Xero Tip - Prepare for the end of Financial Year

By Steph Hinds on Wednesday June 8th, 2016

Payroll

Everyone who employs someone needs to prepare and lodge PAYG Payment Summaries before the 14th July. For those of you who are growthwise clients you can sit back and relax, we prepare these for you as part of our compliance work. But we still need to ensure everything is ready before 30th June so we can ensure you don't field those phone calls and emails from your team asking for their PAYG Payment Summaries so they can complete their tax returns!

- Ensure ALL of your employees have an email address. We always recommend emailing PAYG Payment Summaries. It's much quicker for your employees and you kill a truck load less trees. You should ensure any employees that have left your organisation have an email address that is not [email protected] but an email address they currently use.

- Ensure ALL of your employees have a Tax File Number in Xero. This is really important and should be completed as soon as the employee starts with you. It's always good to do a double check of this

- Ensure ALL of your employees have an Address. It's always handy to have this as a backup.

You can review all of the current address and email details for your employees by clicking on reports > employee contact details.

If you have to prepare PAYG Payment Summaries yourself Xero has a great help video on how to do this.

Super

There are big changes starting 1st July 2016 for anyone who has to pay Super - ie anyone who has an employee. It's called SuperStream. If you are using Xero then you are in luck because Xero's Auto Super component takes care of all the things you need to - ie electronic reporting. If you don't have Auto Super setup we strongly recommend you do that ASAP.

For Auto Super to work you need to ensure each employee has a Superannuation Fund attached as well as a member number.

Super is not tax deductible until you physically pay it. We recommend paying this before 30th June so you can claim the tax deduction.

Subcontractors

If you are in the Building and Construction Industry you are required to complete Taxable Payment Summaries. This means you need to report to the ATO all payments you have made to Subcontractors during the year. Again for those of you who are growthwise clients you can enjoy some wine or relax time as we take care of this for you.

In order to be able to prepare these summaries each of your Subcontractors needs to have a valid ABN and Address under their contact in Xero. They also need to have a contact telephone number.

The easiest way to keep track of all your Subcontractors is to set them up as a group using Smart Lists

It's also a great time to review......

- Your Inventory Items. Do you need to put more detail in the description? Do you need to increase your pricing?

- Your Invoice Template. Do you need to add anything? Do you need to update the branding.

- Your Payment Options. Do you need to add the ability for your customers to pay you from your Xero Invoice? Are you using the correct service for your business needs?

- Your Invoice Reminders. Do you need to change the frequency the reminders are sent from Xero? Do you need to change the verbiage?

- Your Email Templates. Do you need to add anything to your email template for sending out invoices or statements? Do you have any opportunities to drive traffic to your blog or social profiles on these templates?

- Your contacts. If you have been using Xero for a while this list can be rather large! It's a good idea to archive anyone who isn't a customer or supplier anymore.