010.

For more information, see E-Record withdrawal.

Of course, if you’re looking for an alternative, we recommend the following software packages:

QuickBooks Easy Start Lite QBi

Designed for start-up businesses needing a simple accounting solution, who don’t have a large customer and supplier base. Straightforward and practical tools make it easy to manage all essential business tasks.

Quantity:

$39.95Price:
$20.00P&P:

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MYOB Business Basics

Manage all your basic business tasks from the one easy program, designed specifically for small or home-based Australian businesses. Streamline the data entry and reconciliation side of managing your business and free up your time to focus on running it.

Quantity:

$199.00Price:
$20.00P&P:

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On 23 October, the Assistant Treasurer announced the new national Tax Practitioners Board (TPB).

The TPB replaces the existing six state Tax Agents’ Boards. It will be responsible for overseeing the registration and regulation of tax agents and BAS agents under the new tax agent services regime, which is anticipated to come into effect from early 2010.

Imminent – new laws for BAS service providers

The final Bill of the new tax agent services regime passed by Parliament contains generous transitional arrangements, including a six month period where BAS service providers can notify the TPB to transition to registration.

The TPB will be responsible for overseeing the new regime and will contact you directly with information if they have your email address.

For information on how the new TPB and laws affect you, go to the TPB website at www.tpb.gov.au

Reprinted from the BAS Service Provider Newsletter – Issue 32

Then you’ll need to read up on the new legislation covering the industry. The Tax Agent Services (Transitional Provisions and Consequential Amendments) Bill 2009 received Royal Assent on the 16 November 2009. You can find out more information through visiting this link.

If you’re looking for support as a contract bookkeeper and want to make sure you are compliant with the new legislation, I highly recommend you join the Australian Association of Professional Bookkeepers. Their educational program is extensive and prepares you for the new legislative requirements.

It’s an issue I come a cross often, incorrect or no reconcilation of accounts and it still amazes me to see it. I can’t imagine not reconciling the accounts and don’t understand why people are so laid back about doing it. Reconciling your accounts are important for a number of reasons:

• It picks up any missing transactions that you may have misplaced a receipt for;
• It picks up any transactions that should not have gone through your bank account;
• It picks up over payments to suppliers;
• It picks up over payments by customers;
• It’s good business practice to do it.

When reconciling your accounts under no circumstances do you ‘make up’ transactions just to make it balance. If the accounts don’t reconcile after you’ve ticked the statement and ticked the transactions in your software, then you need to start again from the beginning to find the mistake. One trick I have is to reconcile the bank statement on a page by page basis. Try reconciling the first page, if it balances then mark it reconciled and move onto the next page. Going page by page is a great way to find the mistake and you’ll soon have it finished.

After you have reconciled your bank accounts mark the statement as reconciled and file it so you can find it later. If you are ever audited you’ll need your bank statements and it can get quite costly to replace them. I personally don’t print all the reconciliation reports but it’s a good idea to print them to PDF and file them on your computer so you can find them later.

If the idea of reconciling your accounts gives you the chills or makes you want to head for the hills, give me a call on 03 9013 8389. My team and I would love to help you!

In my business new clients prepay for the first 5 hours and then they go onto PAYG each week. When running my Aged Receivables’s report, the totals at the bottom of the aging columns were being incorrectly calculated due to the prepayments being ‘taken off’ the total amount due. Usually I’d end up calculating the totals manually which I hated doing.

So I started to explore the report a bit more and realised that I hadn’t been using my filters! And because I love learning new tips and tricks to make the most out of my software, here is a present from me to you…

How to use filters when creating your reports.

1. Click on Report Centre
2. Click on Customers & Receivables, then click on A/R Ageing – Summary
3. Click on Modify Report in the top left hand side of the window
4. Click on the filters tab
5. Under ‘Choose Filter’ click on amount, click the ‘greater than’ radial button and enter 0
6. Click ok
7. Click ‘Memorise’ to remember this report for later.

You could also change the filter to only show the prepayments in step 5 above which is very handy indeed.

Why customise your invoices?

Customising invoices is something a lot of small business owners neglect to do, not realising the opportunity for what it is. Customised invoices are an excellent opportunity to brand your business. Just as you would have brand consistency between your business cards, letterheads, marketing materials, website and more, you also need to brand your invoices.

As a bookkeeper and small business owner, it has gotten to the point where I can tell you exactly what software that business is using to maintain their books. For me, I find this sad and boring too. Why not take the time to add your logo? Why not take the time to add your website details? Why not take the time to get rid of that ugly Times New Roman font and use the font from your logo or the style guide for your business?

Lets think about the purpose of an invoice. It’s to ensure you get paid promptly and on time. If your invoice stands out from the others and is easily recognisable, it stands to reason that you will be paid more promptly. I have a client who has designed her invoices to look like a utility bill. The idea behind her reasoning is that if it looks like a bill it will be paid more promptly to ensure services are not disconnected.

To customise your invoices you simply do the following:

MYOB
•    Click on Sales and then Print/Email Invoices
•    Click on Advance Filters and then on Customise
•    You can now edit the invoice and save with a new name

QuickBooks
•    Click on Lists and then templates
•    High light the form you wish to customise and then right click and edit
•    Make your changes and save

The bonus with each software package is that you can have multiple invoice templates for the same business. For example, Tilda Virtual Services is a sole trader. But I also own Tilda Hosting. I have a separate website, branding and domain for hosting to the virtual assistance website. For income tax purposes, my accountant will lump all my income together regardless of which trading name earned it and for that reason I also decided to keep the records for both in the same data-file in QuickBooks. Through using two invoicing templates and classes (talking about classes is a discussion for another day…) I’ve managed to cut down my bookkeeping time and have everything together for the accountant.

So think about your invoices and how they represent your business. Can they be modified to suit the brand you’ve built for your business or do they need a total makeover?

First published in the Business Mums Network Magazine. Click here for more details!