Paleo, vegan or Proprietary Limited? Let the numbers be your guide

Everybody is different so it should come as no surprise that everybody is different too. We each place different demands on our physiques beyond the whole heart, lungs and brain function imperative – something that came up in a roundabout way earlier last month, we met Chef Pete Evans. We talked through brands and business-building but at some point we drifted onto different ways of eating. Now if you want to set a match to the highly flammable, crude oil of dietary debate, vegan versus paleo is a great place to start. Spice your conversation with the vegetarian option and that should keep things cooking for the whole evening.

The undeniable truth is that it is up to the individual to make their own choice and they themselves will either get to embrace the benefits or deal with the consequences. That doesn’t mean that others don’t get to voice their opinion. Finding the best qualified opinion is the key though and oftentimes the quality of the questions determine the quality of the answers.

So let’s talk about your business

The same could be said of selecting the most appropriate business structure. Think back to your high school maths tests – multiple choice. Is it all coming back to you?

The teachers, the good ones anyway, would explain that out of the 4 alternatives (a,b,c,d) there would be an answer that is just dead wrong. Then there would be one that was wrong but at first glance you could be mistaken for thinking it was right. Finally, you’re left with two answers and frustratingly they would both be correct. However, one of them would be a slightly better answer. Your job, they told us, was to determine “the best” answer. And only that answer would be deemed correct even though technically there was another answer that would still satisfy the equation.

So complicated, but in life and business and diets, you’ll always derive more benefit from the best possible answer – especially over the longer term.

Think about a greater return on savings overtime with the application of compound interest.
Consider the tax savings of a trust or company structure over a sole traders arrangement.
What about the daily benefits to your knees and lower back of walking around in a body that is composed of 10% less body fat.

The benefits of selecting the best possible answer instead of one that simply fits, extend way beyond your high school test scores and into quality of life and business benefits.

So how do I find the best answer?

As I mentioned, sometimes the best answer is a simple but deceptively in-depth question. And here is the question that should be asked by your:

Accountant when talking you through effective (not just viable) business structure options;
Doctor or dietitian when assessing a change in diet; or
Trainer or physiologist when compiling an exercise regime.

“What is the end result you are looking to achieve and why?”

By focusing on the goal, having understood where you’re starting out, a logical map can be plotted between the two points. This is the difference between micro, task-oriented service and bigger picture strategic planning. If followed, you may be pleasantly surprised when you reach that destination and how many more opportunities you can see from that vantage point.

If you have a question about where and how your business is going, just ask us because our goal is to help you to reach yours, for you, your family and your future… and now for that paleo cheesecake and a run.

What does a healthy business look like?

Is it just me or have there been a lot of baby birth announcements on social media lately?

Despite the Australian population swelling beyond 24million it may still come as a surprise that a child is born every 1 minute and 40seconds. Which is quite mind-boggling because that means that over 30 times an hour, at least for a moment, a doctor, midwife and or parent(s) are carefully and possibly anxiously staring at a vital signs monitor. Is the pulse rate good (130bpm is good)? Blood pressure? Fingers and toes all there? Arms and legs?… You get the picture. These are all important checks and again, we don’t call them “vital signs” for nothing. They are a good indicator of what the outlook may be.

My baby turns over a million dollars a year!

There are quite a few business owners who care about their business almost as much as they care about their children. Sure, there are parallels but for those of us who have children, there’s really no comparison. That said, for business owners who do feel this way or at least depend on their business profits to support their families, it seems odd that they would neglect their commercial vital signs.

It’s not unusual for business owners to not have a handle on their turnover, how much tax they are or will have to pay, how much profit should be protected, what the owners should be getting paid, payment terms… The decisions made around a thorough understanding of these numbers are a good indicator of what the outlook may be. So whether your baby is turning over $250k or into the millions – you need to keep a close watch on the numbers and what they are telling you.

It’s always best to have a professional standing by

We’ve all seen those movie or television situations where a heavily pregnant lady doesn’t make it to the hospital on time and a kindly cabby/fireman/panicky husband/anxious friend steps up and delivers a healthy baby and all is well.

It’s important to keep in mind that in real life, everything is less stressful when you have a trusted and experienced professional in your corner. Someone who can monitor the numbers and knows the best course of action to take if the unexpected should occur.

Delivering peace of mind

Remember all the things on your list of reasons to get start or run your own business? Do you remember seeing “white-knuckled” stress there?

We’re inspired by the opportunity to provide our clients with an understanding of how to get the most positive impacts from their business. Profit, time to enjoy with the family, fulfilment, pride and the means to help those less fortunate – that’s a good start. In order to achieve these objectives we recommend getting a team of trusted professionals working for you. A team that will happily keep an eye on your vital signs (numbers) and teach you how to do the same.

Feel free to contact us if you’d like to deliver more of the good things in life to the best people in yours. Let’s have a great week.

Before we go… I’ll have the steak, extra fries, hold the tax

Every Friday we just want to stop the world for a moment and give you a couple of real tips to think about that will make a real difference to your business and in your life.

Can you feel it? Tax season is getting closer and closer and as we’ve often said, the key to victory is all in the planning. If you’re planning on forking over less tax to the government going forward, you’ll need to have a handle on the rules that affect deductibles from the largest piece of capital (10-colour large format printer anyone?) all the way down to the humble cup of coffee.

Yes coffee – it’s deductible in many circumstances because it can be considered an integral part of a “coffee” meeting with a client or indeed part of a more expansive work day snack.

I can’t believe coffee’s tax deductible, tell me more!

Look, this is very exciting news, especially to those of us with a fiendish coffee addiction but again, you must consider the circumstances. Lining up soy milk, cappuccinos at your favourite weekend breakfast spot while you peruse the sport pages does not conform to the spirit of the law. Paying for the coffee and triple choc muffin a valued client orders during the course of your business meeting, does. You are well within your rights to claim coffee as deduction if it is purchased and consumed in the furtherance of your business endeavours and yes, meetings with clients or fellow team mates when things simply need to get done, certainly qualify.

Here’s what else qualifies

Food. Within reason and under the right circumstances.

Tip: do not head down to your local supermarket, do a weekly shop for yourself and try to claim that. This will eventually lead to problems and a sweaty-palmed Q&A with the ATO.

Here are four circumstances under which you can confidently claim food:

While travelling interstate on business. It can be within your state though, as long as you’re away overnight (easy done in WA with its 2.646million km2 ). $100/day is a safe and fair figure so help yourself to that pub grub or reasonably priced two courser but reconsider the 9 course degustation with matching wines in the city
As part of a working lunch. Again, the ATO understands that sometimes business imperatives demand we work through lunch or stay back past dinner time. Within reason, you can claim that late night office pizza or lunchtime sandwich tray in the conference room.
Inhouse/onsite catering facilities like canteens, hired chefs may serve up deductions for the company.
Once again, those muffins and coffee that you paid for when you sat down with your visiting client – deductible.

The aim here is not simply to see how many deductions you can accrue. That would mean you’re losing sight of the larger goal: to increase profit so that your business can positively impact your family life. Make sure that there is a significant return on investment in the form of efficiencies or profit before you start ringing up deductions.

Have a great weekend and if you’re away working for the next couple of days, don’t forget to keep your receipts.

Protecting your home: What’s yours is yours – let’s keep it that way!

Why are we here? A wonderful question that people from all walks of life, in a number of locations around the world have asked down through the ages. Today, I’d like to focus on those of us who have stepped out and decided to create the best life they could for their family and themselves but entering into private enterprise. I’m talking to the business owner.

One of your measures of success may well be the ownership of the family home. This is one of the things that make the hours of toil worthwhile. We’ve often spoken about how to minimize those hours of toil by the way but again, this is about protecting what you’ve worked so hard to achieve. Home ownership.

A hard luck story

A gentleman owns a small, “hole-in-the-wall” style restaurant. It’s a neighbourhood favourite for those that like great food at a good price… you know the drill. Long story short, this little nook becomes pretty popular, growth opportunities beckon, he moves up the street to a larger location and the cash floodgates are open. So, wildly successful, years of toil have well and truly paid off – and they’ll continue to do so because now the whole family is helping out. Brother doing deliveries, wife taking care of takeaways, kids part-time waiting tables and learning the business.

Until…

One day, something goes wrong, only a handful of people know exactly what but it was most certainly avoidable – admin/bookkeeping anomalies, tax, something like that, apparently the business partner may have dropped the ball. The upshot?

Financial Armageddon! Suddenly, the fines, bills and recompense needed to be paid and made and what’s worse, the neighbourhood loses the best thing that happened to local food.

Even worse than that? Eventually, the family home and private assets came into play…

Take luck out of the equation with the right business structure

Okay, so that was a partnership that went horribly wrong and we’ve spoken about “partnership panic” previously. This was the other side of that coin, where personal assets (the home etc) were left exposed to the ravages of business debt. Here are just two of many steps to avoid that loss and heartbreak:

Shelter under the protection offered by a company or trust business structure. With the guidance of a knowledgeable and helpful accountant, you can sleep easier at night (or the day if you’ve taken the late shift). Life becomes a lot easier when you know that whatever happens, the family home that you have worked so hard for is so much safer than if you chose another structure under which to operate.
If you are a sole trader or in a partnership, you have potentially pared down the costs of doing business but in return you have taken on a fair bit of personal liability and risk (and potentially tax). You are the risk-taker. You need to recognise that and consider your spouse or relationship partner the asset-holder (which means the house etc would be exclusively in their name). Keeping these two entities separate goes a long way to insulating your assets against business risk.

At Inspire, one of our primary aims is to ensure that our clients achieve the best possible lifestyle for themselves and their families. Another is to ensure that they get to keep it.

In part two we’ll share ways you can (and should) minimize your tax.

Stop what you’re doing and learn how to stop procrastinating

Yes, I see the irony. Unless reading our Inspired Daily article is a scheduled part of your everyday work routine, there’s a chance that you’re procrastinating. You are doing almost anything else rather than simply getting on with what you are supposed to be doing. It happens to almost all of us at one point or another. Unfortunately, it’s happening with increasing regularity to almost everybody when they are supposed to be at their most productive.

Before I get to a couple of tips to help you stay on track, let’s look at some rapid fire examples of what stops us from getting started:

Wow, I am actually really hungry, I better get a snack before I get into this
Maybe I should read Inspired Daily, I just need some inspiration
I work better under pressure
I better check my messages, I am waiting for an important update
Goodness, that benchtop is filthy, let me just wipe that down before I get started
Oh wow! (insert name here) just got (fired/promoted/robbed/busted/hooked up/upstaged/embarrassed/harassed/arrested/awarded/rewarded…)

Let’s face it, many of us have never cleaned so diligently, read so intently or absorbed as much near useless data than when we have a looming deadline. It happens – unfortunately.

Great! We’ve admitted there’s a problem, now what?

The next step is always to try and understand a problem. Understanding the problem helps us to adopt or devise solutions that are sustainable rather than band-aid solutions that are temporary fixes at best.

Here’s part of what we know. Firstly, we are very good at associating environment and stimulus with a specific response. At night I go to bed… and fall asleep. I sit on my sofa and… watch TV. I arrive at a coffee shop… I ask for coffee.

Tip: Don’t take your laptop to the lounge room, park yourself in front of the TV and expect to study/work effectively if that’s where you normally binge watch your new favourite show. You’ll end up “just having a quick flick” and that will be that. Construct a work association in a particular place under specific conditions and get to it.

Your brain is full of chemicals and other stuff and no one’s actually certain about what all of it does but we do know that when we’re exposed to certain favourable stimuli, a reaction takes place that releases chemicals making us feel good. Alright, there’s more to it than that but that is definitely the gist. And it’s the reason why, when our mobile device pings and alerts us to the fact that someone:

Likes our post
Likes us
Has sent a message
Has tagged us or
Generally given us some attention in some way or another

…we love it and we want more of it. The wanting more is the reason we keep our mobile devices so, SO close. All that is okay but let’s face it, it is burning a hole in our productive “doing stuff” hours. Which is not okay.

Tip: Put your phone on “flight mode” while you work on that one important thing. No pings, no alerts, no messages to stop you from starting.

Tip: There is such a thing as a newsfeed eradicator. Which is great if you can’t stop yourself from scrolling through your feed, robotically looking for something, anything to make you laugh or shake your fist or feel… something. Use it.

Halting procrastination is about understanding your triggers and limiting the negative effects by neutralising or controlling the cause. Remember, getting inspired is only half the battle, now it’s time to go and achieve something.

Simon says, “dopamine is dope”

Well not in so many words, but inspirational author, thought leader and speaker Simon Sinek blames part of the so-called “dealing with millennials” problem at the feet of dopamine-peddling social media. Agreed. We echo the notion that a disproportionate amount of time, energy and emotion is devoted to accruing likes and shares (not that kind) by those of us born since the mid to late eighties. He goes onto describe how legions of us are zoning out of the real world, to spend more time on line. It’s addictive and can be, if left unchecked, all-consuming. And if it’s a problem in business (and yes, sometimes it is), what do we do about it?

Shall we start with why?

A well-known biology lesson derived from a 2012 study, confirmed to the world that getting likes, PMs and replies on social media releases the “feel good” chemical dopamine. And true to its claim, it feels good. And we like to feel good – especially when we’re down so we have developed a tendency to pursue online affirmation – seemingly at all costs.

But we touched on all this during yesterday’s Inspired Daily focus on overcoming procrastination. The point to be made, absorbed and understood today, thanks to the thought catalyst that is Simon Sinek? Good interactions, blossom into great relationships, which eventually bear fruit in the form of sustainable business results and oftentimes an overflow of shared wellbeing. Sounds terrific.

Feeling good about business, can’t be that simple. Can it?

No. No it’s not. There’s far more to it than that but staying with the millennial theme, Simon does go on to boldly critique and expand on the four pillars of workplace unrest. They are entitlement, technology, impatience (or instant gratification) and environment.

Spend 15 minutes listening to this terrific and insightful sit down with Simon, courtesy of the Tom Bilyeu interview on Inside Quest and just drink in the common sense and logic.

One of my big takeaways from this is that we, the business owners, need to accept and embrace responsibility around setting expectations and building an environment where excellence wants to come and work. All of that said, I would recommend this video as not only a two-way eye-opener but a bit of a self-assessment as to where we are, where we’re coming from and therefore, where we’re going.

Needless to say, we liked this.

BAS Webinar: How to turn a BAS Deadline into a Business Lifeline

Autumn’s coming – enjoy the sun, embrace the cloud

Every Friday we just want to stop the world for a moment and give you a couple of real tips to think about that will make a real difference to your business and in your life.

Many small business owners around the country are, as we speak, in a white hot BAS panic because the deadline is just around the corner.

The world does not slow down so that we can fulfil our reporting obligations, in fact, it can seem like time speeds up the closer various due dates get. I’m not surprising anyone when I say this can affect family and leisure pursuits, so as we set sail for another weekend, unfortunately, many will already have allocated their time to “hitting the books”.

Even more unfortunate is the fact that many resign themselves to these intrusions on family time with a sigh and a “what do can you do?”

Here’s what you can do to reclaim your free time

Embrace the cloud – If you haven’t already switched to a cloud-based accounting software solution like Xero for example, you really need to look into. It basically uses automation and intuitive software to capture trends and complete basic admin jobs making tasks like invoicing and reconciliations less time-consuming.

Additionally, the various add-ons can arm you with the ready access to information you may already have trained yourself to wait ages for or simply go without. Now, if you need/want information that may help you make a business critical decision or seize on an opportunity, it’s there waiting for you. The next step is for you and your accountant to turn this ready availability of data into actionable steps towards securing and growing more profit and getting more out of life.

Tip: Selecting the right software solution that actually brings you benefits rather than muddying the waters can be confusing. Our tip is simply to speak to us about what information you might need. We’re more than happy to make a recommendation based on what will help you.

Are you sure, you’re sure?

Tip: get a second opinion when it comes to the important stuff.

Getting a second opinion is not just a sensible thing to do if your medical practitioner tells you to give up ice-cream. Anytime the opinion of a professional is going to influence an important decision that may affect your livelihood or the outlook of your loved ones, you want to be doubly sure about the advice. No better way than getting a second opinion and comparing the viewpoints and possible outcomes.

We’re heading into tax season very soon. This means that you’ll be making some decisions: deciding whether to continue down the road with the process you’ve become used to (lodge return, pay the bill) or seeing if you can reduce that tax bill by speaking to one of our team.

Fun fact: last tax year we saved our clients over million dollars just by taking a closer look at their situations and ensuring that they didn’t pay more than was necessary.

If you’ve been in business now for at least a couple of years and are turning over more than $250K per year, we feel really confident that we could save you $5,000 in tax savings immediately.

It might be worth having some second thoughts about this year’s tax strategy over the weekend and embracing some new opportunities.

Today’s BAS webinar can help you get it right

It probably doesn’t get more embarrassing than what popular host and celebrity Steve Harvey had to go through when he misread the score card and named the wrong contestant as winner of the 2015 Miss Universe. Let’s embrace the pain one more time. Yikes!

But many of us know someone who has badly misread or ignored their business scorecard and embarrassment on the world stage would have been the least of their problems. Happily, the amiable and now really, really, careful Steve Harvey, was asked back to host the following year’s event – all was forgiven. The tax office and the commercial environment in which we all operate is rarely as forgiving.

The bright side? BAS is more than just a chore – it can help you

Let’s focus on the chief benefit of BAS. If nothing else, it provides your business with a quarterly scorecard letting you know whether you’re up or down as well as a direct comparison to previous quarters. But leaving it at that is to ignore some other key benefits available to you if you know what you’re doing. By saving your spot at our “Make BAS Work for YOU” webinar today at 2.30pm AEST, Ben and I can help you:

Manage your cashflow – sometimes the line between money for your BAS bill and operating capital become so blurry that things can become difficult. Let’s work on ensuring things are easier.
Free your time – you already have a job. Business owner. The good news is that bookkeeper needn’t appear on your job description and you certainly shouldn’t be forced to wear that hat at night or on the weekends.
Work your advisers – there’s more to delivering maximum benefit than ticking boxes and submitting forms (we think so, anyway). We want to share strategies that will make sure you get the most out of your team.
Increase performance – knowing the score and understanding how to read it will instantly help you play the game better. This is also true in business. Let’s work on that together.
Pay your fair share – Are common mistakes killing your bottom line? DIY business owners are realising more and more that inexperienced or stuck-in-their-ways accountants and even themselves are letting the side down. Time to put a stop to that.

Okay, we’re almost ready to go, enough reading, let’s get you booked in if you’re not already. And if you can’t join us, we’d still love to hear from you, so feel free to contact us when you’re ready.

Will “Siri” get done for tax evasion?

The thing about ground-breaking entrepreneurs is that they think differently about everyday situations by applying very different, often elevated, goals and functionality to common items and situations.

Back in the day we all thought about how sensible phones, phone lists/directories and maps were. So we put them in books and carried them around with us. A certain world famous innovator then said, “I agree with this in principle but like most important items (currency, keys, identification) shouldn’t it fit in our pocket for maximum accessibility and ease of use? Could we just load it onto a small phone?” I wasn’t there but we can’t completely rule this out as a scenario.

This sounds crazy but he has had some winning ideas

Bill Gates suggested during a recent sit down, that robots should/could pay taxes. Ridiculous! Almost as ridiculous as spruiking computer operating systems in the seventies and eighties… Let’s hear him out. Click here.

Just in case you’re super short on time, here’s the summary of that clip. Bill suggests that if factory workers get taxed, then so should the robots (or perhaps their manufacturers) who do similar work. Interesting but why? Well the premise of income tax is that the government can provide benefits to the wider community with the tax collected. Furthermore, those people who no longer need to do the redundant factory work can, instead, set to work helping with community services for example. The problem with this is that since robots do the work and are not taxed, there’s no tax money to provide funding for these other services.

If nothing else, this is a great example of thinking about something quite common and applying different thinking to address an everyday need. And we like that.

We think differently too

We don’t hold the key to modern day communications and content storage but we do think very differently about accounting services. This is important – especially at tax time. Or more importantly, before tax time. Three things to consider talking to us about:

BAS deadlines are fast approaching and we want to ensure that you’re ready to benefit from this quarterly exercise [Webinar – How to make BAS work for you].
Tax season is just over the horizon but with the earth circling the sun at a spectacular 110,000km/h it’ll be June 30 before you know it. Maybe give us a call sooner rather than later to make sure you don’t end up paying too much tax.
Now is the time to make sure your tax deductible dollars do some good in the world. We are committed to ensuring that our income benefits worthy causes that positively impact the lives of those less fortunate and inspiring others to do likewise.

Here at Inspire, we want to make a difference to our clients, their businesses and their families but we feel we have to make a difference for that can’t do so for themselves. And let’s face it, the robots won’t help, they don’t use accountants because as Mr Gates points out – they don’t pay taxes. See you in court, Siri!

If you’d like to hear more about how you can save on taxes, make a difference to people’s lives or both, please do drop us a line.