On Fri, 6 Dec 2013, Roger Clarke wrote: > Personally, I'd say 'insource your book-keeping', but 'outsource the > accounting and tax' except to the extent that you feel comfortable > avoiding the extra cost.
I'm in two minds about in-sourcing book-keeping. I'm on the board of directors of a US not-for profit (Software in the Public Interest, http://www.spi-inc.org) and we've recently out-sourced book-keeping. Initial results seem positive. Generally tax preparation wasn't terribly expensive and saved more than enough time to make it worth it. First time around I did own payroll. Useful for learning payroll rules and laws but mot much else. As noted, my last company was in Canada so the tax/accounting/payroll/etc/ rules I learnt over there aren't even completely portable to Australia. > By book-keping, I mean MYOB or some better-quality product, up to > 'trial balance' stage. (I designed and wrote accounting systems in > the 1970s, and spec'd some more in the late 1980s, and I can't > believe how poor-quality MYOB is). And if you do that, then of I used SQL-Ledger and (later) LedgerSMB for my privacy consulting company in Canada. They are both Free and Open Source and were easy to work with. I highly recommend LedgerSMB for those who do want to do in-house book-keeping. They both run on Linux but use a standards compliant web interface. Naturally always evaluate a product to make sure it fits your requirements before adopting it. > For a business like this, I'd use cash accounting, as you say > *especially* on revenue. The exception is depreciation, done at year > end. > > I haven't accrued or prepaid anything other than depreciation since I > started my consultancy company in 1982. Interesting. I thought it had to be 'all or nothing' across the entire company accounts. > Oh yes, and incorporation does make it look better, and makes > insurance easier, and makes it a lot cleaner when bidding in other > people as well (even for small quantities of sub-contracting), and > being bid in by other people, and it really shouldn't cost much. Absolutely. And register for GST right away. Not registering for GST is like holding up a big sign saying "Hey everyone, we don't make much money!". Companies are fine with GST on invoices - they get input tax credits. Cheers, Rob -- Email: [email protected] Linux counter ID #16440 IRC: Solver (OFTC & Freenode) Web: http://www.pracops.com Information behaves like a gas _______________________________________________ Link mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
