Top Tips For Tradies

By . Posted in Business Growth, Cloud Software, Contractors, Events, Small Business, Solutions, Startups.

Sidekick’s National Powered Up Businesses Roadshow brought together hundreds of trades people that wanted a better, easier way to manage their trade business.

We spoke to Andy Burrows from Trades Coach after the event to compare ideas of where trades businesses struggle.(Link to his fantastic blog).

Three issues that we both found important were: Cash flow, time and cost management-especially for multiple jobs, and blowing the budget.

1. Cash flow

After a long project is over and you have finally been paid, looking at your bank balance can feel great! But if you are a tradie that looks at the $70,000 then thinks you’ve got enough cash for a new ute, you are not working your cash flow correctly.

But firstly how well collecting your payments? And if you aren’t getting paid on time, do you know exactly who owes you what?

Options: Payclip– BNZ have a device that plugs in to your smartphone to collect payments for small jobs right then and there. So if you did great work on your maintenance call out and the owner is home, why not get the money now?

Xero: With Xero your debtors are automatically loaded into a projected graph on your Xero dashboard, once you send your invoice off. This means you not only can see in advance when you are due a big pay week, but you can also see which invoices are overdue for payment/who to chase up. Send an invoice from your mobile on the job too, you could charge them for it but it will only take a minute or two.

Now, on top of all of this you need to figure out how much of that money is yours to keep, and how much you need to keep your business growing smoothly and your suppliers paid. Trade businesses have fluctuating income so prepare yourself and make your profits where you can, which leads me to issue two and three.

2.Time and cost management for multiple sites, long hours.

So no brainer, you were busy working on the job, and what time did you finish that job last Tuesday again? It can feel like a chore doing your paperwork which might make you put it off, throw it in the direction of your wife, or get sick of it real quick.

This is especially for trades that have multiple small jobs to do like maintenance or plumbing. How are your job quoting systems? Are your staff measuring their time well?

Training your staff and subbies alongside a good system means accurate and quick quoting for your staff, and faster payments. You are also teaching your staff good management, which could benefit them in their trade future. You can learn it together.

GeoOp– It’s quite good if you have an admin lady that answers calls and delegates jobs. She can type the job out as she receives them, and drag and drop them (on the computer) to the staff, who get text alerted with all the details. For the lucky tradie that’s nearest or almost finished, a mobile GPS will lead them to their next job.

With GeoOp, you can utilise your staff’s time and increase your turnover, which means you or your admin can think about marketing, fliers, and getting the guys to drop them in a few nearby mailboxes. Ah, carrying on, but last thing-its integration with Xero pushes invoices, bills and receipts through to the front desk so there’s no double entry. There’s so much to cover, so you may as well utilise a free half hour demo- Vanessa on 021 278 1798 can get you one.

3. Back costing and budget blow outs

Back costing helps you estimate your profit properly. You deserve to make a profit for the work that you do, so charge out accordingly. Once you get in to the habit of back costing you can see how far off you are from your job estimates, and your quotes will adjust to your expectations. At the PUB, about 1/3 of tradies back-costed, so there’s lots of room for improvement.

Do you know how to set your budgets? Shaun our CA is passionate about budgeting for success, and will give you a free consultation to talk about how you are setting yours. Call him on 021 644 547. Andy Burrows trades coach blog if you want to check it out.

Thanks for meeting us at the PUB!





8 Tips For Xero Users Before Year End

By . Posted in Business Growth, Cloud Software, Solutions.

You’ll be aware that the financial year is ending as we speak. There are a few things you might need to be aware of. We’ve put together some quick things you need to know as a business owner at this time of year. If you have any questions, feel free to call us on 0800 644 547, we’d love to help you out.

1. Reconcile your accounts

This will give your accounts a fresh start for the year ahead. Reconcile from the dashboard. If you need help charting your accounts to your transactions and you have free phone support in your accounting package feel free to call us.

2. Review Your Receivables

Now this is something you need to do before March 31st as if any of your aged receivables are bad debts, you must write them off as a bad debt expense before then end of this financial year. To write off a debtor as a bad debts expense, you must determine if there is no reasonable likelihood that the debt will be paid. A clear indication of a bad debt is if a debtor has become bankrupt or has gone into liquidation. In other words, you should only write off a bad debt if you have no hope of receiving the money. We do this so you don’t have to mark bad debts as income for the year.
To review your Aged Receivables Ledger in Xero click “Reports”, then “Aged Receivables”.

3. Have your accounts payable up-to-date

In your Xero ledger, make sure you have your accounts payable up-to-date. Create a list of your bills owed and upload these into Xero Files or manually enter these as money going out as at 31st March 2014.

4. Finish off your end of month billing

Complete any outstanding jobs that need to be invoiced out and send them off.

5. Complete your March Payroll

Complete your March payroll and enter the payroll tax due for March but payable in April, as an Accounts Payable Invoice. If you use one of the payroll packages that integrate with Xero such as Smart Payroll, then you only need to make sure you have finished the final March payrun.

6. Got Stock?

It’s important to set yourself a reminder on the 31st of March to put aside some time to do a stocktake. It’s in your very best interest to do this task, because if you capture the balance of all of your stock on that date, we’ll be able to work with accurate margins and data going forwards.

7. Beware of IRD Spam!

There seems to be another round of IRD spam hitting many of our email inbox’s at the moment.Do NOT click on any links if you receive an email from the IRD, it’s more than likely unsolicited mail. There are a few tell tale signs that the email is spam:
• Poor spelling and grammar.
• The email often refers to your individual return as an IR4, where in reality an IR4 is for a company return.
• The IRD will very rarely contact you regarding a refund, and even more rarely will they do so via email. • If you have a tax agent (that’s someone like us) the IRD will always contact them directly, rather than go straight to you.

It’s best to err on the side of caution here, the spam email will commonly ask for some form of bank account or credit card details.