Roger (Partner)
Receives an email from a valued small business client who is considering selling his business and wants a valuation. Roger collects all of the relevant information and goes to Calculations / Business Valuations to assess the value of the business using the discounted cash flow method.
Receives a call from a client who has applied for an overdraft. The bank has asked him to provide a cash flow forecast. Roger opens Calculations / Budgets & Projections / Cashflow Forecast and prepares the forecast from the most recent set of accounts and his client’s advice.
Receives a call from a client who is leasing a new motor vehicle. He has been told that there are minimum residual values for the lease to be accepted by the ATO. Roger goes to Rates / Leasing to get those figures.
Meets with a long term client who wants help in improving the profitability of her business. He uses Calculations / Budgets & Projections / Profit Manager to project and test different scenarios which will increase net profit.
Call from a client who has problems managing his company’s cash flow. Roger sets up a worksheet from the template Calculations / Tax & Super Debt – Company, which will allow his client to set amounts aside on a weekly basis to cover future amounts payable for company tax, GST, PAYG withholding, FBT and superannuation guarantee payments.
Meets with a client for some tax planning. Shows him a graphical illustration of the different tax rates applying to various entities, which he gets from Rates / Income Tax / Tax Thermometer.
Prepares a return for his sister who has used her line of credit to run her business and pay for personal expenses. Uses Calculations / Interest – Mixed Loans to calculate interest on up to four different business uses of that loan.
Call from a client with a number of highly paid workers. Client asks about the maximum contribution base for SG purposes. Roger goes to Rates / Superannuation Guarantee / Maximum Contribution Base to look up the maximum quarterly earnings base for the current year.
Client updates her company’s cloud accounts to 31 March and wants a projected profit and tax figure for the year. Goes to Calculations / Tax Planning – Company to prepare the estimate and do some tax planning.
Reviewing a set of accounts for a butcher prepared by Jane and noticed that goods taken for private use had not been accounted for in the Profit & Loss Statement. Goes to Rates / Stock / Private Use to determine how much should be shown in the accounts for that year.
Meets with a client who wants advice on purchasing a specific rental property. Roger enters data to Calculations / Budgets & Projections / Property Investment Analysis to determine pre and post tax cash flow, gross and net rental yield, investment equity after 10 years and internal rates of return after 10 years if the property is either sold or still held.
Jane (Accountant)
Jane is starting a new set of annual accounts for a company and downloads Annual Job – Company which is a full set of working papers for this job. She sets up the file and sends it to Admin staff for pre-job tasks before she starts the work.
Shortly after, she receives an email from a client who wants to vary her PAYG instalment. Jane downloads PAYGI Vary – Individual and enters estimates to calculate the varied rate.
One of her individual clients, sends an email with information for his return. The information includes a significant number of Cryptocurrency transactions during the year so Jane downloads CGT – Cryptocurrency and enters details to calculate the gain/loss.
On another job in progress, the client has not been able to provide an estimate of the cost of stock on hand at 30 June. Jane goes to Calculations / Stock – Estimate to estimate the closing stock figure for the accounts.
On completing these accounts, Jane notices that there is a debit balance loan at 30 June which the client is unable to pay back by the lodgement day. Jane goes to Calculations / Division 7A Loans to prepare the agreement and manage the loan over its 7 year life, including calculating 1. Minimum payments each year 2. Balances outstanding at the end of each year and 3. Deemed dividends where there is a minimum repayment shortfall.
On reviewing these accounts, Jane decided to run the figures against the ATO small business benchmarks. She opens Calculations / Benchmarks and enters some basic figures to check that they are within ATO expectations.
Client attends to seek an estimate of CGT payable on the sale of his home. It was originally a rental property, then became his main residence during which time he used part of the home to run his business during three separate periods. Goes to Calculations / CGT – Property to prepare an estimate.
Meets with a client to take details to later prepare a personal tax return. Prints Interview – Tax Return under Forms to use during the meeting.
This return has hire purchase interest to claim on a structured loan for a car. Goes to Calculations / Hire Purchase Schedule – Structured to calculate the interest and borrowing expenses claimable over the life of the loan.
Next, she prepares a personal return for a mining employee. Being a suburban practice, not many returns are completed for mining employees. She follows Tax Publications – Deductions under Lookup on the home page where she finds an ATO publication on deductions that can be claimed by a mining employee.
Jane prepares an FBT return for a client with several car fringe benefits and other benefits including Expense Payments and Entertainment. Goes to the JobPaper FBT to calculate the benefits and produce a summary for the FBT return software.
Prepares a return for a client with overseas travel expenses. Needs to calculate the maximum amounts that can be claimed without receipts for several destinations. Goes to Calculations / Travel – Overseas for automatic calculations based on salary range and destinations.
Kim (Personal Assistant)
It’s time for the practice to review their tax return lodgement performance to date and chase up not lodged returns. Kim downloads Lodgement Manager – Returns and inputs two csv files containing the ATO lodgement report and a practice management report matching clients with client managers. The workbook combines that information and produces a dashboard with a comprehensive summary of the status of returns by type, due dates and the managers responsible. Drill down at the dashboard to see the actual returns. The combined report is circulated to managers in the practice to take followup action.
Jane gives Kim a shoe box full of receipts and asks her to summarise them. Kim uses the Blank Worksheet from Quick Links on the home page to enter amounts, calculate totals, automatically deduct any private use and keep a record of her calculations.
While summarising the above receipts, Kim notices that some amounts are in a foreign currency. To convert to Australian dollars, she uses the worksheet at Calculations / Foreign Currency Worksheet.
Kim receives a call from a new client who makes an appointment to have his personal return prepared. He wants to know what information he needs to bring with him. Kim goes to Forms / Records – Personal Return (short) and emails this checklist to the client.
Roger received a call from a client who has just purchased three negatively-geared rental properties and needs to reduce PAYG Withholding amounts being deducted from her pay. He asks Kim to send the client a request for information needed to prepare the application. Kim goes to Forms / PAYGW Variation Questionnaire and emails this form to the client.
Roger has asked Kim to send emails to FBT clients asking for information to prepare their FBT returns. Jane prepares the emails using Letters / FBT Info Requested and encloses a checklist of potential benefits from Forms / FBT Benefits along with a schedule on which the client should record details of car benefits (Forms / FBT Car Details).
A number of assessments were received from the ATO this morning. Kim prepares a letter on their practice management system and inserts standard wording from a template on Accountants Desktop at Letters / Assessments EFT.
Jane has just completed a set of company accounts and tax returns and asks Kim to prepare a standard invoice for this type of work. Jane goes to Invoices / Accounts Preparation / Company Accounts.
Jane gives Kim a collection of dividend and tax statements for a retired investor client who is not required to lodge a return but wants to claim a refund of the imputation credits. Kim goes to Calculations / Franking Credit Refund Worksheet to prepare the figures for the application form and submits back to Jane for checking.
Jane gives Kim 12 monthly real estate agent’s statements for a rental property and asks her to prepare a summary for the tax return. Kim goes to Calculations / Rental Income Summary to prepare a summary for the return.
Kim receives an email from the client who wants a PAYG Withholding Variation (see above) with the questionnaire duly completed. She prepares information for the application using Calculations / PAYGW Variation – Rent and passes it on to Jane for checking.