Firm news

When you run your own trade business, your life involves long days on job sites managing projects, staff and clients. Often we see successful business operators working so hard they find no time for invoicing and bookkeeping. Thanks to a variety of online software companies, running your business is now a lot easier. You can efficiently manage your projects, employees, finances and records on your computer, tablet, or mobile phone.…  Read more

With Christmas at hand it is time to think about payroll and staff leave over the Christmas break. Getting ready now will take some of the stress out of payroll over this period. Are you closed over Christmas? Do your staff need to put in leave requests for this period? If so get them in early to help with smooth processing. Discuss expectations with your staff. Those who don’t have…  Read more

In October we held our official Albany office opening. The celebration marked Porters’ return to Albany, with our goal to rebuild a strong local presence in our beautiful new space overlooking Princess Royal Harbour. We believe in supporting local businesses and in our preparing for our official opening we know why. The personal service, attention to detail and commitment to get the job done made the event a resounding success.…  Read more

With the implementation of single touch payroll, the ATO has real time data of wages paid, super due and receipts by super funds. This means now more than ever Superannuation must be paid on time. We’ve helped many small businesses implement systems to embrace single touch payroll by moving to cloud accounting with Xero or MYOB and gaining the additional benefits of time, knowledge and control of their business. The ATO…  Read more

There are some things in life that go together well and others that definitely do not. Business and personal finances are in the category of items that should not be mixed. Although it may seem like a headache to keep them separate—who wants to manage all those bank accounts?—your life will be greatly simplified once you separate your personal and your business finances, especially your expenses. Paperwork and taxes will…  Read more

As part of our pledge to leave a legacy. Porters Director Simon Terry completed the MACA Cancer 200 ride last weekend raising $5364 for Cancer research. Simon attained a position on the honour roll whereby individual entrants committed to raising more than $4000 for Harry Perkins institute instead of the minimum required entry of $2500 funds raised. We are so grateful to all who donated and helped Simon reach his…  Read more

Small business owners know that to find a loyal customer base, you have to stand out from your competitors. One of the best, and easiest, ways to do that is to have outstanding customer service. How you treat your customers reflects on your entire business. Your customers deserve to be treated well. They are supporting your business. Many small business owners focus a lot of attention on their products and…  Read more

We’re looking for a new team member at Porters CA – Chartered Accountants. www.portersca.com Porters CA is a boutique firm, combining excellence in tax with a personal touch and a view that opportunities are everywhere. Our focus is to help our small business clients achieve prosperity and peace of mind. We provide accounting, tax and bookkeeping advice throughout WA using the latest cloud accounting software, from our offices in South…  Read more

Advice from the desk of Simon Terry I have been helping clients recently with commercial leases they can’t afford, in premises they don’t need, for leases we didn’t discuss, locked in place by personal guarantees. So I have put together 10 tips of dos and don’ts: 1. Personal guarantees – don’t do it.  Accountants create business structures to minimise personal risk so don’t undo our hard work. 2. How well…  Read more

It’s been 18 years since  Jodi Bradley joined Porters Chartered Accountants in Albany in 2001. She has well and truly earned her stripes and this year joins us as a Partner of the firm. Jodi will take on a greater leadership role, the biggest of which is to re-open and expand our offices in Albany. The new partnership brings opportunity for business growth, employment of more staff in Albany and expansion of…  Read more

Every manager has habits that make them incredibly effective as well as issues that their employees wish they would change. The problem is that many employees won’t tell their manager what those weaknesses are, often out of fear of retaliation. So while managers conduct employee performance reviews pointing out areas for staff improvement, sometimes the manager’s own weaknesses go unaddressed. Porters Director Simon Terry recently acknowledged a staff member for…  Read more

No one wants to contemplate death, which makes writing or updating a will an unpleasant experience. Having an updated will is vital to ensure your wishes are followed after you die. It makes the process of sorting through your finances less stressful for your family and can prevent disagreements when settling your estate. Your will is a way of dictating who will arrange and settle your estate and how you…  Read more

To many people, financial planning sounds like something for the very rich. The wealthiest people take their piles of money to someone who tells them where to invest it so they can make even more money. The rest of us just focus on saving what we can while paying off debt and hoping we don’t lose our jobs before we’re financially stable. In fact, financial planning is about having long-term…  Read more

You’ve got a great idea for a business, and now you want to get it off the ground and take it to market. This is a very exciting time, but there’s quite a bit you need to think about before you can launch. We offer resources to help you get started. Follow our seven day program to:  Determine if you can make any money Prove you can beat the competition…  Read more

You would have been hearing a little about Labor’s proposed changes to negative gearing and CGT over the last couple of months. So with the election just a few short weeks away, here’s a summary of what the changes might look like. Currently… Negative gearing of an investment property occurs when the annual costs (interest, management fees, repairs and maintenance, depreciation, etc) are greater than the net rental income. Any…  Read more

Do you have employees? Then you need to be ready for Single Touch Payroll! By now you may have heard the buzz around Single Touch Payroll. It’s a pretty big deal for any business that has employees. So…what do you need to know and how does it affect you? Keep reading to find out. What is Single Touch Payroll? Single Touch Payroll (STP) is a new way to do your…  Read more

The annual Federal Budget is an event full of buying votes, new ideas, old ideas rehashed and new tax opportunities and pitfalls. In an election year, politicians’ imaginations run a little wild… so we’ve provided a summary blog and a longer assessment in case you want to know more. This year we are excited about two initiatives which in one form or another are likely to get bipartisan support.  These…  Read more

Like many small businesses, we’ve been through the process of defining our Mission (to identify opportunity, share passion and achieve prosperity) and our Vision (how our mission and values come together to an end goal), before engaging our team to define Porters’ Values (Care, Integrity, Passion, Team, Enjoyment). Our Values have some great thinking and team engagement behind them. As a business owner I use them to talk with staff…  Read more

In our last note, we had a quick review of how changes to the 2017-18 Budget might affect residential investment property owners and their Income Tax position.  While there was some bad news from the point of view of travel claims, and claiming depreciation on plant and material (at least in your Income Tax*), there are still plenty of things you CAN claim against managing your investment property. In this…  Read more

Want to know how the 2017-18 Budget affects your future tax position?   Here’s the rub… The ATO is interested ATO audits of over 300 rental property claims found errors in 90% of returns.  This means a huge potential loss of revenue for the ATO and fertile ground for tax reviews. This year, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) will undertake 4,500 audits of taxpayers it considers are “high risk” because…  Read more