December is always an interesting time. People and business are tending to wind down, end of year celebrations have begun, the holiday mood is slowly sinking and we’re thinking about how we’re going to spend the next few weeks unwinding. Equally interesting though are the number of people who are seriously thinking about going into business for themselves. After another year of working long hours, rushing to meet deadlines and being told what to do, increasingly people sta

When it comes to failed relationships in marriage, it seems people nowadays have no hesitation in heading for the divorce courts. I’ve often heard people say it’s harder to leave your hairdresser than it is your partner! While this may be somewhat of an exaggeration, one relationship that can often be very hard to break is that of the client and their accountant. The client-accountant relationship is a very sticky one, in that it’s very hard to break – or at least, it may

Price is what you pay and value is what you receive in return. Let’s say you see a book on How to Achieve Financial Wealth in a shop that costs $50 and it’s only 20 pages long – would this be worth paying $50? On the face of it, most likely not. Regardless of the price, let’s say you bought the book and after reading it and you put in place the ideas in the book which results in you being a multi-millionaire within a year – now would the book be worth $50? The cost of the

What is Personal Services Income (PSI)? According to the ATOs definition, Personal Services Income (PSI) is income produced mainly from your personal skills or efforts as an individual. Personal Services Income can be derived from just about any industry – i.e. a trade or profession. Some common examples include financial professionals, information technology consultants, engineers, construction workers and medical practitioners. Note that PSI does not affect you if you'r

Given the recent Royal Commission into the banking sector and their lending practices, using banks, as a primary source of funding and capital, may indeed become a challenge for some businesses. In the wash up post the Royal Commission, as part of their reconstruction, it’s highly likely banks will tighten up lending practices. For businesses that rely on fresh funding to fuel their ideas and growth, other financing options will need to be considered if they are to survive.

THE so called digital age has changed the way many of us live and work and for some, this change has affected them in a much greater way. One such profession that has been quite dramatically affected with the coming of the digital age are accountants. Traditionally, the business owner / accountant relationship has been very transactional. Ms Business Owner would connect with her accountant at year end in order to meet her compliance needs. With the introduction of GST, the