Blog

Entrepreneurs want to have their hands on every aspect of their start-up. This is understandable, as many entrepreneurs come into their respective industries from a place of passion. Their passion will drive them to spend long nights at the office, working hard every hour of every day. Unknown to them, this kind of attitude can actually lead to some destructive outcomes. You must avoid these habits, despite the allure of…  Read more

Don’t be left up in the air by traditional IT solutions. Check out the top 9 advantages for small businesses switching to cloud computing. Cloud computing is fast becoming the norm because storing information and using software hosted on the Internet has many advantages. 1. Save money Traditionally, a small business spends money licensing software or buying packages to install or download onto individual computers. Cloud computing, on the other…  Read more

Many small business people wonder whether it’s better for them to buy or lease capital equipment for their businesses. Your options regarding leasing or buying depend upon the nature of your particular business, but there are nevertheless a few guidelines you can follow to help you decide what you should do. If you have the money available, and the item is really necessary to your business, then it will usually…  Read more

Provisional tax is often a source of confusion for new business owners as well as a source for frustration for owners of existing businesses.  This article gives a brief overview of some aspects of the system to help which may be of assistance to all business owners. What is provisional tax? The concept of provisional tax is based on payments of tax being made while income is still being derived.…  Read more

Small businesses can grow in boom times as well as periods of difficulty by working smarter and taking advantage of opportunities. Put these following effective tips into practise to help grow your business. 1. Utilise new technology Modern technology can save you time, improve productivity and reduce your operational costs. Make use of Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other social media tools to market your business. Dropbox is a cloud-based service…  Read more

“How much should I spend on marketing?” Most small business people ask me this question at some stage. Many small business people find working out how much to spend on marketing a tricky exercise to calculate. Generally there are five ways to work out a marketing budget for the year. Remember that these are marketing budgets, not advertising budgets. Marketing covers everything you do in your business that creates awareness,…  Read more

Help grow your business through collaboration, expansion, improved marketing and some of the following quick tips. 1. Improve your customer service Businesses with good customer service retain consumers and attract new business through word-of-mouth. Even if you think you’re already providing good service, make it a priority to provide refresher training to frontline staff at least once a year. Alternatively, hold regular meetings to discuss any issues as they arise.…  Read more

Risk and Reward Superannuation: decisions, decisions If you have (or had) funds in foreign superannuation schemes, let us know. Recent changes to legislation and further impending changes may affect you. I transferred my Australian super to KiwiSaver. Is it taxed here? Transfers from complying superannuation funds in Australia into KiwiSaver won’t be taxed in New Zealand on transfer. However, future earnings on these transfer funds will be taxed as normal…  Read more

As dedicated teleworkers, we are always interested to try out new ways of communicating without the pain and time cost of a commute. So when Google replaced its “talk” products with “hangouts” for video calling we were keen to take a look. Despite being pretty happy with skype, we thought we would try out using “hangouts” to do the same things. So what did we think? Hangouts is a very…  Read more