Back to Blog

Featured Client

Alpino represents a combination of hard work, passion and belief. Cambridge was seen as a promising present and future market, with its positive community growth and well travelled citizens. The original town Post Office with its historic classical façade, gave a certain familiarity of the Owners European homeland. With a family background in the Italian Alpine Region of the Dolomites, combined with Chefs brought in from Italy – Alpino's authenticity has paved its way in a very competitiv...

Featured Partner

Fegan & Co was established in 1997 with the intention of assisting farmers with their HR and Health & Safety. John Fegan and his team have not wavered from that theme and still provide that service today. They are dedicated to helping their clients 'do it right' – be it recruitment, staff management, staffing structures or health & safety. All of these areas have become very important to all businesses and having a company such as Fegan & Co focussed on the rural sector means t...

Business Advisory team update

About 130 or so years ago, noted British Naturist and author Charles Darwin was allegedly quoted as saying that "It is not the strongest of the species that survives or the most intelligent but the one most adaptable to change." As you are only too aware the market is constantly changing; dairy prices up then down, fuel prices down then up and exchange rates all over the place. To 'survive' this uncertainty means adapting quickly to the altering needs, wants and/or expectations of your current a...

Building great client relationships

There is a saying that the best customers are the ones you already have. So once you've schmoozed and wooed someone into your client base, how do you go about keeping their business? Establishing trust and maintaining rapport in your business will be critical to building strong client relationships. When you're getting to know your clients, it's important to identify common ground. The easiest way to start doing this is by listening. Learn about people by asking questions and from here you'll ...

ESCT Threshold Annual Review at 1st April

It is an employer's responsibility to review all employees' ESCT - Employer Superannuation Contribution Tax thresholds at the 1st April each year. If you haven't already done this, we highly recommend that you review all employees rates, make changes and if necessary document your review/changes. Determining the ESCT rate The easiest way to determine your employee's ESCT rate is by combining their annual salary or wages and your gross annual KiwiSaver employer contributions. This is called the...

10 things you need to do before the Mondayised Anzac Day

The Holidays (Full Recognition of Waitangi Day and Anzac Day) Amendment Bill or, as it is more commonly known, the 'Mondayisation Bill', will have its first big impact on Anzac Day. Here are 10 simple things you can to do to make sure your business stays compliant: Know what's new. The 'Mondayisation Bill' states that from now on, when Waitangi Day (6 February) or Anzac Day (25 April) fall on a weekend, the public holiday must be treated as falling on the following Monday for employees who w...

Accounted4 Farming Forum

Planting and removal of trees - is this tax deductible? Can you claim anything for tar-sealing your driveway? If you build stockyards, is this a capital cost or deductible as fencing? Is replacement of your shed plant and equipment classed as repairs and maintenance or capital? If you would like to know some general, but important, tax tips then you should attend the Accounted4 Farming Forum - "Tax Tips for Farmers" Thursday 7th May - 10.30am to 12.30pm (morning tea provided) Present...

Parental Leave

This section brings together basic information about the rights and obligations of employees, employers and self-employed people in respect of parental leave. It contains the current parental leave entitlements, featuring statutory paid parental leave for birth mothers, their partners, as well as adoptive parents. Changes to parental leave The Government has announced changes to parental leave provisions as part of the 2014 Budget: The current 14 weeks' of paid parental leave will be incre...

Scaling back to retirement

We do have some important team changes to tell you about. Firstly, after joining the firm in 1976, Director John Landers is scaling back in the lead-up to retirement. Over the next two years, he will remain with the firm on a consultancy basis. John is looking forward to a bit more time on leisure activities like fishing and travel....

In the Office

Kim's 10 Year Anniversary We recently celebrated Kim's 10 years with Accounted4. Congratulations Kim and we look forward to the next 10! New Team Member We are pleased to announce a new member to our team; Theres Weenink - Theres is currently completing her Bachelor of Business Analysis majoring in Accounting at Waikato University and will be working part time from early May until the end of this University year when she will then move to fulltime beginning November 2015. She will be...

In the Community

We recently had a Networking over Coffee event at our office as part of our involvement with the Chamber of Commerce. It was great to have about 40 local business people together to mix and mingle. We decided to do something a little different this year. After all, it's not just about the numbers! We decided to be a little innovative and have some challenging activities for our guests! This involved tasks like writing instructions on how to tie a shoelace, and to build a tower with skewers ...

In the Industry

There are some basics that businesses need to get right to make sure they meet their tax responsibilities. Inland Revenue focus on making it easy to understand what you need to do to get these basics right. They do this by providing information, tools, services and reminders for people who need them. 1) Your responsibilities as an employer Your main responsibilities to Inland Revenue are making the correct deductions from your employees' salaries (eg, PAYE, KiwiSaver), filing your employer mo...

Business Advisory team update

Accountants talk of budgeting. This is putting dollar amounts to a business plan. What is a business plan? It's anything you like! Why do we urge you to plan? Because you'll get better profits if your plan is a success. It doesn't matter how small your business is, planning should make it bigger. For small businesses best results are likely if you focus on boosting sales – but NOT at cut prices. Don't think of a number and say: "That's my target." Do think of a number and think about how yo...

Featured Client

Hamilton based Grasshopper Rock wine company has become one of Central Otago's most successful Pinot Noir labels. Established in 2003 and dedicated exclusively to Pinot Noir the company's wine is now sold in New Zealand, Australia, UK, USA and parts of Asia. Managing Director and ex-rural banker, Phil Handford, says the five founding families all have agriculture backgrounds and mostly met when they worked at The Rural Bank. "We believed if we found the right site we could grow some of the world...

Featured Partner

In 2013 the Institute of Chartered Accountants Australia and the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants voted overwhelmingly in favour of amalgamating the two organisations. From 2015 the trans-Tasman organisation is known as Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand. They are made up of over 100,000 diverse, talented and financially astute professionals who utilise their skills every day to make a difference for businesses the world over. Members are known for professional int...

Accounts Team Update

As usual, when the end of the financial year is approaching it's a good idea to make sure everything's in good order. Take a look at: How much stock you are carrying at the end of the year. Dispose of any obsolete lines or write the stock down to its net realisable value Planned dividend payments and the company's imputation credit account balance. We will be reviewing these in March. Be aware that some DWT may be payable in April for this! Debtors: If you have taken reasonable steps to...

Payroll team update

Minimum Wage Increase The adult minimum wage is going up by another 50c effective from 1st April 2015 to $14.75 per hour. This rate applies to all workers 18 years and over. The 'training' and 'starting out' hourly minimum wage will also rise to $11.80 per hour; these rates are 80% of the adult minimum wage. This rate can be paid to 16 and 17 year olds for the first 200 hours or three months of employment then the adult minimum wage applies. The rates are gross before tax and holiday pay mus...

2015 Seminar Programme

Education, training and growth is important to the team at Accounted4. From our recent Client Feedback Survey, we found that our clients are interested in a wide range of topics. We have devised a seminar programme for 2015 which provides clients the opportunity to develop their skills and knowledge. Thursday 26th February - Health & Safety Regulations Tuesday 24th March - Succession and Exit Planning Wednesday 22nd April - Xero training Thursday 28th May - HR for farmers Wednesday 2...

Happy New Year!

The New Year always brings new resolutions, some that will last a lifetime and others that will have to be taken again next year. At the beginning of a new year it is a great time to not only detox your body (after the excesses of Christmas and the New Year), but is also a good time to look at your business and finances – what positive changes could be made? We look forward to working with you to create a great year of business ahead....

For your office

Paying Holiday Pay Calculating and paying holiday pay is easy when you know what your obligations are, and Inland Revenue has a calculator to help you work it out. How to calculate holiday pay Holiday pay is pay for an employee's annual leave and pay for statutory holidays. You need to include holiday pay as earnings in the period you pay your employee. If you don't have a payroll package or a payroll provider, there are two ways you can work it out: Use your employee's annual entitlemen...

In the Community

Salvation Army donation (in lieu of giving gifts to clients) Accounted4 have again this year made a $1000 donation to the Salvation Army in Cambridge. This donation is done "in the spirit of Christmas" to support the work the organisation does in our local town. Senior Prizegiving Cambridge High School Senior Prizegiving was held on 4th November and the recipients of the Accounted4 Ltd Year 11, 12 and 13 Prizes were: Hamish Martin – Accounted4 Ltd Prize Year 11 Accounting Christian ...

In the Industry - 'Merry Christmas' says IRD

By Geoff Hurst CA For the past few years Inland Revenue has been releasing an annual Compliance Focus Document, which advises what their areas of concern are and where they will be putting their time and effort over the next year. You can read the document online here The document starts with the "basics that everyone needs to get right", so pretty key things to remember – Get an IRD number and keep it safe, use the right tax code, tell IRD when your details change, pay tax on all you...

In the Office

10 year anniversary We recently celebrated Anne Bland's 10th year with us. A great achievement - well done Anne! It was also Martyn Steffert's 10 year anniversary earlier this year. Congratulations Martyn! Celebrations have been deferred to a date sometime in the future! Team Changes On the 7th November we said goodbye to Raewyn (Ra) Garrett who sadly leaves us for her overseas adventure. Ra has been with Accounted4 for 10 years and has been a valuable employee. Ra has really enjoyed ...

Closing down for the holidays?

A closedown period is when an employer closes business operations for a certain length of time, often doing so during off-peak times of the year. Many businesses tend to do this over the Christmas break and many employees are happy to take this time to enjoy summer holidays with family. But there are some rules that employers need to be aware of before shutting up shop: There may only be one closedown period per year, although employers can shut down different business sectors at different ...

Business Advisory team update

By Jon Broadley – Business Advisory Service Manager It is the time of the year where we are all trying to bring the year to close in a well-ordered and methodical manner. In reality everything is going crazy and we are trying to juggle Christmas shopping, school graduations and planning holidays along with doing our day jobs! Given all those distractions it is easy to forget those that have helped you manage your busy lives and kept your business profitable this year – your family, friends...