Bookkeeping Business Plan For Bendigo

Business Focus

Since small businesses (SMEs) are fountainheads of job creations, my line of speciality would be the bookkeeping of financial statements within Bendigo town. My speciality will include employing special accounting packages such as quick books and MYOB in maintaining accounts of sales and purchases and income and payment records of local businesses. My proactive approach will involve the creation of regional networks flexible enough to survey and respond to specific residential needs and spread the benefits to society. The best days to get clients are during month ends between 26^th through 30^th of every month. Since there is a strong demand for bookkeeping business in the Bendigo area, I will solidify my presence by improving the services already available. By this, I plan to employ various techniques that can be used to develop communities at individual and national levels by providing high-quality standards and system compliance financial statements (Australian Association of Professional Book Keepers 2006; Shaban 2011, p.1).

I plan to start with good planning, concentrate on the quality of my products and identify my niche market. Therefore, my comprehensive business plan narrows down to managing bookkeeping records for old people and retirees in retailing business with Bendigo town. Delegating the responsibility of bookkeeping to my company would enable this minority group to work smarter and grow faster and keep them enlightened on the business fundamentals, the progress of their business, and any changes that will enable their business to grow. This will be integrated into the approach of technical support and compliance in setting up and maintaining bookkeeping systems, managing reporting, and debt management. My best strategy in surviving in the competitive markets would be offering services to retailing businesses often run by old people and retirees who are often exhausted and overwhelmed to keep up with all the business fundamentals.

Business Structure

Taxation liability associated with Allied group (the business name) includes Tax File Number (TFN), Australian Business Number (ABN) also known as business identifier number which can be obtained on Australian Business Register website and Business Activity Statement (BAS) for payment of superannuation installments, PAYG and GST alongside other taxes. Allied group will be the company business name registered through form 201 of the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) under Corporation Act 2001 which requires companies to submit their lodgements details to the public register (Australian Securities and Investment Commission 2010).

Business Location

As earlier stated, the business will be located within Bendigo town in Victoria County as many retirees opt to settle within this locality. As a sole trader, I plan to take an approach of risk-taking, innovation, productivity, and independence in fulfilling my customer needs. Providing remarkably high-quality services and adding personalised services that will attract more customers will be my primary responsibility.

Investment

With regards to financial needs and funding, the business will solely depend on my savings for the first year.

Staffing Requirements

Allied Group will use its recruitment process of hiring employees through screen interviewing by personal selection. The company will only require three bookkeepers and one Information Technology expert with the required certificates. Credible passionate staff rich in practical business to meet individual business needs will be our primary responsibility. The energised, talented and committed workforce is essential to growing the business. Therefore, actively engaging in economic development opportunities at retail levels would attract and retain a talented workforce within the county.

Motivating Staff

As I have already proposed, workforce detainment will be the greatest asset for which investment and attention will be concentrated. Paying attention to the workforce, high-quality healthcare, training and transportation at affordable prices are just a few of the many major employee motivation strategies. I, therefore, plan to treat my employees fairly and complement them where necessary as monetary compensation will not be afforded within the first year of company operation.

Insurance

Registration with Professional Indemnity and Public Liability Insurance package with QBE for Allied Group business is required and Workers compensation insurance for employees (Australian Association of Professional Book Keepers 2006).

Advertising and Promotion

Advertisements would be done through billboards within Bendigo town to raise awareness of our services. To attract more customers, we plan to give free information sessions on current tax, acquisition skills for retailers, enlighten them on non-technical business responsibilities, simple bookkeeping through recording sales and purchases in exercise books and use of internet technology to lessen residents burden of legislative formality constrains.

SWOT analysis

Swot analysis determines a company’s competitors and develops sales & marketing strategies (Bruijin 2000). The SWOT Analysis of the Allied Group is necessary for the development of a marketing plan.

Recordkeeping and Compliance

A sole trader will use their tax file number when lodging income tax as this will be treated as individual income. This is then added to individual tax returns paid at marginal tax rates. Pay AS You Go (PAYG) withholding tax for employees’ contributions towards their superannuation will also be required by the Australian Tax Office.

Industrial relations primary responsibilities include protection of industry and labour laws in general. This covers a wide range of organisation industrial laws including minimum wage requirements, working conditions, pay calculation worksheets, hours worked by employees, rosters and employees leave and holidays. This requires the company to register with Industrial Relations Authorities.

Concerning occupational health and safety requirements, the company is required to develop healthier workplaces for the operators and employees. In this case, the company will be registered with CRS Australia to cover employees against injuries, disability and health conditions as provided by Occupational Health and Safety requirements (Australian Governments 2010, p.1).

Procedure for Internal Control

Internal control consists of policies and procedures required of a company to ensure cash and inventories accurately and fairly reflect the company’s current position and records are kept following generally accepted accounting standards (Day 2005, p.1).

Internal control employs the concept of separation of duties, timely detection of acquisition, accurate use or disposition of company assets. These procedures are outlined as follows:

1. Delegation-this requires allowing only members from the team to handle cash and the second duty of bookkeeping can be given to another employee.
2. Payment supporting document- in this case, receipts should bear numbers to record payments
3. Bank deposits should be done immediately
4. Set policies for general conduct such as allowing online banking to the top management such as the Manager
5. Investigate variance by performing random checks of petty cash
6. Inventories should be reconciled with company books.

Business Operations-expense functions

1. Relationship between Revenue and Hours worked.

Productivity growth and relative changes display no correlation in their relationships. It is argued that industries that rank higher in productivity growth over some time display no correlation between their relative productivity growth and their growth in relative wages. This, therefore, means that there’s little correlation between the industry’s productivity revenue and its hours worked and WIP chargeable hours.

2. Hours worked rise with wage rates. This simply means that wage rates increases correspond to hours rise and there exists a positive correlation between hours worked and wages earned. Literally, people who choose long work hours end up earning higher wages pushing into higher tax brackets. In this case, coefficients on the income tax returns lodged will be positive, but high tax rates will not encourage wages. The relationship between wages and WIP chargeable hours on the other hand shows an unobservable preference in the sense that billable hours justify wages increases. Since chargeable hours are translated into direct expense, billable hours justify salary increase if wages are paid on an hourly basis which means that realizable revenue and actual revenue will decrease.
3. If the number of new supplies increases, then hours worked and WIP chargeable hours would increase to boost the newly acquired customers. Income tax returns lodged would in this case increase as a result of increased customer supply thus increasing wages since employees would put in more hours working on the orders hence increased hours charged to clients.
4. Overheads are regarded as expenses. Since overheads are located based on hours worked, an increase in hours worked would result in increased overheads. Low overheads, on the other hand, would reduce the number of units performed thus increasing hours charged to client-which could mean that company’s revenue would increase resulting in increased income tax returns lodged.

Reference List

Australian Government 2010, ‘Small business entity concessions’, Web.

Australian Securities and Investment Commission 2011, ‘Tax basics for business operators’, Small Business Victoria: Information Sheet, vol.1, pp.1-7.

Australian Association of Professional Book Keepers 2006, ‘AAPB Delicacies Menu’, Web.

Bruijin, E. 2000, ‘SWOT analysis, UBC Library, vol.5, pp.1-15.

Day, J. 2005, ‘Internal control; A preventive maintenance program’, Web.

Shaban, M. 2011, ‘First class Accounts’, Web.