Government unveils new loss carry-back tax break

Posted by execva on May 8, 2012

Government unveils new loss carry-back tax break, but experts warn most small businesses not eligible.

 

From Smart Company – note, as with most ‘business breaks’ the government has implemented during its term, this one only applies to businesses registered as a company. That leaves quite a hefty percentage of the estimated 2.8 million small businesses in Australia missing out … again.

Remember exactly 12 months ago …. then “Small Business Wins Tax Write-Off” – but there was devil in that detail too – then they scrapped the Entrepreneurs Tax Offset which benefited many more SMEs. See my blog about it here.

I noticed that in this budget – unrelated to small businesses directly, but definitely, given many small business owners (myself included) are parents, indirectly – that parents with school-age children get another hand out from the government. Woo hoo you’d think right?! Don’t get too excited. They’re planning on abolishing the Education Tax Refund which you could claim on all school-related expenses (excluding fees) – and from 1 July 2011 uniforms were included! So again, not doing you any favours there.

In regional Australia (and we all know how this government loves regional Australia … remember the NBN … which we won’t get here despite being regional) the government has promised more dentists! Woo hoo again! Except it’s doctors we need – right D; wrong specialty. And add to that they are now removing cover from private health care for natural therapies so again … give (less) with one hand and take with the other.

Budgeting is never fun but seriously, in this single-minded focus to bring the budget back into surplus (a budget that was MASSIVELY in surplus when they took government just three years ago) we seem to be losing the good stuff we had in favour of smaller hand outs and still no benefits to millions of SMEs.

 

© Lyn Prowse-Bishop – www.execstress.com

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VA Industry Awards – Nominate now!

Posted by execva on April 4, 2012

Announcement from the Committee of the OIVAC:

Nominations are now being accepted for international Virtual Assistant Industry prestigious honors, the Janet Jordan Achievement and Thomas Leonard Virtual Assistant of Distinction Awards, scheduled to be presented as part of the 7th annual Online International Virtual Assistants Convention (OIVAC).

The nominee for the Janet Jordan Achievement Award should be a VA who has been in business for less than 5 years and has reached a business milestone. This milestone needs to be an accomplishment that has helped to boost their business to be an overwhelming success.

The Thomas Leonard Virtual Assistant of Distinction Award honors a Virtual Assistant who has been in business for at least 5 years and who has contributed to the industry in such a way that it has provided a positive impact on many others and helped them build a successful business.

Nominees are VAs who “Exemplify the spirit of the Virtual Assistant Industry with their contributions to their clients and to the Industry as a whole”.

To nominate a Virtual Assistant for these Awards, submit the nomination form located at http://bit.ly/FOmacs by Wednesday, April 4, 2012. Awards announcement and ceremony is scheduled for Friday, May 18, 2012 during International Virtual Assistants Day celebration.

To find out more about OIVAC, the IVAD Celebration Awards and/or to register for the Convention, click these links.

 

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Happy birthday to eSOS!

Posted by execva on February 28, 2012

Today – 28 February – marks the birthday of Executive Stress Office Support. We have today been in business 12 years! In a country where something like 86% of small businesses fail in the first 5 years of life, this is a pretty big milestone.

This isn’t going to be a ‘back-slapping’ post. Instead I wanted to share something shared with me by a colleague, Gita Shankar about my anniversary gem: Jade:

 

The wise have likened jade to virtue. For them, its polish and brilliancy represent the whole of purity; its perfect compactness and extreme hardness represent the sureness of intelligence; its angles, which do not cut, although they seem sharp, represent justice; the pure and prolonged sound, which it gives forth when one strikes it, represents music. Its color represents loyalty; its interior flaws, always showing themselves through the transparency, call to mind sincerity; its iridescent brightness represents heaven; its admirable substance, born of mountain and of water, represents the earth. Used alone without ornamentation it represents chastity. The price that the entire world attaches to it represents the truth.

To support these comparisons, the Book of Verse says: “When I think of a wise man, his merits appear to be like jade.”

Thus jade is really special in Chinese culture. Also as the Chinese saying goes: “Gold has a value; jade is invaluable.”

Because jade stands for beauty, grace and purity, it has been used in many Chinese idioms or phrases to denote beautiful things or people, such as Yu Jie Bing Qing (pure and noble), Ting Ting Yu Li (fair, slim and graceful) and Yu Nv (beautiful girl). The Chinese character Yu is often used in Chinese names.

I like to think that I’ve run my business these last 12 years with sincerity, justice, truth and virtue … and definitely with loyalty to my clients. So perhaps the anniversary stone is fitting!

Happy birthday eSOS and a massive thank you to my clients – without whom I wouldn’t have made it this far.

And an especially huge thank you to my wonderful husband, David Bishop. Without the 100% support of your partner and family I do not believe any small business can survive for long. And also to my daughter – the reason I started eSOS 12 years ago – to enable me the flexibility of spending as much time as possible with her as she grew, and the opportunity to teach her there are alternatives to traditional employment.

Now … to go find my jade ring….

 

©Lyn Prowse-Bishop – www.execstress.com

 

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Do You Brand Your Car?

Posted by execva on February 21, 2012

Do you brand your car with your business name and/or logo? Do you brand your clothing? What about your staff? Are they out advertising your business?

If you do then it is imperative that you remember your business is always on show. That means your behaviour and the behaviour of your staff is going to be a direct reflection on your business.

Some examples:

Let’s say you have your company logo or name emblazoned on your vehicle. You’re on the road stuck behind a ‘Sunday Driver’. You get annoyed. You’re going to be late for an important meeting. So after tailgating for a while, you finally get the opportunity and whiz past at break-neck speed, with or without hand gestures, expletives or dirty looks. More than likely that person won’t just say “Oh look at that idiot”. They’ll see your badging and say “Well look at that idiot from XYZ!”

Here’s an example I saw recently. I took my daughter to a birthday party during the school holidays held at a city ice rink. It was a weekday and in the morning. Around mid-morning three men walked in and began mucking about on the ice. No problem there, except they had the name of the construction company they worked for emblazoned across the back of their work uniforms. Now, it may be that they were on a break and that’s fine. But that’s not the first thing that came into the heads of anyone looking on.

And here’s one from a TV show recently. Father and son decide to rob the local convenience store. They deck themselves out in the appropriate headwear and enter the store – with ‘McRae & Son’ embroidered across the back of their overalls.

So remember that whilst advertising your business on clothing and motor vehicles is a great way to passively advertise your business, you must remember your actions – and those of your staff – will be on constant display and the flow-on effects from any negative behaviour could be severely damaging to your business and your brand.

© Lyn Prowse-Bishop – www.execstress.com

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Risk Management – Don’t Overlook It

Posted by execva on February 7, 2012

So, we’re day 38 of 2012 and the inevitable happened – my PC kaked itself. And of course it’s inevitable – it’s a piece of machinery after all and they are designed to fail … eventually. I’ve had a pretty good run with this one actually – it’s been about five years I think. I’ve had probably three PCs in my 12 years in business – I don’t generally buy off-the-shelf PCs but have had mine built by the boys at Computer Alliance in Brisbane. The off-the-shelf models tend to have too much of what I don’t need (eg – gaming graphics cards) and not enough of what I do (eg extra USB ports!). The computer tech is hopefully coming today to give the verdict – but I have a feeling it’s a motherboard issue.

Given my business is reliant on computer technology and the internet you’d think this would be a disaster of  ’end times’ proportions. Perhaps it would be, if I didn’t have in place solid risk management strategies. So what enables me to keep working despite seeming disaster? Here’s my system – perhaps you can use some of these tips to design your own risk management plan if you don’t already have one:

1.  Notify clients immediately via SMS that there’s a problem. You don’t want clients emailing you and sending work, wondering why they’re not hearing back from you. It’s your responsibility to let them know there’s an issue and roughly when it’ll be fixed.

2.  Have back-up equipment. This is critical – even if you think you can’t afford it. If your business relies on computer tech and the internet, you MUST have back-up equipment. It might be a second computer or laptop. I have a Dell back-up laptop for emergencies, and also a Mac which is my daughter’s machine but enables me to do things like check email online while the lappie is updating.

3.  Back up your data. At the end of every day I back up my work folder (containing client files) to an external drive and/or a USB – usually the USB daily, the external hard drive once a month (where I back up my entire My Documents folder). This includes backing up your Outlook data file. If you don’t know where this is, do a search of your computer for *.pst. I copy this and put it into a folder called ‘Outlook’ on my desktop then tell Outlook to search for the data file there. In this way at the end of every day I back up my Outlook pst file to the USB stick and it’s always ready for transfer to another computer should I have a crash … like today!

4.  Bookmarks – back them up too. You forget how reliant you are on your bookmarks. I use Firefox and there’s a back-up and export/import html feature there that I use usually weekly to back up the bookmarks file to USB. If I have a crash, I can then import my bookmarks from that stick onto my lappie or other system and it’s just like nothing happened.

5.  Ensure your back-up computer contains everything you need. All programs you regularly use on your main (now dead) system should be on your back-up computer to avoid any downtime. So for example, I have a copy of Skype on every piece of equipment, Dropbox on everything, and my transcription software on each computer so all I need to do is plug in the hardware and I’m off and running again.

And don’t forget, these steps also apply to your back-up system. Ensure you’re backing up everything on the second system you’re using whilst your main PC is being repaired or replaced so you can seamlessly copy files across to the new system when it’s back.

If you follow these steps, should you suffer a crash or other problem with your PC you can continue working with no, or limited, interruption to your clients and the running of your business. It’s taken about an hour and a half for me to update the anti-virus software on the laptop, download all the Windows updates and transfer my client files and Outlook pst file to it. So I can keep going on client work with the minimal disruption to them whilst the tech guy checks into the problem with my PC and gives me the verdict!

What risk management systems do you have in place should your computer decide to call it a day?

© Lyn Prowse-Bishop – www.execstress.com

 

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