Blackburn Accounting

1. Track Your Spending

2. Set Financial Goals
3. Prioritise Your Expenses
4. Compare prices
5. Grow Your Savings
These are practical, proven Steps and Tips for setting and monitoring your financial affairs and activities. 5 Success Steps to Budgeting- Makes sense of cents!

Blackburn Accounting is qualified to provide professional services to help you with your Budget Planning.

We offer individualised service that helps you keep on top of your cash-flow, assist in strategic planning and develop your capacity for growth and expansion.
It starts with a conversation. Contact us now!

The BENEFITS of Budget Planning.

Simply, a Budget is a spending plan which helps you understand your real financial position by capturing what’s going out and what’s coming in. This snapshot is critical in managing both Business and personal finances.

A budget breaks down your income and expenses so you can manage your spending and saving activities, providing a true picture, thus avoiding guesswork. Maintaining an accurate Budget helps keep your spending on track, can help you and your money work smarter and may uncover some hidden cash flow problems. Problems better discovered sooner than later.

1. Tracking your spending
Knowing where your money is going by keeping a ‘spending diary’ is a great start to getting a true picture of your spending habits. You need to get a firm handle on what you’re currently spending, what you can afford to spend, and what your priorities are. By keeping a Budget you can gain control of your money rather than money controlling you.

2. Set Financial Goals
Determine your short, medium and long term financial goals.
Once you have an overall picture for your budget, that is your net pay/income, and then expenses tracked, setting your financial goals is crucial.
Start by making a list of both short, medium and long-term financial goals that you want your new budget to help you achieve. To allocate funds accordingly to reach your goals, a good idea to determine your needs versus your wants. This applies to both business and personal financial activities.

3. Prioritise Your Expenses
It’s important to prioritise your expenses to know your true situation and what your essential monthly expense are. Your categorised and tracked fixed and variable expenses will help you predict how much you have to budget.
Knowing what is an absolute necessity and having money set aside for the essentials can protect you from overspending, resulting in a ‘cash’ short- fall. Keeping on top of Creditors accounts, including negotiating payment arrangements are critical in managing the Budget balance. As critical is managing your Debtors to get monies owed paid in to you as soon as possible.

4. Compare Prices
If you are buying goods or services shop around and compare prices to get the best deal. Look out for packages, bonuses or incentives that can help you save money.
Review your tracked expenses to see if there are different products around such as new internet provider plans, motor vehicle deals can vary. There are savings to be found if you look.

5. Grow Your Savings
Consider setting up separate accounts if you have identified a specific goal item. A target amount can be deposited regularly without major impact and will help grow your savings.
Don’t be afraid to ask for discounts, best deals or special offers to help boost your savings funds. Better in your bank account than someone else’s.

Step 1: Underpinning your Recovery Plan is the implementation of the best practice procedures. Maintain a disciplined approach to working capital management, focusing on increasing profitability and improving efficiency.

Step 2: Complete a Financial Health Check
Identify and check key indicators such as;
• cash balance
• value of daily sales
• value of orders
• debtors balance
• Analysis of your financial statements regularly will help you make better informed decisions. It also helps detect and respond to any adverse movements and to see opportunities.
• Analyse your liquidity, daily if necessary
• Understand the business solvency position, to reduce business stress.

Step 3: Undertake a situation analysis. This allows you to take an objective look at your Business.

5 Practical Tips to keep your cashflow up-to-date
1.Connect all your Business accounts in a system such as XERO to have the full picture. EG Bank Accounts, Loans, and Credit cards.
2. Reconcile frequently. Check your transactions (incoming/outgoing) against the records and statements to ensure they are correct.
3. Manage expenses. It is important to stay on top of Business expenditure. Correctly account for all expenses, including those you have paid personally and personal expenses paid for from business accounts.
4. Record and monitor due payment dates. Keep track of your payments. When an invoice won't be paid by the due date add an expected payment date. This gives a more accurate record of when money is scheduled to come out of your account.
5. For further advice contact Blackburn Accounting.

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Having survived the tough times, now is the time to prepare your Business Recovery Plan.
What will this look like? How to get started?
This begins by preparing to position your business for sustainable growth.
Step 1: Underpinning your Recovery Plan is the implementation of the best practice procedures.
It is important to maintain a disciplined approach to working capital management, focus on increasing profitability and improving efficiency.
Step 2: Complete a Financial Health Check
Step 3: Undertake a situation analysis
Step 4: Review & Rewrite your Business Plan
Step 5: Review & Revise your Marketing Plan
Step 6: Remain focused on improving your cash position
Step 7: For more steps and strategies contact Blackburn Accounting. Contact our office today to get the templates and work through your recovery plan.

Be organised.
Keeping records can take away much of the stress when it comes to taxation time. Start now! Set-up processes, methods and systems for filing paperwork. Secure important documents. Make a 'photo' copy of documents as ink can fade.

Seek guidance
Not sure if an item is claimable. Don't hesitate, ask now rather than later.

Change in circumstances
Keep on top of things. Discuss any changes with your Accountant

7 Steps and Strategies for moving forward
Having survived the tough times now is the time to prepare your Business Recovery Plan. What will this look like? How to get started?
This begins by preparing to position your business for sustainable growth.
Step 1: Underpinning your Recovery Plan is the implementation of the best practice procedures. It is important to maintain a disciplined approach to working capital management, focus on increasing profitability and improving efficiency.
Step 2: Complete a Financial Health Check
Step 3: Undertake a situation analysis
Step 4: Review & Rewrite your Business Plan
Step 5: Review & Revise your Marketing Plan
Step 6: Remain focused on improving your cash position
Step 7: For more steps and strategies contact Blackburn Accounting. Contact our office today to get the templates and work through your recovery plan.

Key measures that will help Australians transition through the impacts from COVID-19. Those relating to tax and superannuation include:
• Tax relief for low-and-middle-income earners—As part of the government's updated Personal Income Tax Plan, the low-and-middle-income tax offset (LMITO) will provide tax relief of up to $1080 at the end of each tax year to 2021-22
• Small business tax cuts — the tax rate for small businesses structured as companies with turnovers of less than $50 million will decrease from 27.5 per cent to 26 per cent.
• Second economic support payment — two separate $750 payments will be provided to social security, veteran and other income support recipients and eligible concession card holders; who are eligible on Friday 10 July 2020.
• Extension of the instant asset write-off — the $150,000 instant asset write-off has been extended for six months from Wednesday 1 July 2020 to Thursday 31 December 2020 for Australian businesses with an annual turnover of less than $500 million.
• Temporary early access to superannuation — eligible Australian and New Zealand citizens and permanent residents will be able to apply online through myGov to access up to $10,000 of their superannuation from 1 July 2020 to 24 September 2020.
• Increase the Medicare levy low-income thresholds — the Medicare levy low-income thresholds for individuals and families, and individuals and families eligible for Senior and Pensioner Tax Offset have been increased in line with movements in the Consumer Price Index.

Building Industry - Property and Rental news

Maintaining a skilled workforce
A $24.5 million support package will assist the building and construction industry to maintain a skilled workforce during the COVID-19 crisis, including: 
• $10 million to provide immediate, one-off payment of $2000 to employers of existing apprentices and trainees currently receiving Construction Training Fund (CTF) grant payments. 
• $9.5 million grants scheme to assist employers to retain their existing apprentices, with payments beginning from 1 June 2020 backdated from 1 April 2020. Payments can range from $250 to $500 per month, per apprentice or trainee, depending on the trades facing the most critical skills shortages in the industry. 
• Up to $1000 for apprentices and trainees employed in the industry to support the costs of undertaking short courses to assist in upskilling. Find out more about the support package to assist the building and construction industry

Incentives for employers who take on displaced apprentices.
To support displaced apprentices and trainees during the State’s COVID-19 recovery, employers are being offered financial incentives to hire them.

The new Apprenticeship and Traineeship
Re-engagement Incentive provides employers with a one-off payment of $6000 for hiring an apprentice and $3000 for hiring a trainee. For an employer to be eligible for the payment, the apprentice or trainee must have had their training contract terminated on or after 1 March 2020. The incentive is available until 30 June 2021 through the Department of Training and Workforce Development.

Land Tax Relief for commercial landlords 
Landlords in WA will receive grants equal to 25 per cent of their 2019-20 land tax bill for the property in which an eligible tenant is provided relief. 
Eligibility: 
• commercial landlords must provide rent relief that equates to a minimum of 3 months’ rent and 
• freeze outgoings to small businesses that have suffered at least a 30 per cent reduction in turnover due to COVID-19.

Housing funds to support jobs in the building industry
The WA Government is bringing forward funds in a $150 million housing investment package to help maintain a pipeline of work for local tradies and building businesses.