Our Blog
Our Blog
Call us: 1 (403) 973-0400
Call us: 1 (403) 973-0400
Our Blog
Our Blog
An ongoing series of informative entries
An ongoing series of informative entries
How to Safeguard Relationship with Your Clients with Overdue Receivables
15 March 2024
Chasing late payment by some section of clients without damaging the relationship is a delicate step and akin to walking on the proverbial eggshell. Here are the
5 most effective steps recommended by experts.
1. Clarity
When going after your clients for unpaid bill, state clearly what you want to happen. Ensure that your customer clearly understands your point of view. For example, explain that the terms of payment as per sales engagement is 30 days. Explain that you invoiced 30 days ago, the amount is now overdue by XYZ days, and you expect to get paid by the end of the week.
2. keep your cool and be courteous
Be polite and courteous without being a push-over some clients will try your patients a lot and push you to the back of the queue if they think
you’ll put up with it. To avoid being pushed to the back queue, make sure you are very clear on your goal and keep reiterating the facts including when you invoiced them and your payment terms. Always keep your facts simple and right. If you gloss over the details or worst still get them wrong, your stand will be weakened, and you will lose credibility. The consequence is that it will be easier for the client to ignore you.
3. Add Some Personal Touch
It is much harder to brush off somebody you have known or built a relationship within the past. Ask if they can pull strings with the finance department or discuss with the boss.Find out the person’s name and try to understand their point of view. Find out if they only pay on certain days? Is the company struggling? Treat everyone with respect, including the most junior assistant. It pays off.
4. Remain Persistent in your Pursuit
By making regular phone calls. Request for meeting. Be in touch often until the bill is paid. If you must deal with the accounts department, be amiable.
5. Be Explicit and unflinching
Use red ink on your reminder invoices. Because colour red is known to command attention. If possible, invest in a special rubber stamp with your company name on it. Resend your invoice with ‘overdue’ stamped right across the page, preferably in bright red. Stay unflinching until you are paid!
5 Key Perfomance Indices for Small Business to Monitor in 2024
1.Must Watch Your Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable
It does not make sense to make credit sales that will end up as a bad debt for the company.
Constant monitoring to make sure that customers do not exceed the company approved account receivable days is very important. Similarly, the company should ask and not miss an opportunity for a credit sale from vendors and suppliers. The company will need to be on top of this to improve the financial health and overall cash flow of the company.
2.Automation & Using Artificial Intelligence (AI)
It is beneficial for proactive businessowners to make investment in AI (Artificial intelligence) automation especially for the area of the business that are repetitive and handling big financial data. Automate regular tasks, and extract insights for important decisions. At the same time as AI technology advances, it not only enhances existing processes but also prompts a reassessment of traditional roles.
3.Develop a Mix work Culture of Both Remote and corporate Office work.
A cross of remote and corporate office workdays offers flexibility and enables employees to have a better work life balance. This has been reported to enhance employee productivity as it allows them to structure their workday around their lives and family with guaranteed peace of mind.
In addition, this would provide access to the global talent pool, enabling business owners to recruit from verse talent pool all over the world and reduce high cost associated with renting.
4.Pay Real Good Attention to Staffing
With high rate of inflation, tough competition, and high cost of borrowing prevalent since after we came out of covid it becomes very exigent that business owners must pay real good attention not only to quality of staff they recruit, emoluments and compensation must be commensurate to skill set of staff if not, the organization will continue to lose good staff. There is also a need to strategize well ahead on likelihood of staffing deficits.
Business owners should adopt a more wholistic strategy of channeling funds to maximum outcome by using a combination of initiatives such as training, upskilling, onboarding, and positive work culture. Other incentives such as paid time off, flexible work arrangement and enhanced benefits
5.Monitoring working Capital constantly
Effectively monitoring the working capital enables the organizations to meet their near financial commitments.
Share your Thoughts to help CRA improve the Simplified Northern Residents Travel Deductions
Earlier this year, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) introduced the Simplified northern residents travel deduction, a pilot project with the goal of making it easier for eligible northern residents to provide the necessary information in their claim and access the deduction. Now, we are taking steps to collect feedback and identify more ways to improve the process.
If you're a northern resident, a tax professional or any other stakeholder with experience using the lowest return airfare tables and claiming this deduction, we want to hear from you! Your insights will be valuable in helping us enhance our services. An online questionnaire is now available on Canada.ca where you can let us know your thoughts.
In addition to the questionnaire, consultations are being held in the form of virtual and in-person roundtables to gather feedback. You can visit our consultation page for more information and learn how to participate.
You can also provide input by emailing our dedicated mailbox: NRD Comments / DHRE Commentaires (CRA/ARC).
In keeping with the CRA's People First philosophy, we are committed to improving the process for all northern residents and will continue to seek feedback on this deduction.
Thank you for your participation!
8 Things that Business Owners could do to Maximize Profit
8 Things that Business Owners could do to Maximize Profit
15 March 2023
Identify the area where there is need in your industry and discover the way to provide solution
- Focus more on efficiency and creating good customer experience
- Proper and timely Bookkeeping to give you an accurate picture of where you are
- Tax planning to claim all allowable business expenses and credits
- Good record keeping, good internal control, cost goods and dervices properly to avoid loss
- Have business budget, forecast and current financial reports for decision making
- Pay yourself salary and bonus instead of dividend
8 Mysteries to unlock ($)Revenue in your Business
8 Mysteries to unlock ($)Revenue in your Business
15 April 2023
Often, boards and management of small businesses and not-for-profit ignore the fiduciary duty of performing monthly bookkeeping for the business. Failure to prioritize this important compliance is as fatal as like walking around with your eyes closed. #A good professional accounting or bookkeeping firm will generate the profit and loss statement every month as well as monthly statement of cash flow after bookkeeping These reports will always assist to unlock the following mysteries in your business on month-to-month basis rather than waiting for 12 calendar months when problems gone wrong and sometimes beyond rescue. Here are 8 mysteries you could unlock:
- Finding instant and immediate cashflow in your business
- Uncover hidden revenue using your Income statement
- How to discover and unleash your business' true financial potential
- Understanding the KEY numbers in your Income statement
- Options you have for increasing your gross revenue
- Create exponential growth for your business which could invariably lead you dominate your market
- Ways you can lower your cost of goods sold
- Ways you can lower your overhead costs
Reasons to Change a Sole Proprietor Business to Incorporation
Reasons to Change a Sole Proprietor Business to Incorporation
14 February 2023
Many times, clients ask us, Can we incorporate our sole proprietor business?. If yes, when should we do the incorporation?. Here are some of several reasons that you might decide to transition your sole proprietorship business to a corporation:
- Growth
- Necessity
- Tax optimization
- Adding a partner.
- separate business from personal
- Taking advantage of loans, incentives, tax credits
- Limited liability
- Value Creation.
If you are a sole proprietor experiencing one or more of these in your business. You may consider to incorporate the business
3 Stress Free Ways to Engage New and Existing Customers
3 Stress Free Ways to Engage New and Existing Customers
15 January 2023
- Make it Stress free for potential customers and Clients to reach you.It is necessary for business owner to update your business social media pages with hours and contact information if you haven’t already. Add call to action button “contact us,” in the Ads Manager so customers can reach out on the spot.
- Make your content informative and easy to browse. Identify what works well naturally with your clients. What do they respond most to? Next, turn those insights into creative infomercial to reach a larger audience who have similar interests. Consider creating them as leads, flyers, posters, billboards, announcements, trailers, and adverts etc. that informs and educate the potential clients about your product and services.
- Simplify the on boarding process to make it a great experience. For instance, make it stress free for clients to browse your products and services with collections with a catalogue or rate card. Catalogues for businesses that sell products and rate cards for services enable customers to quickly find items and add them to their cart so they can send order requests.
New process for authorizing representatives for business clients using the Business Consent Service in EFILE
New process for authorizing representatives for business clients using the Business Consent Service in EFILE
15 December 2022
The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) implemented #Confirm my Representative, # a two-step verification process for authorizing a representative via Represent a Client. In October 2022, this process will also apply to authorization requests submitted through the Business Consent Service in certified tax software (EFILE). The Business Consent Service is used to request access to business client information only.
In the new process, after the representative submits an authorization request through certified tax software, the request will go into a 'pending' state. The request will not be activated until the business owner or their delegate logs into My Business Account and clicks on the "confirm pending authorizations" button in the Authorized Representatives section.
What's New?
Cients will be able to confirm who is able to access their tax information by using the Confirm my Representative service in My Business Account.
Once your client has registered for My Business Account, they will have to enable email notifications to be notified each time a new representative requests access. Once they receive a request, they can confirm or deny access in My Business Account.
Authorization requests submitted through the Business Consent Service in EFILE software will be marked as pending for ten business days. If the owner or their delegate doesn't confirm it within this timeframe, the request will be cancelled, and a new one will need to be submitted.
This process of confirming the authorization of a representative will be a one-time action for most business owners.
This only applies to new authorization requests, including those from a currently authorized representative if they choose to submit a new request.
In some exceptional cases, the CRA may still contact a business owner by telephone to verify a representative's authorization..
Steps for clients to take:
#Make sure your clients are aware that they must register for My Business Account and enable email notifications before you submit your authorization request.
#Business owners who are already registered for My Account do not have to register again for My Business Account. They can sign in to My Business Account using their CRA user ID and password.
#If they don't have a CRA user ID and password, they'll need to create one and for this, they'll need their:
1.Social insurance number
2.Date of birth
3.Current postal or zip code
4.Personal income tax returns from the current and previous year
5.Business number
Once client has signed up for My Business Account, they will need to add their business number to their account. The business owner will only be allowed to do this if their name and social insurance number matches the information the CRA has on file for the business. If they get an error message at this step, they will need to contact the CRA to update their records.
Questions Every Business Owner Should Answer
Questions Every Business Owner Should Answer
15 Nov 2022
1. Why should clients choose you over 100,000 other competitors selling the same product or services?
2. If your answers are - your experience, your personality, care for your clients etc. Your competitors are likely saying the same things.
3. How is your product or services an investment and not a cost?
4. What result do people tangibly get from your product, services or working with you.?
5. Do you have testimonials where your clients are talking about the tangible results you delivered them ?
If you can answer all these questions with confidence, then you should be at least a 7-figure design business..If you don't have a confident answer to most of these questions, you have a product problem.
Ultimately, this says that your you're selling something that people don't really want.
You may have the best marketing and sales department in the world but if your product is weak, It invariably means that your business.
Smart Money Management for SME
Smart Money Management for SME
15 Oct 2022
If your business is to succeed as a small business owner, the day to day running of the operation must be well planned.Therefore, it becomes imperative to plan the working capital well ahead to meet timely recurrent expenditures such as paying vendors,staff payroll,, loan and interest obligations,and other fixed costs.Here are the 6 things you must know:
- Cash Flow Management- understanding how money comes in and out of the business
- Payment-Understanding who and when to pay
- Planning- Planning your working capital ahead forthrightly, monthly and quarterly so that your business does not become delinquent
- Timing-Good time management
- Financial Statements- Preparing timely financial statements for real time decision making.Going to your bookkeeper /accountant months or years after period and. Is waste of money because using stale Fnancial Statements for decision making is like giving a patient medicine after death
- Know Who you are - "The Boss".Focus on what you are good at ie Being the CEO of your business. because that is where you have comparative advantage lies.
When to report a rent subsidy
When to report a rent subsidy
15 Sept 2022
Rent subsidy is a form of government assistance and is taxable, unless you are exempt from income tax such registered charities and not-for profit organizations. Taxable rent subsidy are as follows:
- Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy (CERS)
- Tourism and Hospitality Recovery Program (THRP)
- Hardest-Hit Business Recovery Program (HHBRP)
CRA expects every tax payer to report the subsidy on their income tax or information return for the tax year /fiscal period in which they are received.
The rent subsidy is generally considered to have been received on the last day of the claim period it relates to.
For example, if you applied for and received a rent subsidy for claim period 23 (November 21 to December 18, 2021), we would consider you to have received the amount on December 18, 2021, even if you applied for period 23 in 2022 or received your subsidy amount for period 23 in 2022
Common Mistakes that Small Businesses Make and how to Avoid them.
Common Mistakes that Small Businesses Make and how to Avoid them.
15 Aug 2022
- Cash Flow : Most start ups and small businesses do not pay attention to their cash flow because they do not have an accounting department to prepare the statement of Cash flow showing how cash flows in and out of the business. The consequence is that sooner than later, they become cash strapped and may not be able to meet the working capital needs. Long term issue of cash mismanagement will lead to inability to meet obligations to both vendors and employees and invariably to insolvency. Getting your accountant/bookkeeper to prepare statement of cash flow at least on quarterly basis guarantees that your cash flow in flow and out flow is properly monitored.
- Budgeting :Budget is the backbone of a business. It trims, waste and check overspending. Operating a business without a budget is like giving a shopaholic a blank cheque or credit card for shopping. Every business should have a capital and operating budget. Like an employee on salary. The operating budget of a company equals to its salary. It should be used prudently and judiciously to run the business of the company in order to achieve growth.
- Loan Interest and Other Charges: Lack of attention to loan and interest charges is a risky way to run business. A lot of businesses take off by being highly leveraged. There is nothing wrong with this, but it must be prudently targeted to investment with reasonable ROI – Return on investment. So that the principal would be repaid quickly. Loan interest and other monthly charges may prove to be too much drain on a small business and may eventually ruin the business if it is not properly managed. One of the steps to salvage this type of situation is to go for debt consolidation and restructuring with the most lenient lender if the business has taken loan from a lot of lenders
- Investing in Big Purchases Early: Investing in big purchases early in business may not be ideal for every business. It is a red flag for a company to be heavily indebted before it has chance to make a good impact and reputation in the industry. This will affect its debt equity ratio for future borrowing and my invariably hamper it's chances to grow by leverage when it has gathered enough industry experience to venture into big deals. For guidance, debt equity ratio varies from industry to industry. The consensus is to keep it at a max of 2.0 level. However, some industries that uses heavy duty assets like the mining and exploration industries have higher debt ratio that may be greater than 2. To know how to guard your debt-to-equity ratio, your accountant will help you to keep track of it.
- Be Prepared for Recession: Not Preparing for a Period of Scarcity in your business is like not preparing for rainy season or for rain when your roof is damaged. Start with small achievable goals one step at a time. For example , having a business reserve of at least 6 months worth of business expenses in cash or near cash for the rainy days is reasonable.
- Managing Cash Flow for a Business in Times of Scarcity:Knowing how to manage business cash flow in times of scarcity is very essential and a must have skill for every business owner who wants to achieve growth in his business . In this blog , we have included 8 Tips for Managing Business Cash Flow in Times of Scarcity. Please click below to download PowerPoint presentation on the topic.
Thinking Cloud/Online Bookkeeping for Your Business?
Thinking Cloud/Online Bookkeeping for Your Business?
15 July 2022
- There is automatic scheduling of reports and recurring transactions, in QBO or Sage 50 Cloud
- You can access your account anywhere with internet access
- You can invite your accountant to log in, rather than sending an accountant copy between you
- User set up is easier, no need for a server.
- Secure Sharing
- Time Savings
