Hugh's Views
Eye catching icons
Further tax cuts
Employment law changes - 90 day trial period
Your telephone can be your timekeeper
Photos show it as it is
Tax calendar
Christmas office hours
Join us for golf
Disclaimer
HUGH'S VIEWS
And another one bites the dust . . . . !
2008 has pretty much been and gone and with only a few days left until Christmas it is a matter of getting rid of as many of the little jobs we were going to have done by Christmas.
2008 has been quite an eventful year in our office with the arrival of Macdonald Crawford life in September bringing about some changes in the way our workplace is laid out. We have said goodbye to Karin and Selar who vacated their rented space at the end of November.
On the 1 st of December Wilmac Financial Services, the Franchise Holder for Spicers in Central Otago, took over the Southland Franchise for Spicers after being approached by the National Office of Spicers.
On the work front, we have been pleased with the way our clients work has progressed this year, and we have well and truly exceeded requirements from the IRD to the point that we seem to have been doing some work in the last few weeks that in the past hasn’t been done until the New Year.
Fortunately there are still some of our clients who prefer to leave things until the last minute so we won’t be completely out of work in January/February.
We certainly haven’t been perfect in completing work on time so we have a project to further review our systems in the New Year. No doubt some of you will be hearing from us as to arrangements for doing your annual accounting work next year on a more timely basis.
Given the way our economy has slowed down over the past six to eight months, we as business people need to be prepared for some fallout from this, particularly in the first half of 2009. I think that the first three months will bring with it some shakedown, but as I said in my last newsletter Central Otago will be sheltered to some extent from the worst of the lay-offs and redundancies etc but we will not escape it.
It is really important that business owners manage their cashflows, by ensuring their debtors management processes are working and be prepared to budget for a year that in most cases will not be as good as last years.
There will of course be exceptions. We will be looking at ways we can assist clients by providing workshops on topics that we believe will be of relevance in business management.
If you don’t have a good relationship with your bank, I suggest that you work on getting one. You should remember that many of our client managers in banks these days are relatively young and may not have been exposed to the effects of a recession and the pressures this brings on relationships with clients.
You will need to manage this relationship and because not all our banks necessarily have resident business managers it may be necessary to do it from a distance. We are able to help in many cases because we know the bank staff reasonably well through dealing with them with a variety of clients’ needs. If you require assistance please feel free to contact us.
It goes without saying that we should be careful when making commitments in the first part of the year until we get a better idea where 2009 is going to take us.
Be sure that you don’t get too influenced by the “noise” that you read in the media. While we are going to be affected to some extent, I do believe that Central Otago has enough positive activity going on to enable us to look forward rather than back. It has been said that most recessions can be 90% mental and 10% physical.
May I take the opportunity of wishing you all a very Merry Christmas with your families, and a Happy and Prosperous New Year. We all look forward to working with you in 2009.
Hugh
EYE CATCHING ICONS
ICONS catch the eye. Use them in your advertising . You can have:
Pictures: You know the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words”. You can improve a picture of an inanimate object by having a person in the picture. Faces attract attention, which is why you see real estate companies and others putting them in their advertisements.
Numbers
Generally, odd numbers work better than even numbers. “9 ways you can save tax” catches the eye, for some strange reason, better than eight or 10.
Be careful with currency – $10 looks smaller than $10.00. If you want to send a message your price is low, don’t add the cents.
Large numbers can impress. Saying 87 ways you can save tax is better than saying all the ways you can save tax. Use the figures, not the words, so 87 is better than eighty-seven.
Words
Sometimes you will see “YES
Name
The best attention-grabber of all is the person’s name, but get it right. Imagine if a client received a piece of mail addressed to Normal when his name was Norman. Some people get upset when you spell their name incorrectly. Difficult parents of the last century often put the first name they were going to use, second. So Norman sometimes gets mail addressed to Laurence, a name he never uses.
Power words
Don’t ignore “power words”. “How to”, for example, attracts attention and if you use the word “you”, it relates better to the reader. So you can have a heading which reads “How you can?.”
HO, HO, HO, FURTHER TAX CUTS
The new government has acted very quickly and passed into law more tax cuts, in addition to those that we received on 1 October 2008. These rates are targeted at people in the $45,000 plus income brackets, who have missed out under our previous government.
The new cuts take effect on 1 April 2009. For those with yearly earnings of $50,000 - $70,000 there will be an extra $18.46 a week in your pay packet.
Also, for those on income under $44,000 that don’t receive Family Support there is a tax credit of $10 per week being introduced.
There will be further tax cuts on 1 April 2010 and 1 April 2011.
EMPLOYMENT LAW CHANGES - 90 DAY TRIAL PERIOD
From 1 April 2009 a 90 day trial period will be allowable for small employers (those with less than 20 employees).
The trial period means employers can dismiss a new employee any time within the trial period without the fear of a costly personal grievance claim for unfair dismissal.
However employers should keep in mind that the good faith provisions in the Employment Relations Act 2000 remain in place to protect employees against discriminatory behaviour by employers.
We recommend that small employers review and if necessary update their employment agreements on a regular cycle to ensure their agreements are up to date with the latest law changes.
YOUR TELEPHONE CAN BE YOUR TIMEKEEPER
TOLL-FREE numbers can be used in place of timesheets. Firms which have a fleet of vehicles can keep a record of their staff movements.
When the employee arrives at a site, he rings the office toll free number on the customer’s land line. The system records the call received. When he leaves he calls again. In this way you know the exact time spent at the site.
The system collects the information and at the end of each day produces summarised reports. You can get a staff report showing the hours of work for each employee for wage purposes. You can also get a site report showing which employees were at each site and the hours to charge the customer.
The toll-free number can also be used for sending messages from the office. The system generates an email confirming the message was received, which prevents anyone claiming they never got it.
GPS – Global Positioning System – can be used for tracking your vehicles. While it is a very accurate system, it is also expensive. A unique feature of GPS is that it allows you to put a prescribed speed limit in the vehicle. If this is exceeded, the GPS generates a report showing the speed of the vehicle. GPS depends on coverage and is therefore more reliable in urban areas.
PHOTOS SHOW IT AS IT IS
A growing number of trades people use a camera in their business.
An electrician takes several photos of the wiring of a new house before it is hidden behind the gib board. A builder takes photos to show where dwangs are. Being a smart builder, he also includes a picture of a ruler so the owner knows precisely where to hang pictures.
A drainlayer was told by an architect he had not put the material, which he was claiming, into the job.
“I always spray the cables in a trench so that when I take photos they come up clearly.” We were curious to know what the architect said when confronted with the pictures.
“He sort of mumbled and my bill was paid.”
TAX CALENDAR
15 January 2009
- 2nd instalment of 2009 Provisional Tax (March Balance Date except for those who pay provisional tax twice a year)
- Pay GST for period ended 30 November 2008
7 April 2009
- Terminal Tax for 2008 (March, April, May & June Balance Dates)
CHRISTMAS OFFICE HOURS
We’d like to let you know our office hours over the Christmas break this year. We will be closing the office at 1pm on Wednesday the 24th of December reopening on Monday the 12th of January with a skeleton staff.
The office will be fully manned from Monday the 19th of January.
While we won’t be officially open for business, if you do need our assistance with something please call the office, 448 8060, and you will be diverted to George Flannery who will be our on call person over the Christmas break, and will be able to help.
JOIN US FOR GOLF
We are in the early stages of planning a golf tournament for our clients and business associates.
At this stage it is planned for Friday the 6th of March at the Alexandra Golf Club.
So if you enjoy a social game of golf, get the clubs out and let our reception know if you would like to be sent an invitation.
MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM ALL THE TEAM AT
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’ll clarify it for you.