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Get instant savings from a few simple changes Small business owners operate in a difficult environment, regardless of what product or service they are offering. Often neglected by governments and ineligible for many funding initiatives, they are supported grudgingly by financial institutions only after the owners have signed away their first born. They must not only pursue sales vigorously, but also be very creative in looking for every opportunity to save money. Charter Partners can help the small business operator to stretch every dollar with a few simple ideas suggested by a business accountant Brisbane. One key area to examine is how the business sends out invoices and statements. In a mature business it could simply be habit to mail these documents. The true cost of mailing includes stationery, envelopes, printing costs, and staff time to fold, fill and frank the envelopes. Email is cheap and easy, and once existing customers are converted over, new accounts should be set up for email correspondence only. “I’ve been running the office here for the last 12 years, and I had thought about emailing the invoices, but I didn’t have the time to look at it seriously. Charter Partners helped me compare the cost of my monthly accounts mail out to setting up an email system, and gave me some ideas to get it happening. It didn’t take as long as I thought, and I saved time and postage in the first month,” said Estelle G. from Rapid Pumping Systems. The cost of cheques is another area that can be almost eliminated by making all payments by internet banking. If the business is quite small and the bank is supplying cheque books, the cost is not only the stamp duty on each cheque but the time of staff to hand write them. For larger businesses that still pay to print their cheques, the system is an expensive anachronism compared to internet banking. “Our office trainee used to hand write cheques, but she asked me one day why we didn’t just make all our payments either by credit card or internet banking. I felt a bit stupid that I hadn’t thought of it first, but you know how it is. You get in deep with the day-to-day stuff and forget about efficiency. Anyway, I let her set it all up. After all it was her idea. So now we hardly write any cheques, and she has time to learn some of my work so I can do other things,” said Emma L. from Last Chance Landscaping. An obvious but often not realised practice that can potentially save a small business thousands of dollars is to record all accounting transactions daily. This may not seem a cost saving, but with the simple accounting software available today, it is easy to keep track of small business accounts so that payments can be made in a timely manner to avoid late payment penalties or claim early payment discounts. To claim all legitimate tax deductions where their tax returns are prepared, a business must be able to produce tax receipts. However, many printed tax receipts fade over time. Every cash register receipt should be scanned and stored electronically to maximise tax deductions. Similarly, every invoice, purchase order, bank statement in fact, every piece of accounting evidence should be filed and stored securely for the required number of years, ready for a tax audit. There are often hidden sources of cost savings for small business operators in their accounts that can be overlooked in day-to-day operations. If the business operators work with their business accountant Brisbane and look seriously at more cost effective methods, they will identify areas where simple changes in procedures bring immediate savings.
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