August Newsletter
/This is Anlo’s August Newsletter. If you would like to receive our newsletter, which has lots of great tips and updates, please add your email to the list! Simply subscribe by filling out the form.
Hope everyone is keeping warm this August and that things are feeling a little lighter and a little less restrictive since we are now in stage 2 of lockdown.
We have had a LOVELY review from one of our clients. THANK YOU so much!
We have also started sending out a quick customer survey to our clients which is linked to our invoicing system (when you receive an invoice, a survey will follow). Thank you for all the completed surveys. They have given us a great insight into our client’s needs and what we can do to make things better.
We had a busy month, calculating and submitting provisional taxes for clients that are registered for provisional tax. Thank you to all our amazing clients for sending their information and helping us get this submitted on time.
We are also well on our way in submitting the 2020 personal tax returns for clients and we thank you again for sending your information and being so patient through this process. As Disraeli said, “Change is inevitable. Change is constant.”
We did a tax presentation for the employees of one of our company clients and it went so well we decided to do a blog around the basics of personal tax.
Xero News
Our favourite online accounting package partner has launched the new VAT201 function that allows for late claims to be include in the VAT report. This is super helpful because before we would always have to reconcile the VAT Control account to the VAT report and investigate any differences. The result was usually expenses or income brought in after the previous VAT return was submitted that relates to previous accounting periods.
The new VAT201 report that can be pulled from Xero includes all changes made to transactions that relate to ‘late claims’ which means your VAT submission is accurate and the information can be obtained easily and quickly.
The EMP501 mid-year reconciliation opens in September
All employers registered for PAYE with SARS needs to submit their EMP501 reconciliation before the end of October 2020. This is the payroll details for the period starting 1st of March 2020 to 31 August 2020.
Information required for us to do your companies EMP501 submissions for the period:
1) Employee details
ID number
Address
Tax number
Full name and surname
2) Employee monthly gross income
3) Employee monthly fringe benefits
4) Employee PAYE, SDL and UIF monthly submissions
5) Total PAYE, SDL, UIF submissions
6) Access to your E-filing profile so that we can submit your returns
7) Copies of payslips, if generated.
8) If you use an online payroll system, either access to your payroll system or a back-up of the yearly file.
If you have any questions or would like us to do this for you, please do not hesitate to contact us or call - 0116581324
Also see SARS website for more information.
Accounting and Bookkeeping for Medical Professionals
All small to medium businesses have enough to worry about when running their business; doing their accounts is always something that they will find time for later. Almost always, life happens and before you know it, something is due, and with it all the rush and stress to get everything processed and up to date.
Medical professionals in general are busy providing an important service to their clients and often don’t have the time to ensure that their finances are in order. They get around doing their accounts once and year and only find out at the last minute how much tax they need to pay, which does nothing for cashflow planning or measuring how well their business is actually doing!
At Anlo, we specialise in effective tax planning for sole practitioners and medical professionals operating either as a company or as sole traders. We help you look at all your business' finances and make sure that you get the best tax position by keeping proper accounting records so that everything is up to date.
The benefit of using an accounting practice is that you have peace of mind that your accounts are up to date and that there will be no hidden costs or surprises. We send regular management accounts and ensure that all tax deadlines are met and submitted ahead of time, leaving you free to concentrate on what you do best.
We use online accounting and payroll packages that ensure that you can check the state of your finances wherever you are, through your mobile device or laptop.
We also provide packages for every size of medical practice and we provide a package that ensures that you know exactly what your costs are; any additional costs will be discussed and approval obtained before the work is carried out.
We provide all necessary services from
Monthly bookkeeping,
VAT submissions,
PAYE submissions,
Monthly payroll services,
Financial statement preparation,
Annual return submission,
Corporation tax submission and
Personal directors return submissions.
Workmen’s Compensation return submission
CIPC changed i.e. director changes, registered address changes etc
Cashflow management for small businesses
What is good advice for small businesses that want to know about cashflow planning?
So, here’s my conclusion 😊
You must have your accounts up to date. Because if you don’t, you have no idea if you are making a profit. But profit isn’t cashflow I hear you scream😊. No, it is not, but if your sales are not covering your expenses then somewhere down the line you will have a problem. Without a positive cash balance, shareholders need to invest more cash into the business at some point.
My next tip is, that you NEED to recover your debtor balance as soon as possible. Ways to help you with this, is by:
Sending out regular debtors’ statements and making sure customers get their invoices on a regular basis. Clients can’t and won’t pay you if they don’t get their invoice.
Giving early payment discounts if you would like debtors to pay you quicker or would like to get long outstanding debtors to pay up.
Linking your accounting software to an online payment platform like Stripe, PayPal, WorldPay or Payfast. The easier you make it for clients to pay you, the quicker they will pay you.
And making sure you don’t do further business with clients that don’t pay you 😊. Even if you have the sales, debtors that refuse to pay are simply a drain on your time, services, and products.
3. If you have your accounts in order and you are getting money in, make sure that you calculate all taxes due as soon as you can. This is a must so that you can plan for unexpectedly large tax expenditures which always creeps up and catch you off guard. And you can always prepare if you know it’s coming, if you don’t you can often end up accepting what is offered to you.
4. Calculate your breakeven point in terms of cash outflows. i.e. what are my constant cash outflows every month? If you know what you need to pay out as a minimum every month (excluding the tax payments and investments like fixed assets), you can gauge how much money you need to receive every month to cover these expenses. Then you can focus your energy on increasing sales so that cash inflows can increase. Remember that if you are registered for VAT, this will have to include VAT payments.
