Autumn Newsletter 2010
Hugh’s Views |
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Now there are two! |
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Those of you who read our last newsletter would have noticed the advance notice of George Flannery’s impending move to become a partner in McIntyre & Associates. Some of you who missed that may have seen the adverts with the message early in the New Year. (See above) Those who missed both of those announcements are hopefully now aware that as from 1 January 2010 George is a fellow Director/Owner of the practice. We are now almost a quarter of the way through the year which is a bit of a worry really, I don’t know where the last 10 weeks have gone. We have been quite busy here between tidying up late returns, clearing up holidays and getting ourselves ready for the new season.In the last newsletter I spent some time discussing the review of our business model and since then we have been able to spend time finalising some of the changes we had considered. Some of the most significant changes that will affect most of our clients are alterations to the way we collect our End of Year Information and the way we intend to charge our fees this year. Articles on Client End of Year Questionnaires and Annual Accounting Fees appear elsewhere in this publication. Earlier in March we held another of our Client Advisory Boards. While, due to some unfortunate circumstances, the group we had was smaller than we would have liked, the input from them was valuable. Some of the issues discussed were. Agreed Fees Coaching Classes Benchmarking Report Business Needs Analysis Client Service We are looking forward to the end of April when the annual account cycle will commence once again. Hugh |
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We know how much you all enjoy receiving these. So much so that you don’t like to write on them and keep them as a work of art. Over the years we have spent an inordinate amount of time preparing these, deciding what type for which client and then received about 10% of them completed. We decided we could do better things with our time. This year, in most cases, you will get a phone call to review the information we require, followed up by a letter, email or fax summarising the details we need to commence work on your financials. There will also be a standard form that the IRD and the Institute of Chartered Accountants insist we have signed by you. For some clients where the issues can be a little more complex we will be arranging a time to meet with you either at your offices or at ours to finalise matters. The important issue is that we will not commence your work until we have everything we need so that we can do the work more efficiently and not stop and start as we find bits of information missing. |
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One thing we have learned over the years is that people do not like getting surprises, particularly when it comes to paying for goods and services supplied. We intend to make a very significant change this year. Many of our clients who we do work for throughout the year have agreed fees in place. These are negotiated each year and are paid in installments throughout the year, in advance, as the work is done. It is our intention to offer an Agreed Annual Fee to the majority of our clients prior to commencing the work and in most cases this will be before we collect the information from you. You will be offered the opportunity to pay in two installments or if you require more time to pay we can arrange a six month period for amounts under $1,000 or 12 months for larger amounts through a company called feeSmart. These loans are made at a rate well below bank overdraft rates and this service has proved popular to those we have offered it to over the past 18 months. We won’t be doing this for everyone. There are new clients that we haven’t, as yet, been able to see what state their records are in. Other clients affairs can be a little more complex than the norm and estimating the job can be a bit like playing Russian Roulette. |
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Business things “to do list” before Balance Date |
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With 31 March looming quickly, for many businesses as their annual balance date, it is timely to remind business owners of the things they should consider before balance date. Bad debts – to gain a deduction for bad debts in the current financial year for tax purposes the debt must be written off the debtor’s ledger before balance date. If you identify which debts are likely to be unrecoverable now is the best time to write them off. Remember you can still attempt to collect the debt once it has been written off the debtor’s ledger however, for tax purposes IRD stipulate the debt must be removed from the debtor’s ledger before balance date. If it ends up that you recover the debt in the next financial year it will simply become income derived next year, so the write off is effectively reversed. 31 March Stock take – if you carry stock in excess of $5,000 please remember to do an accurate stock take on 31 March. An accurate stock take is a requirement of IRD. If you want our assistance please get in touch before 31 March. Holiday Pay & Bonuses - Employee benefits like holiday pay and bonuses which are owing at 31 March can be claimed in the 2010 financial year if they are paid by 2 June 2010. Bonuses must be finalised before 31 March to be claimable. Extension of time arrangements – 31 March 2010 is the last day for 2009 tax returns to be filed under extension of time arrangements with Inland Revenue. If your 2009 returns are not filed by 31 March you risk losing your extension of time and may incur a late filing penalty which could be between $50 and $500. |
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Do your Customers Recommend your Business? |
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We can assist you with Customer Surveys and Customer Advisory Meetings to get meaningful answers to these question. |
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March 31 April 7 May 7 |
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Holly is the latest addition to the M&A team. She comes from Palmerston and moved to Central prior to Christmas. Recently Holly graduated with a certificate in Business Administration from Otago Polytechnic. Holly can be found at our reception where she is our Administration Assistant. |
DISCLAIMER We don’t claim to know it all, so with that in mind here’s what we’re obliged to say; this newsletter has had input from a variety of sources, people and publications. For all input we are grateful. Grateful and careful. Whenever we can, we do our very best to ensure all the information contained in this newsletter is accurate and timely. If there's something here you plan to place some considerable reliance on and we haven't made the implications totally clear to you, get in touch and we will clarify it for you. |
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