“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
Risk and Reward Mixed Use Assets – taking note If you own a holiday home and rent this out commercially, there are new rules around how tax deductions are calculated. In order to accurately work out what these will be, there are some crucial points that we will require from you. You will still need to keep your normal records for income and expenses, but as well as that you… Read more
Scheme swapping across the ditch The Australian government recently announced that they have made changes to legislation that will allow New Zealanders to transfer their retirement savings from KiwiSaver into a compatible Australian scheme and vice versa. This legislation is the result of an arrangement between the New Zealand and Australian governments and removes an obstacle between the two countries, providing the ability for people to take advantage of employment… Read more
‘Mondayisation’ ahead Previously, when New Zealand celebrated Waitangi Day or ANZAC Day, and it fell on a Saturday or Sunday, it wasn’t recognised with a day of paid leave unless the employee normally worked on that day. For some New Zealanders, this projected the idea that these dates, marking significant moments in our history, weren’t important enough. Many also wanted to see employees enjoying their full entitlement of 11 public… Read more
There have been some articles in the news media recently dedicated to the rise of “teleworking”. To me the term already seems out of date as it seems to refer to the use of a telephone (invented around 1876) when today it is much more likely that internet technology will be used. According to Wikipedia, the term telework was coined in 1973, which will explain its old fashioned sound. However… Read more
Believe it or not, Christmas is just around the corner already, which will leave many of you thinking about how best to reward staff. It may also have crossed your mind to consider how much of the expenditure that you will make will be tax deductible. Generally, if you provide entertainment for your team, clients or any other business contact, some of your business entertainment expenses are tax deductible. Below… Read more