With the new financial year upon us it is a great time to establish some financial targets and import them into Xero so you can compare your actual results versus your targets (or budget). What we find, is that the understanding of the financial make-up of a business is enhanced significantly when you set targets and then report against those targets and get curious about the variances. Some good tips for… Read more
Xero have released the long awaited Payroll functionality for the NZ version ready for use from 1 April 2015. Xero’s payroll functionality includes the standard features of payroll software in terms of calculating pays, managing leave etc but it also includes the ability for staff to login and view their leave balances, pay history and submit leave requests. As you would expect from Xero the User Interface looks nice and… Read more
Parental Tax Credit For babies born on or after 1 April 2015, the Government will increase the parental tax credit from $150 a week to $220 a week, and extend the payment period from eight weeks to ten weeks. How much you receive also depends on: your total family income before tax the number of dependent children in your care and how old they are the number of newborn children… Read more
New requirement for Companies From 1 May 2015 new registration requirements come into force for applications to incorporate a New Zealand Limited Liability company. All New Zealand incorporated companies must have at least one director who lives in New Zealand or who lives in Australia and is a director of an Australian incorporated company. Existing companies on the companies register will have 180 days to comply with these New Zealand… Read more
Employment Law Changes The government has made some major employment relations changes, effective from 6 March 2015. Changes target flexible working arrangements, rest and meal breaks, continuity of employment for vulnerable employees upon restructuring, the good faith provisions, collective bargaining, and how the Employment Relations Authority gives its determinations. Flexible working arrangements Up till now flexible working arrangements have only been available to caregivers who have been employed at their… Read more
Xero have released a long awaited feature in the past week – the ability to produce quotes. Many Xero users have been providing quotes by creating a draft invoice but now that quotes are available it offers a much better way of providing and managing quotes to help you improve your sales results. To read more click here for Xero’s blog post You access quotes by going to Sales and… Read more
The last few years have seen a new wave breaking in the marketing world. You may be aware of it under different labels, but ‘inbound marketing’ is an umbrella term for the change. The bedrock of marketing was always outbound strategy: the print advertisement the billboard the commercial on TV or in the cinema (remember going out to the movies?) Market share used to be heavily influenced by how much… Read more
Avoiding the January blues Many people kick start the New Year with a myriad of resolutions, from keeping fit to losing weight or achieving financial goals. However, many of those resolutions fail to embody anything remotely close to working life. The first week back is usually a slow one; clearing out the inbox (usually spam as most other people were also on break) dusting off the keyboard and restocking the… Read more
Xero Tips & Tricks One of the things that we have learned with Xero is that many of our clients needs are different and that knowing how to use Xero properly is an important part of the picture and that is why we have been investing in our own training and in developing ways to get more education around Xero to our clients. We have found that the best… Read more
As part of our continuing education, recently myself and Paul Dawson our Business Development Manager, attended a 4 day workshop in Sydney called ‘The Experts Academy’. It was an amazing 4 days, with over 350 business owners attending the workshop from all different industries. The purpose of the workshop was to learn how we as business owners could better serve our clients through adding greater value. Following the workshop, as… Read more