When you’re busy running a small business, it can be all too easy to get caught up in day-to-day decision-making. When you do, you miss out on important opportunities to step back and assess your business with fresh eyes.
If you want to ensure your business is running as smoothly as possible, it’s important to make the time to regularly assess its operations. As your business grows and develops, its needs will change and the systems you set up years ago may no longer be the best ones for you.
The start of a new financial year is a great opportunity to take a deep breath, step back from the day-to-day and really assess your business and whether there’s ways you could improve it.
We’ve pulled together a list of things you might want to think about. Do yourself (and your business) a favour, block out some time in your diary and sit and work through the list below.
Small business tax planning doesn’t have to be taxing
There’s no better time to relook at your tax than the start of a new financial year. Your business’s tax obligations are likely to be fresh in your mind, as well as any challenges you experienced with last year’s tax.
As a business owner, you have a range of legally-enforced obligations under Australia’s tax system. If you don’t make the effort to stay on top of them, it’s easy to find yourself falling foul of the law and making life a whole lot harder for yourself down the track.
As a small business owner, you already know your legal obligations are to:
- keep accurate and complete records of your assessable income and expenses
- use the correct method for calculating and reconciling the amounts you claim
- report all income and deductions to us at the right time
- pay any amounts owed on time.
However, you’re also entitled to write-off your fair share of expenses too.
You should consider whether you’ve been making all the possible deductions. For example, small businesses can claim an immediate deduction on assets that cost less than $30,000- so make sure you’re not missing out. You can read other simplified depreciation rules on the ATO website.
The ATO website is a great place to go to check your compliance responsibilities. The ATO also offers a range of workshops and webinars to help business owners understand their responsibilities. While their information is broad and up-to-date, it can be quite general – so make sure that you seek expert advice from a qualified accountant or tax advisor who understands your business if you’re in any doubt.
Are your business’s systems and software doing what they’re supposed to?
One of the wonderful benefits of the digital age we live in is the abundance of systems and solutions for small business owners. If you have a need for it, chances are there’s already a start-up tech company somewhere who’s built it. That means you can now access some innovative and highly-niche software solutions for your business.
It pays to regularly assess the systems you’re using and whether they’re still the best ones for your business. As your business grows and evolves, your needs will have changed and your systems may not have kept up.
It pays to sit down and write the top five things that are frustrating you about your systems as they are currently. Then ring the providers and talk to them. If they can’t help you solve your problem, look to other options available instead and weigh up their pros and cons.
Have you considered your business’s assets?
Take a look at the premises you own or lease. Does it work for you now and do you expect it to work for you within the next 12 months? If you’ve got plans to expand your operations, you should assess whether you might want to upgrade your premises before you really need to, to avoid a situation where your business premises begin to burst at the seams.
It can also be worth taking the time to shop around for new assets like furniture and equipment. Remember that old adage about a penny saved being a penny earned? When you take the time to carefully research and start the process of shopping for new equipment early, you can save your business a lot of cash over the long-term.
Is your business eligible for government grants?
Have you taken the time to assess the government grants that may be available to you? Finding available grants can be a time-consuming process (let alone applying for them) but it can be well worth it when you find the right pot of money to help you reach your business objectives faster.
There are various online resources to help you find grants, including the Federal Government’s Grant Connect site. Don’t forget you may also be eligible for State and Local Government grants, too.
It can be worth seeking professional advice when applying for grants to ensure you maximise your chances of successfully accessing funding.
Is your insurance still right for your small business?
Insurance is one of the few things we pay for which we hope never to have to use. If you’re not assessing your insurance regularly, you may be paying for cover that’s not relevant for your business. You might also not be covered for the activities your business is performing, which can end up costing you dearly down the track.
Take the time to actually pull together the PDSs for your business insurance policies and then actually READ them. You might be surprised at some of the things that leap out at you from your policies.
Set some new plans to succeed
Once you’ve got all the building blocks in place for success by doing the steps above, it’s time for the fun stuff. Sit down and think about what you’d like your business to achieve over the next financial year and set yourself some goals. Some simple goals you can set include:
- Growing your team
- Expanding into a new product offering
- Increasing traffic to your website
- Increasing sales leads
- Opening a new location
- Find new networking opportunities to make new connections
- Re-work your business plan
If you’d like some help giving your business a new financial year health-check, please contact Skyring today. Our expert team are experienced in everything from tax and compliance to asset management and advising on systems and software. We’d love the opportunity to sit down with you and go through your unique business needs.
Take The Next Step
Skyring Group is your partner in financial strategy, taxation and SMSF administration. Whatever stage your business is at—whether you’re starting out, managing your growth, or planning your exit—Skyring Group can help you execute with excellence. Let’s talk about your aspirations for your future, as well as your present, and let us be a part of your journey to financial success. Simply click here or call us on 1300 73 72 74 to arrange a free complementary consultation.
———-
Important:
This provides general information and hasn’t taken your circumstances into account. It’s important to consider your particular circumstances before deciding what’s right for you. Any information provided by the author detailed above is separate and external to our business and our Licensee. Neither our business, nor our Licensee take any responsibility for any action or any service provided by the author.
Any links have been provided with permission for information purposes only and will take you to external websites, which are not connected to our company in any way. Note: Our company does not endorse and is not responsible for the accuracy of the contents/information contained within the linked site(s) accessible from this page.
