In my years in business, I’ve found that having a strong, dedicated team around you is crucial. You need a team who are looking out for your success as they are important to maintaining a smooth-running business. Industry professionals who can provide guidance and support can be the difference between thriving and struggling. Accountants especially are a significant component of that team for me.
Accountants – Ho hum?
Often Accountants are thought of as being boring. However, if you’re serious about your business, your Accountant should be of extreme interest. For the purpose of a successful business, finding the right Accountant is crucial.
Robert Milanese of Milanese & Co has been my Accountant for many years and I couldn’t be happier. What stands out the most with Milanese & Co is the level of service they provide. They keep a close eye on my figures, and if they think anything isn’t quite right, they contact me promptly. Therefore issues are identified well before they become significant problems.
Robert and his team speak to me in language I can understand. Furthermore, meetings are always enjoyable and worthwhile, not boring and confusing. Additionally, they also have a specialist MYOB expert on their team who keeps me and my bookwork perfectly in line.
I invited Robert to chat with me about some basic accounting matters.
YCC: What are a few great tax tips to get ready for the EOFY?
RM: Get a system for your record keeping. The cloud allows you to assist in storing receipts come tax time or for businesses this really assists business owners in saving time with their bookkeeping, whilst giving them the ability to have up to date and real time information.
YCC: Do clients need to keep copies of all their receipts?
RM: Short answer is yes. While a lot of people think that because their transactions are paid via a bank account that this is sufficient evidence, whereas in actual fact the receipt or tax invoice should be kept as evidence to support the claim. It can be scanned and stored electronically rather than just the paper copy, however it needs to be in a readable form.
YCC: How often should people meet with their Accountant to discuss their taxes?
RM: Depends on their situation. Generally for individual clients lodging a simple tax return, once a year, but I strongly recommend to engage your accountant throughout the year with events such as selling property or buying investments to ensure you structure them in the correct name and maximise any tax benefits. It can be a costly exercise if you purchase a property, for example, in the wrong name. It could be detrimental from a tax point of view and to correct the error could attract stamp duty as well as selling costs. With our business clients, we can offer regular quarterly or monthly meetings to assist them in their decision making process as it can be lonely in business and we can provide them with views, opinions and advice from outside the 4 walls of their business.
YCC: Can you represent clients that operate business and perhaps live in other states?
RM: Yes we have a large number of clients that live interstate and communicate with them as regularly as we do with clients that are locally based. Geography is no longer an issue with being able to service. What is important is you have a good relationship with your Accountant and they add value to your situation.
YCC: What services do you offer clients at Milanese & Co?
RM: We offer the ‘ordinary’ suite of accounting services such as preparation of tax returns, financial statements, SMSF’s, FBT, ASIC compliance, Business Activity Statement lodgements and structure advice. What we do provide different is we provide mentoring services for a number of our business clients. Meeting with businesses more regularly means we can assist them with building wealth, managing their business, freeing up their time and most importantly, providing them choices. Tax planning pre 30th June each year is another service we provide which gives our clients guidance and choices.
If you were seeking some good, solid, basic info around Accountants, I hope this has been valuable for you. If you would like to get in touch with Robert or the Milanese & Co team, you can contact them here.
Or for any property related queries, feel free to email us, any time. Or, give our office a call on 08 8261 5092.