Mistaking a bookkeeper for an accountant can lead to poor advice, which can be very detrimental to your tax position. We’ve seen cases where the wrong advice resulted in taxpayers paying significantly more tax than they needed to. Even worse, we’ve had new clients come to us who were in strife with the IRD because they had paid too little tax, on the advice of a bookkeeper. On the other hand, using a qualified chartered accountant for bookkeeping work would be unnecessarily expensive.
When I look at the SME market, I am more convinced than ever that we should really stick to our main focus which is being the best bookkeepers in the NZ market. We are not tax experts and we are not add-on software implementors (other than Xero/MYOB and some generic apps that we use a lot) and we are not consultants who provide business advice, we’re BOOKKEEPERS and we are striving to be the best we can.
Having recently returned from Xerocon in Brisbane it made me realise that the more technology we have the more we need good people to be able to use it effectively. There are so many different applications available it can be very daunting for a business owner to know the best one to go for, and consequently, some do nothing! This is where a good bookkeeper can really help as we are often familiar with a larger scope of these apps.
With our business now over two years old we have started to gain a good reputation in the market for doing a quality job. Most of our clients are referred to us so it is vital to our ongoing success that we maintain these high-quality standards. Of course, this all comes down to the fact that we have great staff who know their stuff and take pride in doing a good job. So, how do we attract the best staff and why do they like working with us?
I’m sure by now you’ve heard of the ‘gig economy’, an economy that relies heavily on independent contractors or freelance workers. There’s a growing trend in the marketplace for this type of work in western economies especially. It is estimated by some commentators that this type of work already makes up about 25% of the workforce, and is growing.
Have you heard the story of how to boil a frog? There are two ways, firstly you can boil a pot of water on the stove and when it’s boiling throw the frog in. However this generally results in the frog jumping straight out of the pot. The most efficient way to boil a frog is to put him in a pot of cold water and slowly turn the heat up, then bingo...your boiled frog sir.
We recently had the NZ Bookkeepers Association annual conference and the theme was the Future of Bookkeeping. I found this to be very interesting; particularly given some recent reports in the media suggesting that NZ would only require 18 accountants by the year 2030! There’s also been a recent article published suggesting that we should prepare for a less human future as business decisions will be more automated and more reliable due to artificial intelligence (AI).
