As tax agents, we have access to your Prefill reports, that is used for your tax return, either by your tax agent or by yourself on myGov.

Each year the technology gets better, and the tax office has access to more and more information, to make your tax return easier to submit.

Here's some of the information that's available on your prefill report, once it has been submitted by the provider, which may take up to a month or two after the end of financial year.

Taxpayer details, such as name, residency status, addresses and date of birth.

PAYG Payment summary (the old "group certificate" information - now called Single Touch Payroll income statements.

Termination payout details

Super income stream details

Foreign employment income (if submitted)

Centrelink information

ATO and Bank interest received

note that we don't get reported the interest you have paid - as this could be a tax deduction.

Dividends from shares

Employee Share Scheme information

Managed Funds &...

What's the cost of not doing your business data entry properly?

Are you missing out on tax deductions?
Are you missing out on GST credits?

Are you losing sleep, or wasting time stressing about getting your data entry done?
Are you stressing about your tax bill because you aren't sure what your numbers are?

There's a lot of ways that "costs" occur, and they aren't all in money form.  

Doing your data entry and keeping your books up to date can provide so many benefits to you and your business.  Here's a few:

1. You know you are claiming the right tax deductions, and paying just the right amount of tax - not too much tax.

2. You can claim back the right amount of GST, to reduce your BAS payment.

3. By having a routine set to each week complete your data entry, you will be able to use the rest of your week doing the things that you can do - so schedule in a specific time each week and stick to it.  

4. If your book work isn't up to date, you may end up...

Ever tried to do some research on the ato.gov.au website about Capital Gains Tax?  

It's complicated and sends you around in circles!

This video helps to explain what capital gains tax is (selling an asset such as shares or property) and how to calculate (selling price less purchase price) and how to pay tax on it.

Selling Price = Proceeds

Purchase Price = Cost Base

MAIN RESIDENCE EXEMPTION - selling your own home

The next video in the series explains more about the Main residence exemption:  see that here.  The main residence exemption applies to a house that has ONLY been your place of residence, when you have no other houses.  Partial exemptions can apply in certain circumstances, including when you have 2 properties, or if you earn an income from it.

The main residence exemption will also apply for a period of 6 years after you move out. If you want to move from one main residence to the next, you can have a 6 month overlap where both properties...

Do you have trouble with cashflow in your business?

Is it seasonal income, or lumpy income that you are dealt with month after month, quarter after quarter?

When the money doesn't come in - you stress out.  When the money does come in you try and figure out who needs it the most (and you as the business owner are usually at the bottom of the list!) 

Profit First is a solution to help you smooth out the lumpiness and make better decisions about your money.

By allocating all of your income each week to a different bank account set up for a different purpose (eg having a tax account, and a wages account, money for bills and money for paying the owner), it gives you clarity over how much money you can afford to pay out for each.  If you allocate 50% of your income each week to operating expenses, you may not have enough money to pay towards paying taxes.

This is not a very common way of making decisions about your business.  But it certainly does make a lot...

If you work as a bookkeeper or are a part of the business and doing the bookkeeping in a small business it can feel really lonely.  If you don't have anyone to help you and guide you, check your work, or give you a place to look for an answer, then it can be all-consuming.  Or - even worse, a place to avoid.

Avoiding your bookkeeping because you are not sure what you are doing is a coping strategy.  But going and finding the right person to support you can be another.

BizSkills in Your Pocket is designed to be your support person - to help you with your research (handy links and templates) plus videos that you can watch and follow along with, that can help you with your data entry.  At Northwest Accountancy we can be your expert on call, to help you and guide you through whenever you are doing your bookkeeping.  As all training is presented virtually - you don't need to be where our office is to take advantage of this service.

Each video/ session is no more...

We often are asked - how do I get a bigger refund?

The answer is simple - spend more money. But, spending money just to get a refund doesn’t work, you need to spend your money for a higher purpose than that, as the maths just doesn’t stack up.

If you are on the 32.5% tax bracket (that is you earn between $45,000 and $120,000) then for every dollar you spend on a tax deduction you get a refund back of $0.32.

So if you spend $150 on work boots, you receive a refund of $48.75, meaning that overall your boots cost a hundred bucks...and it’s not a cash back system, you have to wait for your money!

We absolutely want you to claim everything you can, it now comes to “what do I have to spend in order to get the best benefit”. You won’t buy a pair of boots every month because you don’t need them - they still cost $102 after the tax refund is received (later - when you lodge your tax return).

We would rather you keep the $150 than waste $100 on a...

Did you know it is easy to change your accountant?

You don't need to wait for the end of the year, or until a BAS is done, or until tax is sorted out.  Your new accountant has the skills to do all of those things.

If you are looking for a new accountant there is something that is not working with your current accountant.  What is that?

Are they late in responding to messages?  Do they talk too quickly or not with enough detail?  Do you constantly have to chase them up to lodge your forms?  A traditional accountant will make sure that you are billed for every bit of time that you use of theirs - so are you getting a heap of bills?

At Northwest Accountancy we have a package that we can offer you that covers your support.  We make sure your forms are scheduled in and lodged on time, and we check in and make sure that you and your business are doing OK.

It's easy to change accountants.  Just contact your new one (us?) and they will do the...

As business owners, we are told to work ON our business, not IN it.

It's just really hard to do this without a system in place to do it.

When you work IN your business, you are doing all the daily tasks - such as answering phones, dealing with mail or emails from customers, dealing with complaints and sales, as well as the admin part of your business - invoicing, paying bills, banking, making decisions, or even just being out "on the tools".

So many things to do and never enough time to do it.  The days are short and the "to do" list is ever growing, right?

When you work ON your business, you look to figure out how to delegate some of these tasks, so you are not the only one working on the business.  You might get rid of some of the easier tasks that can be handed over.  But how do you trust someone else to do the same job as you?  Training and procedures (boring!).  Trust me - there's been a lot of resistance to procedures in my business over the...

Did you know that when you take care of your money, it takes care of you?

When you have a purpose for your cash - you don't waste it on frivolous items?

 What's your plan for your money?  For the staff in our office - holidays and new caravans, cameras and to retire early.

 For us as a business - always having enough money put aside for a BAS and those surprise bills that always pop up when we least expect it.

If we haven't allocated money for a specific purpose, then we tend to just spend it...  that's part of Parkinson's Law - the more you have the more you use - whether that's time, money, cupboards in your house....

We recommend the "bucket" approach to banking - where each bucket (or bank account - please don't actually keep your money in a bucket!) has a specific purpose that you use that money for.

 As an example, for my (jodi's) home banking, I have a bank account set up for the regos and insurances - those things that are once a...

Many rental property owners will come up with this question throughout their period of ownership.  Repairs can be claimed against the current year income, while an improvement must be claimed over a period of time (as depreciation).
What’s the difference between a repair and an improvement? Well, here’s some comparisons:

Replacing 1 kitchen door handle is a repair.
Pulling out the whole kitchen and putting a brand new one in is an improvement.

Fixing the leaking hot water system is a repair, but installing a new one in an improvement.

Easy examples, right? Let’s give some trickier ones.
The roof is damaged in a cyclone.  To re-sheet those ones that flew away, but leave the rest as is, is a repair.  But if the whole roof was to be replaced, then that’s an improvement, even if the whole roof was damaged.

The shower waterproofing has stopped working and you have mould everywhere.  To fix the shower, and remedy the mound, is a repair. But the...