Go Directly to Jail, Do not pass Go, Give back $200
A few years back I was doing a minor alteration on the family home. One of the builders who I got in to do a quote gave me his price, and then said “but if you can pay cash it will be $X” (a figure about 13% lower than his first quote). I didn’t hire him, even though I...
Read moreWhen Should You Call Your Accountant
Most people in business avoid calling their accountant. It’s a bit like going to the Dentist – you don’t know what they’re going to say but you presume that it’s not what you want to hear and you always get a big bill for the privilege. However, like going to the dentist, not checking with your accountant before making...
Read morePaying Expenses/Making Multiple Personalities Work for You
When you own a business everyone’s got their hands out for some of your money. Whether it’s employees, suppliers, the government or even customers – you’re paying bills and paying people left right and centre. But it’s not just business – you have a family and friends and the sports club and the girls night out – many things...
Read moreFixing Bank Reconciliation “Out of Balance” problems in Xero
Xero is a highly complex accounting environment. While the developers have worked wonders to make it simple and user friendly, this approach often masks the fact that it is a complicated accounting system under the hood! The bank reconciliation process in Xero, if provided with correct data and intelligent user interaction, should result in a perfect bank reconciliation where...
Read moreRepeating Journals in Xero
UPDATE Xero has now implemented Repeating Manual Journals. The actually reached out to us for feedback because of this article. We’ve kept this article here just so that we can gloat – although it is no longer necessary!! Xero has many great features that speed up data entry and generally make life easy for the small business...
Read moreReimbursing yourself for out of pocket expenses
As a business owner it’s not uncommon for you to have to pay business expenses from your personal funds. While we have previously written about the importance of keeping business and personal transactions separate we also know that in reality it happens. Whether it’s some cash spending from your wallet, using a personal credit card, or office expenses on...
Read moreWorking with Petty Cash in Xero
Most businesses deal with Petty Cash at some stage. For the sake of clarity here I will define “Petty Cash” to refer to managing disbursements from a central pool of cash. The following are not meant to be addressed in this article as they are covered elsewhere: Reimbursing owners or employees for out of pocket expenses by cheque or...
Read moreOffsetting Receivables Invoices and Payables Bills in Xero
There are plenty of times when you need to be able to offset Receivable Invoices against Payable Bills. This is usually the case when you working on “trade” with someone (no cash changes hands, but you each do work of equal value to each other – you still need to account for the HST and income tax on these...
Read moreFixing Common Bank Reconciliation Problems in Xero
The Bank Reconcile screen is one of my favourite places in Xero. It was, and still is, what makes Xero a clear leader over the other cloud-based accounting systems. If used properly it puts an end to unnecessary data entry and reconciliations. But there is always a catch – if used properly! It is possible to be unreconciled even...
Read moreWhat You Can Learn From My Recent Experience Of Buying A Car For My Son
My eldest son, Thomas, turned 17 last November. Since then, in between his studying, he has been learning to drive (no accidents yet, although his driving instructor reliably informs me there have been a few close shaves!). He will shortly be taking his test, so my wife Helen and I decided to buy him his first car (ouch!). As...
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