It’s that time of year again where we look up from our desks/couches/offices and ask, “How is it the end of financial year already?!”
We’ve complied a list of 5 things you should to at the end of the financial year. Ready?
1. Say hello to your accountant
Well, we hope this isn’t the first time you’ve said hello since last year! By now your accountant should be your best friend… or perhaps something more? Last year Valerie Khoo wrote this article about ‘getting intimate’ with your accountant – and she makes some great points. It should never just be about tax or BAS time!
But if business (or life) has gotten in the way – check in with your accountant now. It’s a bit late to do any tax planning (maybe schedule that in advance for next year!), but get on their radar.
Schedule a couple of appointments – one to do your tax, and another to discuss recommendations to help your cashflow, or even things you can do to ensure a smoother tax time next year. Your accountant should also be able to let you know if there have been any ATO changes announced (like the increase in compulsory super guarantee rate going up to 9.25% on 1 July 2013!)
2. BAS and Super
This is an every-quarter kind of thing, but don’t forget about them just because you have end of financial year on your mind! Lodge your BAS and make your Super payments by the 28 July 2013 to keep the ATO happy.
3. Digital back ups
The ATO requires that you keep detailed business records for five years. These days, many of your records are likely to be stored on your computer – so make sure you’re not about to lose them! How often you back up is completely up to you, but I recommend incremental backups at least once a week, with full backups happening monthly.
Make sure you are storing backups of your data away from your office as well – if something were to happen to your office, your backup needs to be elsewhere!
The alternative is to transition over to ‘the cloud‘. Using paid solutions such as Google Apps for Business, Dropbox and Xero can take away some of the stress of copying files off your computer.
4. Housekeeping
Head over to your filing cabinet/shoebox/pile. Sort your documents from the last financial year and archive them. This may be just be a case of moving it out of one cabinet into another, or a slightly more complex process depending on how many documents you have – but make sure your filing system is ready for the new financial year!
There’s nothing worse than having to go back through a couple of months of paperwork to re-sort hundreds of documents. Trust me – I’ve worked in many a small businesses where this has happened!
While you’re at it lock in some time every week to do a bit of “housekeeping”. Make notes and remember to check:
- Data entry
- Filing
- Accounts receivable
- Accounts payable
- Payroll
- Inventory ( if applicable)
This will save you loads of time. Picking up mistakes, errors or missing bills is much easier to do when it’s a regular process and when everything is fresh in your mind!
5. Reporting
If you’re not sure what you should be looking at, get some help from your accountant. Be sure to compare this financial year against your last financial year, and see if you can pick up on any trends (for better or worse!).
You may find you’re falling down in some areas, and if so, now is the time to bring in professional help. Whether it be someone to debt collect for you, or an expert to help you work out your margins it’s better to organise help now than leave it another year.
Bonus tips!
(We just couldn’t help ourselves)
6. Plan ahead
The end of financial year is a great time to re-adjust your goals or make new ones! If you entered 2013 with a business strategy, take the time to go through it in detail and make a note of where you are succeeding, and where you need a little more help.
You may find your goals have changed a little – so don’t be afraid to adjust it!
If you didn’t get around to making goals at the start of this year, why not set some now? SMARTER goals can make it easy to set the focus and direction of your business. Not sure what I mean by SMARTER goals? Check out this wikipedia entry.
7. June 30, 2013 is a Sunday!
You may not have noticed yet, but June 30 falls on a Sunday. That means any bank transactions need to be made on Thursday, 27 June, if you want to be 100% sure they’ll appear in bank accounts before June 30. Don’t get caught short!
What are your ‘must dos’ at the end of the financial year? Let us know in the comments below!
Image by mrmanc.
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