NZ Online Accountants Blog | Beany | Small Business Accounting Advice

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The Most Important Elements for your Website

Having a website is all but a requirement for small business owners. Unfortunately, for many, it can seem like an overwhelming process. With all...

Tips

Eight Books Every Small Business Owner Must Read

Eight Books Every Small Business Owner Must Read A business owner has no shortage of responsibilities in managing a business. While not directly tied to...

Business

In what stage is your business?

Like it or not, the world of business revolves around numbers. Profit and loss margins, return on investment calculations, staffing requirements, they all require...

Tips

How the Eisenhower Matrix Allows You to Focus on What's Important, and Ignore What's Not

Running a business is hard work. There is no shortage of things to be done. Many small business owners spend a large portion of...

Tips

The Power of Email to Help You Grow Your Business

Using technology in general and the power of the internet specifically to increase your bottom line can be a tricky situation. As a small business...

Team Talk

OKRs – How This Simple Process can Transform Your Business

Managing Teams and Meeting Objectives Managing a team and finishing projects can be hard work. Setting goals and expectations and making sure they are met...

Tips

How We Can Reframe the Old Economic Paradigm

Fiscal policies have been exploited worldwide to advantage big business with its ability to move capital and profits around, seeking the lowest tax rate. ...

Tips

A Few Covid Tax Changes That You Might Have Missed

For a while there, we were producing a new COVID-19 update at least once a day. Now things are settling down, we thought it...

Tips

The Power of Checklists to Help You Manage Your Growing Business

Running a business is hard work. As a small business owner, you don’t wear many hats, you wear them all. Managing employees, customer support,...

Tips

How This One Metric Can Make or Break Your Business

Every successful business depends on tracking certain metrics. As a business owner, you need to be continually improving; as legendary business analyst Peter Drucker...

Tips

Why Customer Reviews Are the Secret Weapon to Grow Your Business

Any successful and growing business depends on acquiring new customers. Businesses that get new customers at a lower cost than competitors are at a...

Tips

Why It’s Harder to Be a Small Business Owner than a Big Business Manager

Key Points: You can lose your house You can face public humiliation You are not insulated by public money or banking support There is...

Tips

When Business Partners Separate or Divorce

This, unfortunately, comes up quite regularly as a question to our help desk so we thought an article on it might be handy. This article...

Tips

How to Know Your Numbers

When times are tough, it pays to know your numbers. But what does that mean? “The Numbers” are the critical drivers of your business. The...

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Why we should care about small business

As a nation, we should care far more about small business and their place in our economy. Small business owners have been threatened by...

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Why Women Should Take Care of their Financial Future

Of course, we should all take care of our financial future so we can look forward to our later years, instead of fearing them. ...

Business

Why is it so hard to find the perfect person?

We’re not talking about the perfect person in life (that’s a different blog!), but the perfect person for your organisation. This might be a strange...

Tips

Covid 19 & Budget 2020 - Where is NZ’s economy headed?

With the disclaimer that we do not employ economists, Beany has been looking at the data & listening to budget commentary so we can...

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How to make key business decisions in an uncertain environment? - Slingshot

Beany looks after 1,000’s of small businesses all across New Zealand. We are working between our clients, the banks, the IRD and business advisers...

Tips

Working from Home Tips

Are you having to move your office job home? If not now then it might be a real possibility in the coming weeks. We started...

Tips

How to make key business decisions in an uncertain environment? - People

Beany looks after 1,000’s of small businesses all across New Zealand. We are working between our clients, the banks, the IRD and business advisers...

Tips

How to make key business decisions in an uncertain environment? - Cash

Making decisions when there is a high degree of uncertainty is a challenge. How can you plan and decide when there are so many...

Business

Is a Business Loan from the IRD a Good Idea?

As a small business owner wanting to borrow money from the government, you will be asked by the IRD whether your business is viable...

Tips

$6.25 billion in new lending available to Covid-19 affected businesses

This article from NZBA is a really good summary of the new lending now available to COVID-19 affected businesses in New Zealand and worth...

Tips

New Zealand's COVID-19 Rescue Package Announced

The NZ government is walking the talk. The new rescue package is $12.1 billion. There is an extra $500 million for the health system,...

Tips

COVID-19 Survival Tips for Business

Now we are in lockdown, there are still things we can be thinking about and doing to help our business now, and when we...

Tips

Am I Investment Ready?

When you’ve considered your investment options and thought about your route to getting investment, you have to think about being investment ready. There are...

Tips

What is Angel Investment and Do I Want It?

We have covered the topic of raising money for business in our eBook, Cash Light in a Rich World, in some detail. However, as...

Tips

End of Financial Year Tax Checklist

The end of the financial year can be a stressful time, especially if you don't use the months prior to prepare and get organised. ...

Tips

How to Manage External Risk in Your Business

The coronavirus is the latest reminder that external events can occur and severely impact your business without warning. By their nature, you cannot plan...

Tips

What are your Capital Raising Options?

We have covered the topic of raising money for business in our eBook, Cash Light in a Rich World, in some detail. However, as...

Topical Tax Issues

Explaining the Confusing World of the Current Account

The most frequent conversation with any client goes something like this: “You tell me I’ve made a profit of $100,000 and I need to pay...

Tips

Is it under $500? Yes? Buy it before the 31 March!

Everyone gets confused about what assets are, what depreciation means and when is the best time to buy business assets from a tax point...

Tips,Topical Tax Issues

What is Depreciation and What’s it For?

What is Depreciation? As a non-accountant working in an accountancy firm, I thought it would be beneficial to at least get a slightly better...

Tips

Radical generosity - is it the way forward?

Earlier this year, Beany won one of the coveted Venture places with the women’s entrepreneurial network, SheEO. SheEO was founded in Canada by Vicki Saunders...

Tips

Tax Refunds And How To Make Sure You Get Them

The IRD are no longer accepting, or writing, cheques. This means they will no longer send you a refund cheque if they don’t have...

Tips

ACC Changes for the Self Employed

Blog by our new Beany, Rebecca Hastie These changes apply to those that are self employed and contractors that are on CoverPlus. This change will not affect those...

Tips

No Capital Gains Tax - but this sneaky little tax change instead!

Residential rental tax change, how will it change things? Everybody with a residential rental property heaved a sigh of relief when the government abandoned...

Tips

Paying Provisional Tax ‘As You Go’ in the AIM scheme

What is Provisional Tax and Should You Pay ‘As You Go’ in the AIM scheme? Provisional tax is the tax that business owners pay for...

Tips

I’m a Sole Trader - Should I Restructure My Business to a Company?

Restructuring a business in New Zealand is straight forward enough to do but have you considered if you need to in the first place?...

Tips

Shareholding Changes NZ - Take Care!

It's vital for your business to understand the implications of shareholding changes in New Zealand. Life can throw you curve balls and sometimes you can...

Business,Technology

Tennis, Technology and the Workforce

In 1989 a 17 year old Michael Chang defeated Stefan Edberg in the final at Roland-Garros to become the youngest male winner of a...

Business

Getting Ready for Tax Time

We blogged before about being ready for tax time. Well, here we are, staring down the barrel of the financial year end! What are the...

Business

Tax Working Group Recommendations - Attack on Kiwi Lifestyle or well timed re-balancing of our country’s wealth?

The coalition government's Tax Working Group has recommended a broad extension of taxing capital gains - Here's What You Need to Know: Tax the...

Business

Gifts, lunch and boats - what can you claim?

A Brief Guide to Claimable Entertainment Expenses - Tax Claim We are the preferred accountant for the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand and look...

Business

Trading on Amazon - and down at the local farmers market!

Lots of Kiwi businesses either start off down at the local farmers market - or dip their toes into the world of Trading on...

Business

Claiming Business Vehicle Expenses

Claiming business vehicle expenses in your business is what everybody wants to do - and simultaneously one of the trickiest calculations in your accounts!...

Business

What is Payday Filing and what You Need to Know about It

The IRD is broadcasting on all channels right now about payday filing. Which is compulsory from April 1st 2019. It’s pretty straightforward - all employers...

Business

Guest Blog by NZ Hospitality Expert, Louis de Bievre - Calculating your Cost of Sales

Why knowing your Cost of Sale is important, and how to calculate it. In any business there is a cost to every sale, and in...

Business

What Happens if You’re Injured and Self Employed

You’re covered by ACC, right? Well, not necessarily, or at least, not at the level you might imagine. We have recently seen a case...

Business

Productivity Hacks

In the doom and gloom of slumping business confidence, let’s spread a little light. The government keeps talking about improving New Zealand’s productivity but...

Business

How Far Do We Go? Tax Minimisation vs Tax Avoidance

Beany is a member of the Chartered Accountants of Australia and New Zealand professional association and we abide by the Code of Ethics (see...

Topical Tax Issues

Air BnB Income and how to handle It - Blog from Jenny Marklew, Beany Lead Accountant

The Tax and GST Consequence of Airbnb As Airbnb (or other private property rental sites like bookabach*) are becoming more popular the tax consequence of...

Business

How (and why) to Reconcile your Xero Bank Account

Xero is great bookkeeping software which allows you to keep up to date accounting records. Every day all the bank transactions are shown in...

Business

Cyber Security for Small Business

On the list of things to worry about for our small business clients, this may come down at the bottom. We all know it’s...

Business

What the Future Holds

The times they are a’changing, and quite how the businesses of today will compare with the businesses of tomorrow is unclear. One thing is for...

Business

Top 3 Tips for Increasing Your Sales

Often people go into business because they are passionate about what they do, what they make and the service they provide. It can be...

Business,Topical Tax Issues

Changes to Provisional Tax part 2

We’ve blogged on this before: now we have more detail, we’d like to share with you our analysis of how it will work in...

Business

3 Tips for Making More Money in your Business

Most small business owners are confronted by a huge array of responsibilities: sales, customer management, recruitment, admin, cash flow and more. Sometimes it’s hard to...

Business

Changes to the PAYE system

On April 1 2018 the PAYE system is changing. For the first year these changes will be voluntary, then on April 1 2019 they will be mandatory. Essentially, all...

Business,Tips

Rising Wage Costs - what can you do?

The new government are bringing in a series of measures designed at increasing wages in New Zealand. The new government are bringing in a raft...

Business,Topical Tax Issues

Changes to the Provisional Tax System - Accounting Income Method

From 1st April 2018, business owners will have the option to enter the AIM regime (accounting income method). This is a new proposal from...

Business,Topical Tax Issues

Be prepared, it's nearly tax time!

It seems like only yesterday that we were last blogging about being ready for tax time, but actually it was a year ago, and...

Business

Small Changes to Make a Big Difference

You want this year to be better than last, right? Of course, we all do. And the easiest way to do it is make some...

Business,Team Talk,Xero

3 Xero Tips from Beany’s Xero Whiz, Phil Wood

With over 1 million people now using Xero as their accounting system, and over 10 years of development under their belt, the Xero platform...

Business

How is your region doing?

Regional Differences for your Place Have you ever wondered how your region stacks up against other parts of New Zealand? Do you live in a...

Business

Top 3 Tips for increasing your business profit

Beany has released its top 3 tips for increasing sales so let’s look at the other side of the equation - the top 3...

Business

When can you claim an overseas trip?

Many of our clients travel overseas for business and sometimes for a mixture of business and pleasure so we get asked what can they...

Business

Some Practical Changes to the FBT rules

What is FBT? Fringe benefit tax was created by the IRD to make sure that employees were not being ‘paid’ via benefits such as the...

Business

Proposed changes to Working for Families, Student Loans and Child Support Payments

Last night the government announced some new proposals which will affect the way in which you receive working for families payments, pay off student...

Business

Independent Earner Tax Credit - What is it? How do I get it?

This was mentioned in the recent budget as it is being cancelled from 1 April 2018 and many of you are asking what is...

Business

Budget 2017

10.56am 25 May 2017 - Pre Budget Announcements (see below for actual budget notes) So we’re counting down the moments to the 2017 budget for...

Business

We need more Beanies!

Is Anybody Out There? Beany is growing at a phenomenal rate and we need more people to help us deliver high quality accounting services to...

Business

How to Save Stress at Tax Time

Minimise tax-time stress: four golden rules Don’t put things off until the last minute It’s obvious, right? Long before you have the IRD breathing...

Business

Contractor Tax Changes Effective 1 April 2017

There is a significant change to the way that contractors are taxed from 1 April 2017. Who will be affected? Any contractor who was previously receiving...

Business,Tips

Will Robots take over Tax and Accounting?

The IRD is in the slow process of transferring its software from one platform to another - the end goal is the automation of...

Business

Unexpected Consequences on the new LVR rules

The recent changes to the LVR (Loan to Value Ratio) which came in October 2016 have created some odd and possibly unexpected retrospective effects....

Business,Tips

What's New in 2017

As we know, any predictions are fraught with peril but here’s a roundup of some of the current thinking about what’s happening here and...

Business

A crystal ball into your financial future: preparing a cash flow forecast

A cash flow forecast is a financial road map, which attempts to predict all the cash movements in and out of your bank account...

Business

Buying a Business, not a Job

Five Practical Tips For Buying a Business Whether you are buying a business for the first time, or adding another one to your empire, it’s...

Business,Tips,Topical Tax Issues,Xero

Take AIM

Take AIM (accounting income method) It’s sometimes rare for the public and private sector views on business (and tax!) to align. However, Beany, Xero and the...

Business,Tips,Xero

What's happening out on the farm?

And how is it affecting everyone else? Like it or not, New Zealand depends heavily on its farming sector for export earnings and to...

Business,Tips,Xero

How to make up your mind about Xero? 5 quick questions to help you decide

How to make your mind up about Xero (in 5 quick questions) Everyone is talking about Xero and you’ve heard a bit about it. The question...

Business,Tips

Is it time for a change? Or maybe that’s just the weather…

Maybe it’s because we’re accountants - but the end of the financial year always feels like a good time to think about the future....

Business

Understanding the tax (and other) benefits of purchasing pre-year end

There is often a big drive to purchase business expenses just before the end of the financial year - so you’ll see the ads...

Business,Tips

Choosing Beany.com

Beany.com and Selling to the Rest of the Planet It was a very tough call when John Curtis, our CTO, called and said we had...

Business,Topical Tax Issues

Are you getting the best from the Kiwisaver Scheme?

If you’re self employed then making contributions to Kiwisaver is that little bit harder than if you just get it clipped from your wage...

Business

Understanding your customers - Telling isn't selling

Guest post from Julie Kidman, MindStep.co.nz Relevancy One of the keys to sales success in today’s information over-loaded marketplace is relevancy. People are generally too busy getting...

Business

Virtual Reality in the Building Industry

Virtual Reality or "VR" for short is about to be literally in your face. Next year the "Oculus Rift' becomes officially available and it will...

Business,Topical Tax Issues

Myth Busting on Buy vs Lease for assets

Myth Busting Around Asset Purchases and Operating Leases Quite a few misconceptions float around the question of whether to lease or buy an asset for...

Topical Tax Issues

Tax tip: Buying a second hand asset

We quite often get asked if you can claim back the GST when buying a second hand asset for your business from someone that isn’t...

Business,Tips,Topical Tax Issues

Are we trying to scare you with land tax issues? Yes!

Be afraid, be very afraidAsk any tax specialist and they’ll have a horror story in their ‘land tax gone bad’ file. I’ve seen more...

Business

Change or Inertia?

Change Motivation and Barriers Most people want to do better, or be better. Some people are furiously driven to achieve and learn and some just...

Business,Team Talk

Stay Productive in the Chaos

"Making your way in the world today takes everything you got..." - Cheers theme song. When you put it like that, I see why everyone...

Business,Topical Tax Issues

What's in a Name? Different Business Structures

What’s in a name? When choosing the business structure best suited to you, it ultimately comes down to the name, and nature of the structure. Each...

Team Talk

Software in Space

Space... It's been a spacey week for me. Since last Thursday I read "The Martian" then watched the movie with Matt Damon playing the guy they...

Business,Tips

Pitch Night with Rotorua X

Last Wednesday night in sunny Rotorua, I was proud to be a judge for Rotorua X, the exciting new Bay of Plenty business incubator....

Business

100% conversion - just add a tour

I'm still basking in the glow of success. Shortly after launching our new "tour" to introduce new sign-ups to beany, the first new customer to take the...

Business

Call yourself an entrepreneur?

I saw this funny little infographic entitled "Why people become entrepreneurs" and had to laugh. Not just the icon "with a criminal streak" -...

Team Talk

Client of the month: iHelp

September 2015 Client of the Month is Nick Herbert from iHelp.co.nz Nick Herbert's backstory begins in Munich in 1993, supporting the creative and print industry in the formative...

Business

Which is the right payroll for me?

This is coming up as a question to our customer support team frequently so here are a few things to think about when considering...

Business,Tips

Finance Brokers CrediFlex Taupo Are Our Partner Of The Month

Partnering with Beany was an easy choice. We get professional advice and excellent service at rates that don't break the bank. It's a great solution...

Business,Tips,Topical Tax Issues

Help For Small Business - Paying Tax As You Earn

The Labour Party, and leader Andrew Little, recently announced that they want a more flexible tax system for businesses, which would allow companies to pay...

Business,Topical Tax Issues

Our Top Tips For Business Profit Improvement

Every business is different, but every business owner wants more profit. Here are our top tips for taking a fresh look at your business...

Business,Topical Tax Issues,Xero

Xero Helps Contractors Get Paid

We work with a lot of building contractors operating small and medium sized businesses, and many of them are now using Xero. We hear it...

Business,Topical Tax Issues

Tax Refunds & Their Seductive Power

Who doesn’t love a tax refund? Even I get excited at the thought of getting some money back from the government - it feels...

Business,Topical Tax Issues,Xero

All You Need To Know About GST Registration

What Does GST Registration Mean? Goods and Services Tax (GST) is a tax on most goods and services in New Zealand, most imported goods, and...

Business,Topical Tax Issues

Claimable Expenses Fact Guide

Our Claimable Expenses Fact Guide outlines what exactly is a claimable expense. PRO TIP: If you can relate the expense to the production of income,...

Business,Topical Tax Issues,Xero

Business Structures Part 2 - Extra Things To Think About

Welcome to the second part of our Business Structures help guide (see part one here), where we focus on helping those interested in starting...

Business,Topical Tax Issues

Business Structures Part 1 - What Is Best For You?

Making the right decision regarding your business structure can save you money and aggravation, and this document is designed to give you some background...

Business,Tips

3 Tips For Startup Weekend Competitors

Startup Weekend Auckland 2015 begins tomorrow. 80 entrepreneurs in a room, 54 hours of crazy, not enough sleep and an overload of ideas and...

Business,Tips

No Talk, All Action - I'm Mentoring At Startup Weekend Auckland!

I am excited to announce that I am a mentor for this years Startup Weekend Auckland, happening 12th June, and beany.biz is also sponsoring...

Business,Tips

Our Top 5 Take-Away's From New Zealand's 2015 Budget

“Well,” as Michael Barnett from the Auckland Chamber of Commerce just said this evening, “That was boring” There was nothing earth shattering in this year’s...

Business,Tips

Cloud Is The New Normal | AWS Summit

Last week I attended the AWS Summit - that's Amazon Web Services. If you think Amazon are in the book business think again. They're the...

Business,Tips,Xero

Inside XeroCon 2015

Earlier this month, 1000+ accountants from around from the world came to Auckland for an exciting update to all things Xero at the “XeroCon...

Tips

High-Tech Accountancy | Acuity Magazine

A recent article published in Acuity Magazine has highlighted our high-tech accountancy services, helping to champion beany.biz and cloud-based technology. Written by Jennifer Black, appeared...

Business

The Beany Journey

From Taupo to Australia – a work in progress! It all started out as a vague idea, buzzing in my brain, about how accountants could...

Tips

Accountants In The Cloud - Sunday Star Times

We featured in this Sunday Star Times article profiling leaders in online accountant services. We are thrilled to be seen as “leading the charge”...

Business,Team Talk

Employee Share Schemes - NZ Herald

CEO Sue de Bievre was interviewed by the New Zealand Herald's Your Business Editor Caitlin Sykes about our employee share schemes and how they...

Business

Top 3 Tips For Making Money

I’m always a bit worried when my clients say things like: I’m not in it for the money, I just like the lifestyle, There’s...

Team Talk

Baked Beanies – Recipe From Michel Louws

Check out this fantastic recipe from gourmet chef Michel Louws. ...

Topical Tax Issues

NZ Tax Deadline 2014 Looms!

Getting an Extension If you’re in business, your next big NZ tax deadline could well be 7th July. This is the date the Inland Revenue Department...

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Popular

The Most Important Elements for your Website

Eight Books Every Small Business Owner Must Read

In what stage is your business?

How the Eisenhower Matrix Allows You to Focus on What’s Important, and Ignore What’s Not

The Power of Email to Help You Grow Your Business

OKRs – How This Simple Process can Transform Your Business

How We Can Reframe the Old Economic Paradigm

A Few Covid Tax Changes That You Might Have Missed

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