Government Changes and QuickBooks

The Paid Parental Leave Scheme started on 1 January 2011 and provides 18 weeks of government-funded pay to eligible employees.

The rate of pay is equivalent to the national minimum wage. Full-time, part-time, casual, seasonal, contract and self-employed workers may be eligible. Parents can lodge a claim up to three months in advance.

The Family Assistance Office may contact you if one of your employees is eligible. From 1 July 2011, you will be required to provide parental leave pay to your eligible employees (funds will be provided to you in advance).

To get your business ready, register now at www.centrelink.gov.au and search for ‘Centrelink business online services’.

So above are the government details, but how does QuickBooks deal with this? Really quite simply, once you have been advised that one of your employees is eligible for the scheme, you use the payroll item called Paid Parental Leave and replace their normal payroll item with it for the duration of the paid leave.

Remember when you set the payroll item to an account, it is not your money, but money received from Family Assistance and is owed to them until you pay an employee with it, so think about how to best reflect that.

The Flood Levy commenced from July 1st 2011. Whilst this has been introduced and now a month into force, there are still questions like, who has to pay the tax etc.

QuickBooks and Payroll Premier are both compliant from the taxation point of view.

QuickBooks assumes any employee who is in the catchment of the levy is unless you tick in the Employee Centre >Tax>Flood Levy Exempt.

Payroll Premier you tick in the Employee options they pay the levy.

Visit this part of the ATO website to have the questions answered.

http://www.ato.gov.au/content/00276059.htm?headline=floodlevy&segment=home

So compliant information, and hopefully, another way to make your QuickBooks products work for you.

Reporting and Reading Your Performance in QuickBooks

One of the main reasons for using QuickBooks is to measure and manage your business.

Often people spend money and time entering their business transactions and that is where it ends. Oh the Bookkeeper does the BAS so everything is OK.

If you setup your Chart Of Accounts with an intentional aim you will get information that will help you to make business decisions. Is this hard? I am often asked and the answer really is no, just a little time and consultation with a consultant.

So what could I know?

1 If you are really making money
2 What your bank balance could be in 1 month. 2 months
3 Who owes you what and for how long
4 Who your best customer really is
5 What item sells best or worse

and many more.

So start to treat QuickBooks as a management system not just an accounting package.

BUDGETING AND PLANNING WITH QUICKBOOKS

Perhaps one of the most important ingredients to a successful business is planning and budgeting. It is not too late yet, to do the 10/11 financial year.

It has been said “Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail” and with tools and a bit of thought, it is easy to plan and measure your business results.

QuickBooks has a Budgeting and Planning section that allows you to budget your Profit and Loss and or Balance Sheet for years into the future by the month.

You can enter 3 scenarios or a blend of the 3.

· Fixed amounts per month, ie $20.00 every month for postage

· Increase or decrease by a % per month ie sales up 2.5% per month

· An amount very month that is different or seasonal ie July is higher in insurance

You can start by exporting your Profit and Loss or Balance Sheet report from the great suite of reports for last year, totalled by column and then export it into Excel. Here is a historical starting point, that you can change figures in and see the outcome.

QuickBooks budgeting function can be entered at Class level so you can measure your actual income and expenditure against your budget for each department or business operation dissection.

So… Are you planning your business financials? Use QuickBooks to make it happen.

Glenn Anthoney

Why QuickBooks?

Recently I was asked why I recommend QuickBooks and how long I have been working with QuickBooks.

I have been Accredited and, working with and recommending QuickBooks since 1997, and only QuickBooks since 1999.

Why is the big question, and that is simple. It is easy to use and has intuitive functions.

The ability to move reports into excel with ready made formulas makes analysis and budgeting easy. The reporting is a real strength, being able to drill down to the transaction, modifying reports to give you information you need rather than what the software developers think you should need and the ability to memorise reports you create.

Invoicing, Statements, Purchase Orders, Quotes, Sales Orders, Payroll, Inventory and Multi Currency are functions many businesses need and they are all easy to use, even without Accounting training.

Being able to lodge the BAS online from QuickBooks is a feature that is unique and being taken up at a fast rate.

With the introduction of QuickBooks Online you don't need to have costly servers and maintenance, with security as strong as your internet banking.

Add the ability to email all your documents including payslips, pay your wages and suppliers on line without re-entering the details with your bank all adds to efficiency.

To run a business you need to be able to measure your trading against a budget and the budgeting system is easy and allows reporting variances.

So why use QuickBooks, I guess the question is why not use QuickBooks, 4 million businesses can't be wrong!

After all, you’re in business to make money, not just count it. You buy an accounting package to make life easier. Make sure it does.

Face Book

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Why not join our group GR8 KWIK BOOKS or use the link

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Tip

If you salary sacrifice you need to report that amount on the Payment Summary at the end of the year, this is called Reportable Employee Super Contribution (RESC). Make sure you are set up for this early in the financial year.



Glenn Anthoney

Happy New Year and Here's to The First Post!

Welcome to our first blog post and and this is the time of the year that raises most questions.

So here are a few tips and info to help with your year end processing.

So the end of Financial Year is approaching so what do you need to do to?

If you run payroll have the latest versions installed and ready, allowing for the Payment Summary production.

There will be a patch for the new tax scales in QuickBooks 10/11 available towards the end of June.

Keep your Accountant happy by having QuickBooks in good shape.

Happy New Financial Year!

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The Tips to Make it All Easier

Of course if you need help with this we will be happy to help you.

1
Now is the time to think about how you want your accounts to look in the next FY year. Consider what payments/income need to be recognised before 30th June and if there are any \"last minute\" adjustments to be made. Consider upgrading your software, ready for new financial year.

2
To prepare for the end of year, run accounts payable and receivable summary reports and look for any suppliers or customers with a total balance on the right with 0.00.
Double click on this 0.00 and you will see unapplied receipts or credits. Apply them and then your debtor and supplier reports will be accurate for year
end. This is particularly important if you run POS and take payments
from customers through the POS till.

3
Once you have balanced, reconciled and given your end of year data to your accountant, don\'t forget to enter your closing date password to 30th June. This will remind you not to change any entries.

4
If you have a Trust being accounted for in QuickBooks and there are Loans in the Trust, bring these to the Attention of Accountant NOW Before 30 June. In Fact if you have Companies with Division 7A Loans in them bring the loans balance to the accountants ATTENTION NOW. 30 June 2010 is a critical cut off date for Division 7A and clients and SME could suffer if not addressed prior to 30 June!

Remember to reconcile those Div 7A Loans as well and ask the accountant how much interest is to be applied and what the minimum payment should be!

5
Pay attention to Fixed Assets and put together a copy of all items that were ordered between 13 December 2008 and 31 December 2009 and installed before 31 December 2010. Remember the 50% Investment allowance is available for these items.

If you have a large number of Assets or Assets of a high dollar Value, consider purchasing Reckon Asset Manager to maintain a record of the items. Not only will you be able to calculate the year end depreciation, you can maintain a service history and Reckon Asset Manager integrates with QuickBooks!

6
Make sure all your bank accounts, loan accounts and credit cards are reconciled to June 30th using Bank Reconciliation in QuickBooks.
A great way to ensure this is to use the Company File Auditor found either on the QuickBooks Desktop or under the File menu.

You can also use the Bank Reconciliation process to reconcile your Superannuation Liability, PAYG and even GST Payable accounts!
Once fully reconciled, make sure you protect your year end data by closing off the financial year by setting a Closing Date in the Accounting Preferences area.

7

Lastly take either a Backup or Portable Company File of your data, label it as year and archive either on CD or USB stick ready for your Accountant.

If we can help you with any of this just click on the big award icon.

Cheers

Glenn and the Team