By being ontop of your bookwork, you can have a chat with your accountant and make sure that you have the correct strategies in place to reduce your tax liabilities.

Failing to be prepared can be costly when you come to lodge your tax return after 30 june 2010

Often clients are devastated when they discover how much tax they have to pay because they didn’t get their bookwork upto date and plan for the FYE (financial year end). Leaving it until after 30 June is too late.

We are not tax agents or accounts, but our team of mobile Fremantle bookkeepers can certainly help you get your paperwork upto date so that you can at least have three quarters of the 2009/2010 financial year upto date and ready to visit your accountant before the end of June 2010

Australians love an excuse for a public holiday.

And if it falls on a Tuesday, then there’s little option but to take Monday off, and make it a long weekend!!

Enjoy yourselves, have a good time, relax, and get on with living in Australia

Thanks, girls, whoever you are. And thanks to the photographer, where ever you are – Happy Australia Day

Business Activity Statements BAS are due on 2 march 2010 for businesses that report their GST obligations quarterly

With the Christmas holiday period over for many small businesses, it’s time to get all your paperwork together and get it to your bookkeeper or outsourced bookkeeping service- to report on the 2nd quarter (1 September to 31 December 2009) to get your BAS lodged on time.

Maybe the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) does have a heart, after all. Rather than asking for lodgements on 28 January, they automatically give everyone an extension to the BAS lodgements to 28 February. This is, of course, a Sunday. However, the next business day is not Monday, since it’s a public holiday in Western Australia. Thus the Q2 BAS is due on 2 Mrach 2010

However, don’t be fooled by their grace, because there is NO WAY that they’ll consider granting an extension after that date. So you need to ensure that you have your Business Activity Statement lodged by 2 Mrach 2010

If you are struggling with your bookkeeping and need help, if you do not have a bookkeeper, or are looking to outsource to a mobile bookkeeping service, then contact us now

You may use MYOB or Quickbooks accounting software – or even some other syatem for your bookwork. We can assist you with any challenges, or even just releave you of the burden of the book-keeping

Our bookkeeping Service has clients in and around Cockburn, Melville, Fremantle, Canning Vale, and South Perth, Western Australia. Contact us here for details

Apparently the book-keeper was falsifying invoices as she entered data into the accounting software as an account payable to a legitimate vendor.

The bookkeeping software system allowed the bookeeper to print the cheques in her own name, then she’d change the name on the cheque details recorded in the system

The prosecution also allege that she intercepted bank statements and destroyed copies of the cheques she wrote to herself so that no-one else could discover her book-keeping activities

Here are ten options to consider if you have failed to lodge your BAS for the reporting period 1 July 2009 – 30 September 2009:

Contact us (quickly) because we may be able to get an extension for your BAS

1) Bury your head in the sand and hope that the whole thing will go away

2) Have a panic attack and wonder what to do now you’ve missed the deadline

3) Shrug your shoulders and just accept the fact that you’ll be making a late lodgement of the BAS

4) Stay up all night sweating away trying to complete the BAS even though it’s going to be a late lodgement

5) Call the tax office (ATO) and tell them that your dog grabbed the BAS form and has buried it in the garden

6) Look through your pile of paperwork, because you remember seeing the Business Activity Statement somewhere, sometime whilst making a mental note that it had to be lodged by the end of October

7) Call your accountant and ask him / her what you should do next

8.) Do nothing, and just accept that fact that you’ll be fined for a late lodgment, and look forward to receiving fan mail from the ATO

9) Go to the fridge and grab a coldie, sit down and relax in frnt of the widescreen TV that Kev’s just help you buy

10) Contact us (quickly) because we may be able to get an extension for you, as well as getting all your documentation sorted out to help you ensure that you’re not going to be paying Kev07 more than you need, since he’s shown us all how good he is at spending all that money

The amount was for AUD$210.75. Nothing strange about that, except for the spelling and the grammar.

They ask you to click a link that takes you to a website [ wv.us ] not anything to do with [ ato.gov.au ]

DON’T CLICK ON THE LINK – who knows what may happen – it could result in a little piece of software that invades your computer and extracts your usernames and pass words

It’s probably going to ask you for all your credit card details, so that the fraudsters in question can then go on a spending spree in London!

Not since Kevin Rudd organised for us to have a cheques sent out from the ATO have we had a tax refund.

And, thank you Mr Rudd, because the cheques arrived a couple of days after the ATO sent us a request for us to pay more tax – so much for the “Stimulus Package” – a waste of money, a publicity stunt – and a wonderful inheritance for the yournger generation of this fine nation.

All you had to do was to show me a little courtesy

It’s been proven that customer service is critical to maintaining a happy client base. The following was seen in the local newspaper, attributed to a reader names “The Archeologist”:

Remember me? I’m the person who goes into a restaurant, sits down patiently and waits while the waitress does everything but takes my order.

I’m the one who goes into the store and stands quietly while the counter staff finish their little chit chat.

But who else am I?

I’m the one who never comes back, and it amuses me to see you spending thousands of dollars every year to get me when I was there in the first place ….

And all you had to do was to show me a little courtesy

A client contacted us yesterday asking us to supply them with MYOB Premier Enterprise for their franchise. It’s a “high-end” version of accounting plus – and comes with five single usr licences

This means that you can have five different users – in different locations, all access the one data file. It’s great for retail outlets – maybe a chain of shops linking back to head office.

The clients have a bookkeeper that’s going to come in and do their bookwork. What is surprising is the fact that the bookkeeper did not advise the client that they would need their own server – and possible an IT guy to come and help them get the system set-up.

Clients are looking for more than just a bookkeeper these days. Clients are looking for a bookkeeping service that will actually supply “customer service” – you know, the old fashioned type of service that was not just knowledge. It’s “service with a smile” service with “heart”.

If you want the “wham, bham, thank-you ma’am”, then there’s plenty of cowboy bookkeepers out there who’ll do the work for next to nothing, and more often give you no service, and heaps of headaches, a set of incorrect figures but at least you’ll have not paid much for your bookkeeping fees.

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.

Maybe we are the only small business owners in and around Cockburn, Melville, Fremantle, Canning Vale that object to calling large companies and have a computerised voice telling them to press this number for that service, or that number for another option

You may be unfortunate enough to find “Lara” answering your enquiry when you contact a certain mobile phone company. Lara seems not only to have a hearing problem, but also lacks any understanding even when you tell “her” that you just want to pay your phone bill

This Fremantle book keeping service, like many small business owners in and around Cockburn, Melville, Fremantle, Canning Vale fully appreciate that the best way to win customers and to keep customers is with Real Customer Service. That means that the customer should be treated as a special person who has individual needs, and feelings.

Our Fremantle bookeeping service has been looking after loyal clients for many years. Those clients understand the benefits of outsourcing their book keeping. Those clients know that their book-keeper is only a phone call or an email away.

Our Cockburn, Melville, Fremantle, Canning Vale bookkeeping clients understand that sometimes things don’t always go to plan, and they may have an emergency situation and need to call on us, as their bookkeepers, to get them some reports in a hurry, or find a missing invoice, or even track down the warranty certificate for some of their office equipment.

Congratulations go to the “think tank” and marketing department of WBC!! They’ve finally realised that individual people make up their client base. That small business owners like to be treated with courtesy and respect by large money-hungry corporations who have seen their shareholders and their profits being more important than their customers

Maybe, just maybe, it’s just a marketing wheeze that WBC are only paying lip service to. Here’s an open invitation to the GM of WBC to talk to us about what customer service is really all about