As 31 March fast approaches, now’s the time to get organised for year end. Acting early saves time, reduces stress, and ensures your business is set up for success in 2025. Here's some key information on what to prepare and the payment dates coming up.
With 31 March fast approaching, now’s the time to get organised for year end. Acting early saves time, reduces stress, and ensures your business is set up for success in 2025. If you’d like a checklist, ask us where to start.
Don’t forget provisional tax! If you’re a provisional taxpayer — typically anyone who earns income where no tax is deducted at source, like sole traders or contractors — your final payment for the 2024 tax year is due on 7 May 2025 (if we prepare your tax returns). If you don’t have your tax returns prepared by your accountant, final payment was due on 7 February 2025. Unsure if this applies to you? Get in touch. We’ll clarify your obligations and help you stay on track.
Remember key tax dates for March:
- 5th: PAYE - Large employer returns for the second half of February. File employment information within two working days after payday.
- 20th: PAYE - Small employers return for February and large employer returns for the first half of March. File employment information within two working days after payday.
- 20th: NRWT / Approved Issuer Levy Payment and return due.
- 20th: RWT return and payment due for deductions from dividends and deductions of $500 or more from interest paid during February.
- 28th: GST Payment and return for February.
- 31st: Income tax return due for the year ended 31 March 2024 (For individuals and March balance date taxpayers where we prepare your income tax returns).
Is your business eating into your personal time? Are you tired, stressed and making mistakes? Now’s the time to refocus your work/life balance, so you’re the best leader you can be.
You started your business to have the freedom of being in charge. But are you actually working harder than ever and drowning in admin, meetings and other demands on your time?
Don’t worry, there are ways to get your work/life balance back under control.
In this series, we’ll look at the core ways your business can be structured to deliver on your own personal, family, philanthropic and leisure goals.
A business that’s designed to balance work and downtime
Running a company can be all-consuming. You have a business idea you believe in and a team that’s working hard to bring your product or service to market. It’s easy to let the multiple tasks on your to-do list take over, so you end up working around the clock, with no downtime.
But, ultimately, working this hard is counter-productive. You burn out, have no energy to lead and start to make silly mistakes. So, dialling down the workload is a must.
Here are four key ways to get your work/life balance back on track:
Prioritise tasks and block out time
Schedule specific blocks of time for work tasks, personal appointments and downtime to relax and decompress. Be ruthless about prioritising tasks and focus on the 20% that yields 80% of the results. This prevents work from bleeding through into your leisure and family time.
Learn to delegate and outsource
Don't try to do everything yourself. Find the tasks that can be delegated to team members or outsourced to freelancers and other contractors. If data entry is your nemesis, hire a bookkeeper. This frees up your time for higher-value activities and reduces your workload.
Establish boundaries between work and leisure time
Set clear boundaries between your work and personal life. This might mean turning off work-related notifications after a certain time, or designating specific days or times for family and friends. If you work from home, think about having a home office that you can only use during these agreed working hours – so you create a separation between work and downtime.
Schedule regular breaks and downtime
Burnout is a real risk for entrepreneurs. Be sure to take regular breaks throughout the day, even short ones, to recharge. Schedule proper downtime – evenings, weekends and holidays – and stick to it as much as possible. This gives you time to breathe and keeps you fresh. Helping you set and track your personal goals
No company has ever prospered with a tired, burnt-out and frazzled CEO at the helm. If your business is taking over your time, now’s the time to take a new approach to your workload.
Come and have a chat about working smarter, not harder.
Building better relationships with your customers is a key way to optimise your business for the future. We’ve got five tips for nurturing those customer relationships.
Customers are the true bedrock of your business. Loyal customers become repeat buyers, spread word of your brand and provide a steady income stream of sales. But what can you do to build the very best relationships with your existing and future customers.
In this series, we’ll look at some key ways to optimise your business, exploring different avenues to evolve your enterprise and create a legacy you can be proud of.
Let’s take a look at some important ways to improve your customer relationships.
Getting to know your customers inside out
Customers want to know that you understand them. That you know their needs and tailor your products and services to make their lives easier.
The closer you can get to your customers, the better. That means getting to know your audience and doing everything you can to nurture the customer relationship, at each stage of the journey.
Here are five important ways to achieve this:
Improve your customer service
Make sure your customer service is second to none. Respond quickly to customer enquiries and aim to come back with a resolution, or the extra advice they need. Be welcoming, resourceful and effective with your customer support, so customers feel like they’ve had a positive experience from your brand.
Listen to customer feedback
You might think no-one knows your product better than you. But the reality is that it’s the customer that drives the evolution of your offering. Regularly ask customers for feedback and ideas for improving the product. Listen, pull out the action points and make sure you act on the feedback to create a better product.
Do your customer research
To meet the customer’s needs, it’s vital to know what drives them. Market research is a valuable tool, giving you both quantitative and qualitative data about the people who buy your products. By grasping your audience’s behaviours and motivators, you can tailor your product to their requirements.
Analyse your customer data
Research can also begin at home. With today’s cloud-based sales tools and customer research management (CRM) software, you have a huge goldmine of customer-related data you can analyse. Dive into the data to look for trends and patterns, areas for improvement and information on which product lines are selling (and which are tanking and failing to thrill your customers).
Get forensic with your targeting
Access to customer data makes it easier than ever to target highly specific customer groups. Online advertising helps you to zero in on specific age, location, income bracket and interest demographics. This helps you run highly tailored and focused marketing campaigns, increasing your chances of building relationships with the best customer groups.
Talk to us about ways to engage with your customers
If your aim is to optimise, grow and build a better business, having a solid customer base will be integral to this goal. Evolving your approach to customer relationships really is a must.
We’ll help you assess the sales, revenue and CRM data in your systems, so you get to know your customers like the back of your hand. Our team will also help you sketch out a strategic approach for nurturing your customer relationships and creating loyal advocates for your brand.
Cybersecurity is a vital part of your governance and risk assessment as a business. Fortunately, a new government site has training and resources to get your security up to speed.
Your IT systems and software are the backbone of your business. With so many parts of your operations now in the digital domain, it’s vital to protect your cybersecurity.
Malicious hackers will always be looking for an opportunity to access your systems or steal your sensitive customer information. So, it’s vital to do everything you can to boost your security.
New cybersecurity resources from the NZ government
Small businesses are the target for nearly half of all cyber crime in Aotearoa New Zealand, with one in three experiencing at least one cyber attack. That’s a sobering stat, if you’re unsure about the quality and effectiveness of your cybersecurity measures.
Fortunately, the NZ government has published a new Protect your business from cyber crime site, with links to a selection of resources and videos to improve your cybersecurity.
The site includes advice on:
Talk to us about tightening your cybersecurity
Cybersecurity measures are no longer a ‘nice to have’. They’re a vital part of your governance and risk assessment as the owner and director of a business.
If you’d like to know more about strengthening your cybersecurity, come and talk to the team. We’ll be happy to review your security and provide advice on ways to tighten your controls.
Being a caring and supportive employer is a great way to improve your employee experience. We’ve got five tips for building better employee relationships and motivating your team.
Your people are one of the most critical elements in your business. But are you doing everything possible to provide a caring, supportive workplace that also drives the success of your business?
In this series, we’ll look at some key ways to optimise your business, exploring different avenues to evolve your enterprise and create a legacy you can be proud of.
Let’s look at ways to improve your employee experience and your connection to the team.
Studies show that happy workers are more productive. Offering your people a working environment where they can flourish is part of being a great employer. But what are the key ways to build these employee relationships and nurture your team?
Here are five ideas for creating the best possible workplace for your employees:
Invest in your employee development
Make sure you provide opportunities for professional growth. Offer your employees access to training programs, workshops, conferences and mentorship programs. It’s a chance to enhance their skills, boost morale and make them feel truly valued as team members.
Create a positive work environment
Cultivate a workplace that feels positive and supportive of your employees. Be open and transparent with your communication, listen to employee feedback and have a strong focus on employee wellbeing. This includes offering benefits, flexible work arrangements and other team perks.
Recognise and reward your employees
When an employee goes above and beyond, make sure it’s recognised and rewarded. You could do this through performance bonuses, employee-of-the-month programs or even extra time off in lieu. Being rewarded, and feeling truly valued, can be an amazing motivator.
Empower employees to do more
One of the best things you can do for your employees is give them autonomy. Being trusted to come up with their own solutions, processes and ideas is key to making people feel as if they own their role. Employees feel fully involved in your progress and will help you push things forward.
Put wellbeing at the heart of your culture
Work can be stressful. But by paying close attention to employee wellbeing you make sure no-one gets overwhelmed or left behind. Think about running free stress-management programs, offering mental health support and checking in with every team member on a regular basis.
Talk to us about your employee experience strategy
Making sure you’re a caring and supportive employer is vital to your business strategy. With a team who feel valued, nurtured and encouraged, you’ll all be happier and more productive.
Talk to our team about strategies for improving your employee experience
What will you do differently this year to enable your business to thrive? Conducting a past-year review with our experienced advisors will provide valuable insights for this year's goal-setting. We can help, get in touch today.
The beginning of a new calendar year is an excellent time to review last year and reflect on what worked, what didn’t, what you’d like to change and new things you want to implement.
Take the time to review the year and acknowledge all that has happened, good, bad or indifferent. Examining the year with an objective perspective can provide valuable insights to prepare for the coming business year. Planning and goal setting will help provide a focus for your business efforts.
Your Yearly Business Review
- What were the most significant impacts on your business in the last 12 months? How well did you meet the challenges?
- What worked well last year? What systems, technology, products or services were successful?
- What accomplishments can you celebrate?
- What situation, event or experience provided the biggest learning opportunity?
- What is the biggest challenge or frustration you face as you prepare for the year ahead?
- What did you most enjoy during the year? Do more of it. What did you least enjoy? Do less of it!
- Analyse your financial reports. Are you earning what you’d like to? Is the business sustainably profitable?
Get Ready for a Great Year
While there are many metrics you could evaluate to track business performance, we’ve given you just a few ideas to inspire your business planning for a positive start to the year.
If you’d like to chat about what you can do differently this year to enable your business to thrive, book a time with us today.
Running a business will always mean incurring certain expenses, or ‘spend’.
Whether you’re a large family business or a small fledgling startup, there will be costs, overheads and supplier bills that mount up – and these expenses will gradually chip away at your cash position, making it more difficult to grow and make a profit.
So, what can you do to reduce your spend levels? And what impact will this have on your overall margins, profits and ability to fund the next stage in your business journey?
Getting proactive with your spend management
Spend management is all about getting in control of your expenses – and, where possible, aiming to reduce the level of costs and overheads that you incur as a company.
Why does this matter? Well, excessive spending eats into your cashflow, reduces your profit margins and stops you from achieving the profits that you’re capable of as a business. So if you can get proactive with your spend management, you can actually make your company a far more financially productive enterprise – and that’s great for your overall business health.
So, what can you do to reduce spend and slim down your company expenses?
Here are some key ways to reduce expenses:
If you’d like to get in control of your expenses, we’d love to chat. We’ll review your current costs and will highlight the key areas where expenses can be cut. Then we’ll help you formulate a proactive spend management program, to reduce your unnecessary spending.
Get in touch to start reducing your spend.
Whether it’s for reaching a sales target, a birthday, Christmas or just to say thanks, sometimes you want to buy gifts for your employees.
Although it’s a nice gesture, as a business owner it can be unexpectedly complex to provide staff perks. Perks like subsidised gym memberships and discounted products will attract fringe benefit tax, while cash and cash-redeemable vouchers are taxed as part of PAYE.
Any cash, or vouchers redeemable for cash, are taxable
A gift that comes in the form of cash, or that can be exchanged for cash, is considered part of your employee’s total remuneration. That means it must go through your usual payroll system.
The value of gifts must be below $300 a month or $1,200 a year to be exempt from FBT
There is an exemption for employer gifts, provided they stay below a certain value threshold.
You can give your employees vouchers, prizes or gifts up to a certain value without triggering an FBT liability, if:
There are a few other exemptions, including uniforms, car parks and membership reward schemes that can also be provided to employees without you needing to pay FBT.
You can read more about FBT exemptions here.
Once you exceed the exemption threshold, you will trigger an FBT liability.
We can help with FBT questions
Rewarding employees can be complex, whether it’s company vehicles, vouchers, discounts or insurance policy contributions. We can help you navigate the tax landscape and help you know when tax will and won’t apply.
Get in touch, we’d love to hear from you.
A new financial year is upon us and that means that it’s time to check the accuracy of your financial information in your accounting software for the past financial year, and to gather the documentation that we, as your accountant, will need to finalise your accounts and file your tax returns.The sooner we have this information the sooner we can complete your accounts and notify you of your tax position. It’s a good idea to have this information as soon as possible so that you can make informed business decisions based on accurate data.
If you feel that your business is going to look significantly different this financial year you need to talk to us so that we can more accurately estimate any provisional tax.
Here’s a list of what to check, gather and look for:
Bank Reconciliations
All bank Reconciliations, including credit card and loan accounts, should be up to date to the end of March. This means that all transactions have been entered, that there are no unreconciled transactions, and that the bank account balance at your bank matches the balance in your accounting software. Your accountant may also need to see verification of bank account balances in the form of bank statements (pdf copies are usually OK).
Accounts Receivable
Make sure all sales for the previous financial year have been invoiced (dated in March or prior months) and run your Aged Receivables report to verify that the information on this report - what’s owed to you - is accurate. Follow up any overdue customer balances and consider whether or not any are uncollectible and should be written off as bad debts.
Accounts Payable
Make sure all supplier bills for the previous financial year have been received and entered into your accounting system. Check the statements from your suppliers and verify that their balance owed is the same as what you have recorded. Run your Aged Payables report to verify that the information on this report - what you owe - is accurate.
Inventory
If you carry inventory you need to complete a stock take at the end of each financial year to account for all the stock that you have purchased but not sold. This means doing a manual count of all of your stock on hand as at March 31st.
Fixed Assets and Depreciation
Have a look at your fixed asset register from last year and let your accountant know if anything on that register has been sold or disposed of. Fixed Assets are any asset over $1000*. The rules around these assets are that the cost of them gets spread over the expected lifetime of the asset rather than expensed all in one financial year. The spreading of the cost is called depreciation. As your accountant, we may need to see invoices for fixed asset purchases so attach them to the transaction in your accounting software or create a file or folder that you can share with us.
*The threshold went to $5000 from 17 March 2020 to 16 March 2021, then back down to $1000 from 17 March 2021.
Payroll and Wage and Leave Liabilities
If you have staff, ensure that the final payroll for the financial year has been run and entered into your accounting software. You need to account for any wages owed to staff (this can sometimes happen with timing between the end of the pay week and pay day) and annual leave liabilities at the end of the financial year in order to accurately reflect the business’s liabilities on the balance sheet. If you’re using payroll software you will be able to generate a report telling you how much these are. These two liability accounts also need to be reconciled to verify the accuracy of the balances.
Loans and Hire Purchases
Any loans or hire purchase balances will need to be verified and accurately accounted for at the end of year. Gather up your loan documentation that includes the balance at year end along with the interest accrued and payments made.
GST
Ensure your final period GST Return (usually ending March 31st) has been finalised and filed with Inland Revenue.
Cash on Hand
Do you keep petty cash for small purchases? If so you will need to ensure that all cash expenditure is entered and accounted for and that you accurately account for the value of cash on hand.
Vehicle Expenses
Your accountant will need to know if you use your personal vehicle for business use, or vice versa, so that they can accurately account for motor vehicle expense.
Home Office
If you use part of your home for business use you can claim a portion of household expenses, such as rent, insurance, power, against your business income. How much you can claim depends on how much of your house you use. Total up your household bills for the year and talk to your accountant about how much you can claim.
Other Balance Sheet Items
All items on your balance sheet must be able to be verified and have supporting evidence for that. If you are unable to verify a balance talk to your accountant or bookkeeper about it.
Profit & Loss Report
Run your Profit & Loss report for the year and check if your figures look reasonable and as expected. It can be helpful to run this report by month so you can easily see variations from month to month. You may also compare against budget and/or last year’s actual figures. If things don’t look quite right, consider whether any variances may be caused by transactions miscoded to the wrong account.
Lock your accounting system
Once your month end and subsequently year end results are complete, set your accounting system’s lock date for “All users” on the last day of the month (e.g. 31 March). This stops anybody accidentally entering transactions into the past year(s) after they have been finalised and closed.
Are you recording, measuring and analysing enough of the data being generated by your business?
With so many apps and digital solutions now available to businesses, there's a wealth of useful data to trawl through – and plenty of hidden insights for you to benefit from.
Here are 5 ways to get more insights from your business data
1. Track your business finances
Managing your business accounts used to be something you left to your finance director. But with cloud accounting now the norm, every business now has 24/7 online access to detailed information about its financial position and performance. Deeper analysis and insights are usually available at the click of a button, helping you spot the pitfalls and potential opportunities.
Your accounting platform can show you:
2. Review your credit score
The credit risk rating your company is given by the big credit agencies can have a huge impact on your ability to borrow. A high risk-rating will mean that banks and other lenders will be reluctant to offer you funding. And suppliers will be less open to offering you trade credit.
Some credit bureaus, like Experian, now offer ways to check your business credit score. With a better understanding of your credit data, you can take action to improve your score.
To get in control of your credit position, you should:
3. Monitor your sales and marketing data
Steady sales revenues are a must for any business that wants to grow, but how much oversight do you have over your historic and future sales data? Using a sales and marketing platform like Salesforce helps you track your sales, campaigns and customer relationships – giving you a goldmine of data to sift through and analyse:
Key data areas to analyse will include:
4. Track your staff performance
Your people are one of the company’s most important assets. But do you really know how well your employees are performing, or how engaged they are with the goals of the business? Today’s HR software makes it easy to set core skills and capabilities and track how each team member is performing over the course of the year.
As an employer, you can:
5. Measure your performance against targets
One of the big benefits of tracking your business data is the ability to measure your performance against a given target. Whether it’s a budget target for a new department, or a sales target for a new marketing campaign, you have the performance data at your fingertips. This helps you motivate the team, work towards a common goal and ‘gamify’ your progress as a business.
If you share these targets and performance data with your people at monthly team meetings, this transparency can work wonders for motivation. When your employees, management team and executive team are all aiming for the same goals, you’re a more effective team.
Talk to us about getting more from your data
Transforming your company into a digital business may seem like the end of the process. But the reality is that getting in control of your data sharing, analytics and performance tracking is the genuine goal for any ambitious business in 2022.
We can help you connect up your app stack and focus on analysing the most important data for business success.
