Financial Accounts
Whilst we realise that the preparation of annual financial accounts is often considered by many to be an after-the-year-has-passed action and only adds value for selling the business or obtaining finance, we take a different approach. We recommend that our clients use online software with live data feeds and keep this up to date weekly as a minimum. This means we have access to data in real time and can easily track and compare performance trends and assist our clients in making meaningful decisions.
Partnering with you
We use our own logins into our client's bookkeeping/accounting systems to help in real time with any queries, changes or to discuss concerns and/or opportunities. By working with your bookkeeper, family member or employee working on your day-to-day processing we eliminate double work and errors.
Over the last few years we have had considerable success in encouraging and empowering small business owners to take control of their data, even if it is only to access reports to assist them in managing their businesses better with current information.
Forecasting
Due to using live data, forecasting, budgeting and tax planning may be simplified and updated regularly and efficiently, giving you peace of mind.
Tax Returns
Our attitude to the preparation of tax returns is to take a proactive view. If our clients are planning or are aware of any upcoming changes we advocate being prepared ahead of time. The tax effects of a Capital Gains Tax (CGT) event, Redundancies, and other irregular taxation events can be planned for to ensure the taxation impact is managed and minimised.
Checking on changes annually
It is our policy and wont to ask questions about your situation and insist on asking what we call our "general questions" every year. This ensures that we have a full picture and all the information at hand to not only complete taxation returns, but also to answer any questions from the ATO should they arise. We have had a number of clients that have been away on holiday or business and not even realised they had an ATO audit until they returned to receive the notification that we had already cleared the query directly with the ATO due to having all the relevant information on hand.
Asking meaningful questions means we can identify any opportunities or risks early on and make recommendations relevant to your particular situation for you to consider.
BAS/IAS
Getting Business Activity Statements (BAS) and Instalment Activity Statements (IAS) completed correctly, effortlessly and quickly is essential for all businesses to not only keep up to date with their obligations but also to minimise risk to directors of non-compliance or error.
Making it seamless
We encourage and assist our clients to make the BAS/IAS process as seamless and automated as possible. Where are there unusual transactions or business activities we aim to simplify the process for our clients by either finding an automation or breaking the steps down to make it easy to follow.
SMSF Administration
Our Self-Managed Superannuation Fund (SMSF) administration services includes all aspects of running and managing your SMSF. Due to our taxation knowledge and financial advisory capabilities we understand superannuation well and are able to simplify the concepts for our clients.
In many situations we have had to explain the relevant tax concepts to other financial advisers or financial advisory concepts to other accountants on behalf of our mutual clients. This is another reason why being cross licensed means we can get to the bottom of issues quickly, explaining and/or resolving the issues in a practical way.
SMSF BAS
We also complete BAS preparation for those funds that hold properties (usually commercial) as part of their portfolio.
Tax Planning & Advice
Our attitude to the preparation of tax returns is to take a proactive view. If our clients are planning or are aware of any upcoming changes we advocate being prepared ahead of time. The tax effects of a Capital Gains Tax (CGT) event, Redundancies, and other irregular taxation events can be planned for to ensure the taxation impact is managed and minimised.
Advising of changes
There have been a number of times that a new law or change to taxation treatment has come into law which potentially affects one or more of our clients. When this happens we immediately alert them of these options and what steps they need to take. These developments more often than not offer benefits that we set out for our clients to consider. Where these changes are disadvantageous we then look at mitigating opportunities or alternatives.
Keeping an eye on the tax landscape
We keep an eye on current taxation issues, concerns and opportunities by taking the role of general practitioners and working with a number of different taxation, superannuation, commercial and estate planning legal experts to ensure we are at the cutting edge of current events and potential changes.
It is our policy to do smart business and tax planning, we believe "if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it is a duck" and therefore a non-starter in our book. As we consider ourselves proactive rather than aggressive taxation advisers, there are many current taxation issues to which we have found simple or pragmatic solutions for the benefit of our clients, whilst minimising their risk.
When our clients approach us with concerns or questions based on something they heard in the press or from their contacts, we aim to simplify the issue in the context of their situation and alleviate their concerns. There are a lot of scare tactics out there which we do not subscribe to, our job is to make your accounting and taxation life easier and to help you "pass the sleep at night" test.