OSS, there might be some ideas below. I have been improving a spreadsheet system for several years now and it really saves a lot of time. I used to use a book keeper ($35/hr) but I was spending a lot of time keeping the records arranged so she could understand, answering questions, then having to meet her every quarter for 1-2 hours to sort out BAS.
I reckon it is better value to use an accountant to do the tax return if things are tricky. Less chance of an audit and you get more time before having to pay tax, at least with an ABN. Plus they factor in an hour or so a year for a yack, and they can generally give you a few ideas that save you money, or help your investment strategy.
if your excel skills are ok, consider automating spreadsheets. If you are always going to be PAYG, then they'll last you a lifetime with minimal revision every year.
It seems Quicken and MYOB are getting greedier as they gain market share. Some microbusinesses are paying $600+ for compulsory annual upgrades. It is becoming a rort. Self employment is one of the fastest growing trends around.
Personally, I am self employed and also consult. My accounting is uncomplicated. I have evolved a spreadsheet set up as a cash book, with a chart of accounts (categories) that pulls out claimable GST and splits the rest into deductible and non ded chart of account categories.
I have separate cash flow and PnL summaries and graphs for:
share trades/investing
property
business
personal use
So basically, each investment or life endeavour is set up as a profit centre.
This has taken several years to evolve, but it gives me a very clear picture of what is happening in my life. Since improving my excel skills, I have alls sorts of silly ideas about working the data to establish net profit per hour spent on each endeavour.
The spreadsheets became a lot more efficient and informative when I got on top of using macros to clean the exported bank account data and do database manipulation using sumproduct and transpose functions.
THis might seem like a lot of micromanagement, but it has got more time efficient every year, and has disciplined me to stay conscious of where the money is coming from and going. I am not likely to be caught out with cash flow shortfalls.
I have 5 accounts (2 credit cards, 2 bank accts, and a Comsec acct) that I export. These are pasted onto a data cleaner worksheet, and it is a one click macro operation to clean, then manually paste into either payments or receipts of the master cash book.
Then I go through each entry in the cash book and click on a drop down list of accounts (categories). A lot of stuff happens automatically after that- qtrly bas, cash flow graphs, profit centre PnLs, asset register, and tax return estimate.
All this used to take 30 hours a qtr, but I have it down to less than an hour a month.
I give the spreadsheet to the accountant to do the tax return.
I have also dumbed down any handling of paper. I try and always pay electronically, therefore receipts and invoices are just dumped into one of 12 monthly folders and I never look at them again.
Regular mthly, qtrly, annual bills are paid automatically out of credit card, and irregulars sit in an intray until end of month.
) to track all and i mean all personal income and expenditure.
