Have you ever found yourself thinking, ‘I’m in the wrong job’ after being presented with your Accountant’s fees for your year-end tax work? You are not alone! Many small businesses fail to see value in the amount they spend with their Accountant. To minimise unnecessary accounting fees for year-end tax work, and maximise the value of working with your Accountant, follow my top five tips.

1. Use Accounting Packages

 Learn to use your accounting package correctly and understand the effects of processing transactions to the Profit and Loss (P&L) or Balance Sheet. The better you understand these figures and what can impact on them, the easier it will be to spot when you have made an error in your allocation. If you are not confident with this, or you do not have the time to do it properly, then make sure you engage the services of a reputable and qualified bookkeeper.

2. Does It All Add Up?

Reconcile as many of your balance sheet accounts as possible, e.g. your transactional bank account and credit card account. Make sure your balances match your bank statements, ensure your GST accounts match your final BAS for the June quarter, reconcile your wages accounts and make sure they match the PAYG payment summaries you have compiled.

3. Be Prepared

Present your information in an organised and methodical way. Ask your Accountant for a checklist of what they require and have these items prepared for them. Ensure things are totalled and clearly labelled. The more time an Accountant has to spend adding things up, or searching for things and then waiting on you to provide them, the more it ends up costing you.

4. Shop Around

Find an Accountant that suits your budget and requirements. Many small businesses don’t need a top end Accounting firm with expensive offices in the city — and often these large Accounting firms are not in touch with all of the issues relevant to small businesses. Your local Accountant can probably provide you with more cost effective services, without compromising on quality. Also, some Accountants are moving towards packaged fees. Ask your Accountant if they are willing to lock in an annual price that you can pay in monthly installments. Your Accountant may also provide free email or telephone advice – this may be something of great value to you. Lastly, consider working with your Accountant’s staff rather than the owner directly – they will often be cheaper but just as knowledgeable on small business issues.

5. Maximise Meetings

Before meeting with your Accountant, take some time to prepare. Think about any business issues and questions you might have – and write them down! Talk to your Accountant about any challenges you are having or opportunities that you would like to explore. Use the time wisely and minimise personal chit chat.

Most Accountants prefer to spend their time actually helping their clients to grow/impact their businesses, rather than filling out the required tax forms for the year. They enjoy helping you utilise the money you spend with them to your maximum advantage. Ensure you are prepared and organised before you visit your Accountant to facilitate this. Don’t dump a disorganised mess on your Accountant as this makes them a very expensive data processor.

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Given the rapid pace with which things change on the internet, it is not uncommon for techniques or devices that were once regarded as best practice to quickly move to being considered worst practice. Outlined below are examples that we believe in the vast majority of cases will decrease, rather than increase, a website's chance of success:

1.Splash Pages: Remember when almost every website made you view an image or animation before you got to enter the site? Such splash pages frustrate users and significantly decrease website conversions. In almost every case a splash page is a terrible idea.

2.Large amounts of flash: Flash can add visual impact to your site. However, this needs to be balanced with the fact it is not properly indexed by search engines, cannot be viewed on iPhones or iPads and can be slow to download. Never place anything important inside flash.

3.Bulky Images: Not everyone has a great internet connection or a huge screen. Keep your image sizes small to ensure the majority of people can enjoy your website.

4.Graphics for site navigation: If you are serious about search engine optimisation your main site navigation should be text rather than graphics based.

5.Too much animation: Movement attracts the eye but can make reading difficult. Don't let too much movement impact on the ability of a site visitor to understand your message.

6.Bleeding edge technology: Avoid technology that requires users to download special software or acquire new skills. Often, they will do neither, and your website will be less effective.

7.Being unique: Your product, design and content can be unique. Your site navigation and the way people use your website should not be. It is vital to stick to website conventions. Confusing people will affect the success of your website.

8.Tricks to fool search engines: It can be tempting to bend the rules and artificially manipulate a search engines' view of your site. However, any short term gains will likely be more than offset if you get caught and your domain is demoted or worst case, entirely removed from Google altogether.

9.Background music: Making an impact with your website is a good thing. Annoying your users, embarrassing them at work or severely slowing down the browsing of your website is not. Very few websites benefit from background music or audio that launches automatically.

10.Automatic pop-up windows: No-one likes websites that create automatic pop-up windows. While there is a chance that pop-ups can convert some site visitors you need to balance this with the larger number of people who will be annoyed and driven away by them.

There are aspects of this list that are subjective and I can begrudgingly admit that there are possibly some items above that have a role to play for some websites. Does your website contain any of the above? Do you know for sure whether they are helping or hindering your online success? Make today the day you take a fresh look at your website.

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I can across this blog by Alison Green called 'Ask a Manager' which has great advice covering people in a job, applying for a job and those managing people.

So if you're not sure what the hell your manager is thinking, or how to ask for a raise, or whether you might be in danger of getting fired, or how to act in a second interview ... ask away.

Check out the blog here

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I recently spent the day with the amazing team from the RedKite Foundation discussing social media strategy. Yes… a blatant plug, but they deserve it!

We covered a lot of ground, but their CEO, Jenni Seton posed a very interesting question that I felt was worth exploring. The question went along the lines of figuring out how to remain relevant in a time when people tend to be narrow-casting.

Narrow-casting by definition is when people selectively tune out what they do and don’t want to know.  For instance, I don’t want to see advertisements for hamburgers, so I fast forward those ads on television. I unsubscribe to newsletters that don’t provide relevant & timely information and block people on Facebook & Twitter that don’t add value to the conversation.

And therein lies the key. Relevance and value. 

Without sounding philosophical, we tend to get caught up in our own world and/or the product we represent. Admit it…. nothing is ever as important as our own product.

Social media represents an opportunity for you to talk about your product to an ever-present and growing audience. And that conversation will be sustainable and rewarding, so long as you keep those magic words top of mind; relevance and value.

Using social networks as a sales and marketing tool requires you to interact. Gone are the days when you could send 10,000 glossy brochures to your entire database. Today, the key to using social networks to promote your product or service is to create a conversation. Think of it as bit like going to a party. You can’t just rock up to the first person you see and yell “You’ve got to buy my widget. It’s only $9.95.”

Instead, create meaningful content – or a relevant conversation if you will – about your product. Create posts that add value to the lives of the people you’re mingling with online. Try to solve their problems or offer solutions.  

Connect with people genuinely and listen to the conversation. Respond to their requests and monitor the discussions. If you strive to remain relevant and valuable, being outcast by the narrow-casters will be difficult.

Listen, interact and respond. You might just discover your audience’s burning needs and be able to create a window for your wares.

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Your image in the marketplace determines how people respond to your brand and creating the right first impression is vital to attracting long term customers.

A business image is made up of three main areas – your visual image, your sensory image and your subliminal image.  Together these combine to produce the ‘feeling’ of doing business with your organisation.  What kind of feeling do you want your business to convey - trustworthy, dynamic, modern, traditional, fast or caring for example?

So firstly let’s take a look at your visual image. 

Your visual image includes your logo, marketing materials, signage, online presence and advertising.  Everything from the colour palette you select for your logo to the typeface you use in your marketing determine who you are.  For example if the feeling you want to deliver is that of a ‘smart’ organisation then your logo should be sophisticated, clean and modern with colours that promote creativity and professionalism.

Secondly your sensory image.

This is where you can really enhance the company image.  A sensory image is looking at how your business communicates with the customer across all senses of sight, touch, smell, hear and taste.  A local fashion chain for example may create their ‘fresh’ sensory package in the following way – a plasma screen in the store showing people enjoying life in the clothes they sell (sight), convenient, brightly coloured changing rooms where customers are encouraged to try on the clothes (touch), incense or fresh flowers throughout the store (smell), background music or a water feature (sound) and chocolates, mints or fresh fruit at the counter (taste).

And finally the subliminal image.

This is how you ‘interacts’ with the customer from the wording on your website to the way your staff talk to your customers. It’s this image that helps forge a connection between the customer and your brand – the hidden feeling of wanting to keep doing business with you and not your competitor.

Why not test out your business image by being the customer for a change? Come into work as a customer and measure how your business makes you feel then look at ways to improve that experience.

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Do you have a Bright Idea? Or more than one? How do you know which one is worth keeping or exiting from?

Amanda Rose and Tony Eades presented on  how to turn your bright idea into reality by in 5 steps at the Sydney Hills Business Chamber Breakfast. Now the secrets are available for everyone.

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By far one of the funkiest ways to harness the ‘power of the people’ is via the web and mobile application called FourSquare.

Foursquare is a mobile-based startup that lets people "check in" at bars, restaurants, hotels and other attractions through their smartphone. They’re a leader in combining social networking with location, allowing users to earn discounts and prices for showing up at thousands of venues worldwide.

While this might sound like a fabulous game appropriate only to your 12 year old, companies and advertisers are taking massive advantage of the start-up as a way to reach consumers – of any age - when they're close to their stores or businesses.

One of Foursquare's challenges is to stay on top of its growth. In the last 3 months alone, Foursquare has more than doubled its registered users from 750,000 to over 1.8 million users. This is the sort of phenomenal growth that twitter experienced.

So what’s this mean for you?

Firstly, FourSquare is a free application. You can sign up, add your venue and then add promotions or loyalty discounts for your venue. Let me give you an example..... Say I own a coffee shop in Newstead. I add my venue and promotion. My customers are driving around, looking at the FourSquare application on their smartphone and see that my coffee joint is close to them. They also see my promotion and decide to stop in. It attracts new customers and also drives loyalty in existing customers. Promotions could range from ‘buy 2 coffees & get the third free’ to ‘check in 5 times and we’ll shout you coffee & a muffin on your 6^th visit’ to crowning ‘mayors’ of your venues.... it’s all up to your imagination.

Foursquare's ability to attract a large number of businesses at such an early stage in its evolution has already attracted venture capitalists to the tune of $20 million. The simplistic model is one that users and businesses love and I believe it will monetize better than many of the other social networking products out there.

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So you’re thinking of starting a business?  You’ve probably got a great idea, an exciting product or a service that your going to provide – the foundations of any good business, but what are you going to call it?

Like many start-up businesses you may consider mixing your name with your partner’s name and come up with something like Jotom or Bevmax.  Although that may mean something to you (and your partner) it says very little to your customers.  Your business name should communicate what you ‘do’ or ‘how’ you do it.

The name should be a short as possible – long business names do not perform as well as shorter names because they are harder for potential customers to remember or even spell when searching for you on the Internet.

Imagine Qantas today if they were still marketed under their full name of Queensland and Northern Territories Airways System.

Avoid generic names like Green Printers or Cars Online as these will be harder to register as a business name and a domain name.

Start with a list of ten or twenty ideas and show them to your friends, family and business associates to comment and select their favourites.  By doing this you are get in return some instant ‘market research’ from a mixed age audience, representative of your future customer base.

Ask yourself – does the name create a ‘positive’ feeling for my business?

Next check the business name availability through ASIC’s free company name search at www.asic.gov.au then if the domain name is available at www.netregistry.com.au  Every business today needs a web presence and your domain name is your ‘online’ street address so it is important that you register a domain name as well as your business name.

Now that you have your new business name there is one more thing to add your positioning statement.  It’s this one liner that will set your business away from its competitors – like FedEx’s ‘absolutely, positively overnight, Hungry Jack’s ‘the burgers are better’, Bose ‘better sound through research’ and Saab’s ‘move your mind’.  Your positioning statement should offer a benefit and give the customer a reason to buy from you and not your competitor’.

So armed with your new business name and a dynamic positioning statement all you need now is the logo – but that’s another story …

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I subscribe to The Web Showroom blog and can't get enough of what they have to say. The latest instalment is an article on whether your website visitors are contacting your business and if not, what you can do to fix that. See below what David Lawrence has to say. 

I was working with a client last week who didn't want us to put their phone number and address in prominent places on their website. They felt that "if a customer wants to contact me, they will find my contact page". There are certainly websites where this approach is appropriate, but the chances are that if your website needs to generate leads for your business then settling for a simple contact page is probably not going to do the job.  

For a lead generation website my advice is simple, you shouldn't be afraid to heavily promote the various ways that website visitors can contact you. A good case study in this area is our own website. By clicking through our site you will see we have saturated it with contact details and calls to action. These include:   

• A phone number on the top right of every page
• A phone number as part of the main call to action on the homepage
• A 'quick' contact form on every page of our website
• A standard contact page which is referred to throughout the website content
• Most pages ending with a phone number (1800 981 442) or a link to contact us

We don't do this because we think our site visitors won't know how to find the 'Contact' page within our site navigation. Rather, we take this approach because we want to make contacting us as easy as possible and to make sure it happens as frequently as possible. Different visitors will prefer different contact methods. Put simply, the more options we give people, the more leads we receive. The more often they are asked to contact us, the more likely it is that they will.   

I ask you the following question - are you speaking with as many of your website visitors as possible? Or are you expecting clients to work a little bit harder to become a genuine prospect?

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At the end of the financial year many business owners scramble to ensure they are maximising their deductions and therefore minimising the tax they have to pay.

These days, it is common for business owners to operate from home to save costs, but they often overlook the biggest tax deduction available to them – the cost of running a home office!

There are two types of home based businesses:

1. A business that is run at home – You do most of your work from home and clients also visit you at your home, e.g. an accountant;

OR

2. A business that is run from home – You perform most of your services at clients’ sites, but administer your business from home and do not have an alternate business site, e.g. a plumber.

No matter what type you fall into, or if you simply have a home office that you use when you bring work home, you may be able to claim a portion of the running costs.

Home based business running costs usually include two different categories:

a)    Occupancy costs, such as:

• rent/interest on your mortgage
• council rates
• water rates
• insurance premiums

b)    Running costs, such as:

• electricity
• gas
• telephone
• depreciation on office furniture and home furnishings
• cleaning
• repair
• internet access
• stationery

Typically, when you have an area or room that is specifically used for running your business, you calculate the percentage of floor space that the room occupies of the house. You then use this percentage to claim a portion of the above home expenses as a tax deduction.

If you do not have an area that is used exclusively for business, you need to find an alternative way to measure what portion of your home expenses you can claim as business costs. The most common way to do this is to compare your costs prior to commencing business with your costs after commencing business, and identify what increases are as a result of running your business from home. Other alternatives may include keeping a diary or using the ATO’s predetermined annual rate, which is currently $0.26/hour of work performed.

But what about capital gains tax?

Many business owners are led to believe that if they don’t claim any of the occupancy or running costs in their home business, then they will not have to pay any capital gains tax. Unfortunately for those business owners, that is not the case.

A capital gain arises when you sell an asset, e.g. your home, for a greater amount than you purchased it for. Capital gains tax is therefore the tax on this gain. Normally, your home is exempt from capital gains tax. However, if you are running a business either at or from home, you may have to pay capital gains tax on a portion of the gain.

There are a number of specific exemptions from capital gains tax, or small business CGT concessions, that may apply which can help to minimise or eliminate any potential tax liability. You should ask your Accountant for tax advice specific to your personal situation. However, be wary if you get the old, ‘if you don’t claim the costs in your tax return you won’t have to pay capital gains tax’ answer, and consider getting a second opinion.

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