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Mobile Bookkeepers Cockburn, Melville, Fremantle, Canning Vale, and South Perth, Western Australia

Archives for July, 2009

Fremantle Bookkeeping: Customer Service

Fremantle Bookkeeping: Customer ServiceAs bookkeepers it seems that we’ve known something that WBC has only just discovered: Clients actually respect and demand REAL customer service.

This amazing fact uncovered by WBC (one of the big four Australian Banks) was revealed by one of their bank tellers whilst we were doing some banking on behalf of one of our Fremantle bookkeeping clients

One wonders how much money was spent by their marketing department to learn that customers actually want to be treated like real people by, wait for it, real people. Read more… »

June BAS Due Next Week

Business Activity Statements, (June BAS) for business owners reporting quarterly, are due on 28 July 2009 (next week).

Business Activity Statements June BAS quarterly due 28 July 2009For many small business owners and especially for their bookkeepers around Fremantle and Canning Vale, July is always a busy time of year.

With end of financial year reporting, together with reporting of the 01 April to 30 June quarter, businesses that are behind in their paperwork can struggle under extra pressure that they really do not need

Cash flow has certainly tightened up in the economy. As bookkeepers, we’ve seen that invoice payments are being dragged out longer and longer, as suppliers wait to be paid by customers, and service providers wait to be paid by their clients

The phone’s been ringing as desperate business owners in a panic wanting help with their MYOB and Quickbooks files. In most cases, they can simply email us the files and we’ll have a look at their reporting and can generally work out where the problems are within a short time

One lady contacted us after spending two days trying to reconcile her Quickbooks bank accounts. We had a look at her file and solved the problem in 35 minutes. Look at the time and stress she would have saved if she had contacted our bookkeeping company when she first noticed that there was a problem

As a small business owner we encourage you to focus on what you do best, and we’ll do the rest

How’s Kevin Helping Small Business?

Why Small business should support small-to-medium enterpriseThe Rudd Government is helping small businesses with the Small Business and General Business Tax Break.

The package is such that small businesses can claim a bonus 50 per cent tax deduction for eligible assets costing more than $1,000 acquired from 13 December 2008 until 31 December 2009, and installed ready for use by 31 December 2010.

They are telling everyone how the Rudd Government is helping small businesses with the Small Business and General Business Tax Break.

The package is such that small businesses can claim a bonus 50 per cent tax deduction for eligible assets costing more than $1,000 acquired from 13 December 2008 until 31 December 2009, and installed ready for use by 31 December 2010

To benefit from this Tax Break a small business must have a turnover of less than $2.0 million a year.

Forget the tax break, shop at your locally owned store

This may look good on paper, but unless you actually need to make any investment in capital purchases such as motor vehicles or equipment, how does it actually help small business?

It certainly helps large businesses – the suppliers of motor vehicles, national stationary / office equipment suppliers, hardly normal electical chain stores and the like, but how does it help you, the small business owner in and around Cockburn, Melville, Fremantle, or Canning Vale?

Speaking to an accountant of one of our bookkeeping clients recently, he said that whilst the incentive looks very rosy, you should actually look at the costs involved in the purchase of a new vehicle.

Taking all things into consideration for this particular client, the client was going to be worse off purchasing a new vehicle compared to finding a cheaper second-hand vehicle

Many small business owners are understandably looking to save money wherever they can, believing that’s the only way that they can increase their income. Yet at the sametime, they also want to increase their turnover by attracting more customers or upselling existing customers.

Why do small business owners have a problem with supporting other small-to-medium enterprises?

Many of our bookkeeping clients take their shopper dockets from the major supermarkets, to get discount fuel, rather than paying a few cents more (perhaps) for fuel from independent service station operators.

The same clients buy all their fruit and vegetables, meat and other groceries from the large supermarket chains instead of supporting small independent green-grocers or butchers

Why do small-to-medium enterprises complain that your potential customers are going to the large companies or multi-nationals instead of shopping from you? Maybe we should stop pointing the finger at other people, and start asking ourselves, why do small businesses have a problem trading with other small businesses?

Do large companies really care about the local Cockburn, Melville, Fremantle, Canning Vale business owner? Not when the head office is in Sydney, Melbourne or even overseas

The positive effect on the local economy would be far wider reaching than all of those small business owners that continue to support large companies who are only interested in making huge profits for their shareholders (many of whom are large multi-nationals themselves).

Go shopping at your local independantly owned business, take business away from large corporations and bring back competition to the market place – you’ll be helping the local econmy whch will in-turn help your small business