Your accountant and your Profit & Loss report both say you have made a profit, but you are wondering why all that money is not in the bank.
There can be a number of reasons for that.
If you have invested in equipment or an asset, the value of the asset may be assigned to the Balance Sheet rather than the Profit and Loss ie. This money will have gone out of your bank account, but won’t show up as an expense in your Profit and Loss; this amount does not come off your bottom line.
If you carry stock, there is often a lag between your payment purchasing the stock and you receiving the funds from your customers for the sale of that stock.
If you offer your customers credit, there is a further delay in you receiving the funds for the sale. The number of days between the sale to your customer and the date they pay, is known as debtor days. Reducing this number of debtor days will get your money in to your account.
There are a number of educational pieces around this topic in our Useful Information section, and you can always contact us for further clarification of your particular circumstances.
To discuss how you might improve your cashflow, please click on the Contact Us button, and we will be in touch to send you a form to complete that will tell us a bit more about your business, and we will then call you to set up a meeting.
Swag Bookkeeping is a registered BAS agent. The Australian Taxation Office allows us a lodgement concession of one month for quarterly BAS lodgement and payment, as per the table below. As a Swag Bookkeeping client, you receive the benefit of this lodgement concession.
| REPORTING DATES 2019-2019 for BAS, IAS and SGC | ||
| As per the Australian Taxation Office – for more information www.ato.gov.au | ||
| Lodgement and payment due dates | ||
| If lodging paper copy | If lodging through registered BAS Agent | |
| Quarterly BAS | ||
| Apr – Jun 2018 | 28-Jul-18 | 25-Aug-18 |
| Jul – Sep 2018 | 28-Oct-18 | 25-Nov-18 |
| Oct – Dec 2018 | 28-Jan-19 | 28-Feb-19 |
| Jan – Mar 2019 | 28-Apr-19 | 26-May-19 |
| Apr – Jun 2019 | 28-Jul-19 | 28-Aug-19 |
| Monthly Activity Statement and IAS | ||
| July | 21-Aug-18 | 21-Aug-18 |
| August | 21-Sep-18 | 21-Sep-18 |
| September | 21-Oct-18 | 21-Oct-18 |
| October | 21-Nov-18 | 21-Nov-18 |
| November | 21-Dec-18 | 21-Dec-18 |
| December | 21-Jan-19 | 21-Jan-19 |
| January | 21-Feb-19 | 21-Feb-19 |
| February | 21-Mar-19 | 21-Mar-19 |
| March | 21-Apr-19 | 21-Apr-19 |
| April | 21-May-19 | 21-May-19 |
| May | 21-Jun-19 | 21-Jun-19 |
| June | 21-Jul-19 | 21-Jul-19 |
| 2019 PAYG withholding payment summary report | ||
| 14-Aug-19 | 30-Sep-19 | |
| Superannuation Guarantee Contribution (SGC)- Monthly | ||
| July | 21-Aug-18 | |
| August | 21-Sep-18 | |
| September | 21-Oct-18 | |
| October | 21-Nov-18 | |
| November | 21-Dec-18 | |
| December | 21-Jan-19 | |
| January | 21-Feb-19 | |
| February | 21-Mar-19 | |
| March | 21-Apr-19 | |
| April | 21-May-19 | |
| May | 21-Jun-19 | |
| June | 21-Jul-19 | |
| Superannuation Guarantee Contribution (SGC) – Quarterly | ||
| Jul – Sep 2018 | 28-Oct-19 | |
| Oct – Dec 2018 | 28-Jan-19 | |
| Jan – Mar 2019 | 28-Apr-19 | |
| Apr – Jun 2019 | 28 July 2019 (30 June 2019 to be eligible to claim in 2019 income tax return) | |
If you are concerned about getting your BAS prepared and lodged on time, a simple solution can be for Swag Bookkeeping to review and lodge your BAS online for you.
If this sounds like something that could help you, please click on the Contact Us button, and we will be in touch.
Xero is user-friendly but we can all run in to problems that we don’t know how to fix or solve. The Help button and Community Forums are a great source of information and solutions, but they don’t always have the answer to our own particular issue.
And we usually need this addressed right there and then, while still front of mind.
Unfortunately, you can’t just get on the phone and call Xero Support. You must email them and wait for their reply. Xero work hard to provide a fast response, but it can be frustrating having to wait. Even more frustrating, is if they misunderstand your question and you have to go back and forwards a number of times to get them to understand what it is you really need – it can become quite a drawn out process.
If you find yourself needing help with Xero, why not give us a call to see if we can help you right there and then? Put the combined experience of our team to the test and call 1300 58 40 50.
It can be difficult to keep on top of your own bills, when your customers do not pay on time or worse, don’t pay at all.
There can be many reasons why your customer is not paying as expected.
We have found that it is often a simple matter of your invoice not being received by the customer. For whatever reason, the sales invoice has gone astray.
Similarly, the invoice may not have reached the person who should authorise the invoice for payment, and it does not then get processed as part of the usual system.
Your customer may be experiencing their own cashflow problems and may not be able to pay straight away.
Your customer may simply be overwhelmed with the amount of work involved in running their business, and just be behind in their job of paying the bills.
And there is often that one customer who will not pay their bill until they are followed up by a personal request to do so. Not all of us enjoy having to make that request either.
In our experience, these problems are most readily addressed by consistent review of your debtors/receivables list – making that weekly/fortnightly/monthly call to ensure the invoice had been received, that it has been received by the right person and if not, updating the contact details on your records and re-sending, offering payment plans to those experiencing cashflow problems, asking for the payment to be made promptly.
It can be a bit time consuming to begin with, but over time you will find that your outstanding receivables becomes much more manageable and your regular customers will know that they will be followed up for payment if they do not pay on time.
Swag Bookkeeping has a dedicated Accounts Receivable Manager available to contact your debtors on a regular basis, or to help you get back on top of things. Lorna is unfailingly polite to the customers she calls, but once she has established that the customer has the invoice and should pay, she is consistent and persistent.
If you think this is something that could help you get on top of your overdue invoices, please click on the Contact Us button, and we will be in touch to discuss what would suit you best.
Sometimes working on your books doesn’t go as smoothly as planned, or takes longer than expected. If you are working really hard, sometimes there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything you need to do and then the bookwork as well. But the BAS deadline looms and nobody wants to get on the wrong side of the ATO.
If you are concerned about getting your BAS prepared and lodged on time, a simple solution can be for Swag Bookkeeping to lodge your BAS online for you. As a registered BAS agent, Swag receives a lodgement concession of one month for quarterly BAS lodgement and payment. For example, if you are required to lodge your Jul-Sep BAS by 28th October, we could lodge it online for you as late as 28th November.
If this sounds like something that could help you, please click on the Contact Us button, and we will be in touch.
Bookkeeping can be a bit of a chore, and time consuming to boot. None of us like being forced to spend time on an odious or loathsome task, particularly if we are not even sure if we are doing it correctly despite all our time and effort. But if you are in business, the bookwork must be done. Compliance deadlines must be met.
You also have other demands on your time, and it is worth considering if you would be better spending your bookkeeping time on some of these. How many sales could you be making during the time it takes you to do your books? Would those sales cover the cost of hiring a bookkeeper?
What would it be worth to you to be able to spend that bookkeeping time with your family instead?
To discuss how we might lighten your load, and to find out just how affordable that could be, please click on the Contact Us button, and we will be in touch.
Your bookkeeper holds a trusted position. It can be a bit daunting when your long term bookkeeper moves on. You want to be assured that their replacement will be able to do the work, but also to be just as reliable, just as honest, just as flexible and just as easy to get along with.
Here at Swag Bookkeeping, these are the same things that we look for when we are hiring staff and contractors.
Swag Bookkeeping has a team of bookkeepers, and we are confident that at least one of our approved bookkeepers or office managers will suit you and your needs.
Please click on the Contact Us button, and we will be in touch.
Please also refer to our Useful Info page for help on what to look for when hiring a bookkeeper.
Design your product or service, find customers, convert customers, meet customers, satisfy customers, develop a marketing plan, develop a business plan, organise advertising, keep up on social media, invoice customers, take payments, reply to emails, answer the phone, make phone calls, open mail, hire staff, manage staff, pay staff, pay staff entitlements, work out your BAS, pay bills – the list goes on. As business owners we wear a lot of hats. And we have to set priorities all the time, every day.
And we all have a personal life or at least try to!
If you are trying to decide the most effective use of your time, you might consider outsourcing your bookkeeping. How many sales could you be making during the time it takes you to do your books? Would those sales cover the cost of hiring a bookkeeper?
And it would be one less thing to worry about.
Swag Bookkeeping offers different level solutions in order to customise a service package that will help you the most at this point in time. As things change, so can our level of support.
To discuss how we might lighten your load, and to find out just how affordable that could be, please click on the Contact Us button, and we will be in touch.
If you are working hard to grow your business, money always seems to go out faster than it comes in. Working out when is the best time to invest money in people or equipment can be difficult. And some of us just lack discipline when it comes to money matters.
One of the best ways to hold yourself accountable, so to speak, is to set up a budget for the whole year, and to track your performance against it each month.
Creating a budget forces you to think about the year ahead, to define what might be possible and to translate this in to monthly goals.
It will give you a way of measuring your performance and be a good basis for cashflow projections.
A budget can highlight areas of concern eg lower sales than expected, higher costs than expected, before things get too out of hand.
Swag Bookkeeping offers a discounted budget service twice a year – in May to set up a Financial Year budget, and in November for a calendar year budget.
To take advantage of this offer, please click on the Contact Us button, and we will be in touch to explain how we would work together to produce a customised budget for your business.
If you are working hard to grow your business, money always seems to go out faster than it comes in. Working out when is the best time to invest money in people or equipment can be difficult. And some of us just lack discipline when it comes to money matters.
One of the best ways to hold yourself accountable, so to speak, is to set up a budget for the whole year, and to track your performance against it each month.
Creating a budget forces you to think about the year ahead, to define what might be possible and to translate this in to monthly goals.
It will give you a way of measuring your performance and be a good basis for cashflow projections.
A budget can highlight areas of concern eg lower sales than expected, higher costs than expected, before things get too out of hand.
Swag Bookkeeping offers a discounted budget service twice a year – in May to set up a Financial Year budget, and in November for a calendar year budget.
To take advantage of this offer, please click on the Contact Us button, and we will be in touch to explain how we would work together to produce a customised budget for your business.