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Looking to outsource your finance function? Start here with your free checklist

Slate Accounts knows the importance of having a good finance team. Our handy guide will help prepare your business to outsource finance and accounting.
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Tips to streamline your financial processes (saving you time and money)

Are your processes and tech holding you back? Learn what you can do to streamline the way your business runs and pave the way for growth.
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Cash flow management strategies to tackle supply chain issues

For many retailers and wholesalers, now may be the first time they’re experiencing a true cash flow crunch. And with ongoing COVID-related supply chain issues, it’s no surprise. Businesses that aren’t used to facing cash flow challenges are starting to see how quickly things can turn.
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Both accountants and bookkeepers play a key role in keeping your business financially healthy.

The difference between an accountant and bookkeeper – and why you need both for your business

When it comes to getting your business finances in order, there are a lot of experts you can turn to for help. From accountants to bookkeepers, financial coaches to virtual CFOs, each can play a different role. But with the lines between them often blurred, it can be hard to decide which one is the best fit for your business.
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Top tips to resignation-proof your finance function

Top tips to resignation-proof your finance function

Does the thought of your finance staff leaving keep you awake at night? Get prepared with our tips to keep the numbers running and business moving.
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5 reasons why outsourcing can boost your business performance

5 reasons why outsourcing can boost your business performance

Are processes & financial admin holding your business back? Learn how the right outsourced service can help you take back control & boost performance.
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Covid relief is about to end. Do you have a plan that’s good to go?

Jobkeeper payments ceased for some businesses in January, and will stop altogether after final payments in April. Deferred tax and bank repayments are recommencing (or will soon), and for many,
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Invoice Redirection Fraud: What you need to know

Invoice Redirection Fraud: What you need to know

When Lee,* an Accounts Payable Officer, saw an email from one of her suppliers saying they’d changed their bank details, she didn’t think twice. After all, the invoice looked normal, and the email sounded completely legitimate. What could possibly go wrong?!? A lot, apparently.
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Getting the most from Receipt Bank to automate your purchasing

Getting the most from Receipt Bank to automate your purchasing

For all but the smallest businesses, we recommend using a digital service for managing invoices and receipts. These are relatively cheap and save lots of time, in some cases halving the accounts workload for a business.
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Avoid paying GST on imported services and digital products

Avoid paying GST on imported services and digital products

From 1 July this year, GST applies to imports of services and digital products to Australian consumers. However businesses registered for GST don't need to pay it.
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Why you should stop using banks to buy foreign currency

Why you should stop using banks to buy foreign currency

If you’re using your bank to buy foreign currency for your business, you could easily save thousands of dollars by switching to a specialist currency broker.
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Employee or contractor – what’s the difference?

Many businesses struggle with the distinction between employees and contractors. We explore the difference and the importance of getting it right for your business.
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Subscription-based HR services – find out if you could benefit

External membership-based HR services are growing in popularity as more small to medium sized businesses realise the benefit - and affordability - of professional HR advice and systems.
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Save time with automatic superannuation payments

Do you pay your staff superannuation manually? If so, you’re not alone, but there is a good chance your payroll software has an automatic payment function.
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Guidelines for kindergarten treasurers – 3rd edition

Slate Accounts has just released the third edition of its Guidelines for Kindergarten Treasurers. This edition builds on Slate's growing expertise in the sector and includes an additional section exploring some of the issues and quirks specific to it.
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Money Never Sleeps…neither will you if you’re troubled by cash flow

Forecasting and managing cash flow are important for all but the luckiest of businesses. Our clients who make time to consider the drivers of their cash flow and predict their future cash position are seeing planning benefits and getting some much needed peace of mind.
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Great tips for managing cash flow

Here is a great list of tips and strategies to consider when cash gets tight, from accounting software Saasu’s CEO Mark Lehmann. There are no secrets on it, but it’s helpful to have such a comprehensive list in one place as a checklist if your exploring options to improve your cash position.
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Motivating Staff With Drive

If you manage a team, you might like the simple and surprising ideas in this 11 min animated talk on what motivates us. In it Daniel Pink succinctly explains that for work other than mechanical or rudimentary roles, the traditional carrot and stick management strategies
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Doubly Secure Your Passwords

As a follow on to our earlier post on using LastPass for secure, access anywhere, password storage, if you’re nervous about all your passwords hiding behind just one password, LastPass makes it easy to set up a second login step, called “multi-factor authentication”.
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Analyse Industries With ABS Business Count Data

If you need to analyse an industry, its size and the level of competition, The Australian Bureau of Statistics is a great place to start. It publishes a comprehensive set of data on the number of businesses in each industry including: their size by employee
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Use LastPass For Secure, Access Anywhere, Password Storage

We recommend and use LastPass for secure, access anywhere, password storage. It’s a free service that keeps all your passwords securely in the cloud and makes them available on all your computers and devices. Passwords are the number one information security risk for most businesses
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Tips For Taking Better Control Of Your Projects

Businesses typically focus on managing their day to day operations, but a big part of what we do is projects: non-operational work that will come to an end. Hiring someone, a website rebuild, a marketing campaign, moving office, installing a new POS system – it’s
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Payroll Features And Functionality To Look For

We recently developed a comprehensive list of requirements for a client looking to replace their payroll bureau serving about 100 staff. While some of the features belong exclusively to mid and large sized organisations, many were relevant to smaller businesses trying to choose accounting and
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Easy Supplier Payments And Record Keeping

We’re finding one of the simplest and most effective processes for managing supplier payments and paper work is to use the online receipt storage solution Shoeboxed. Shoeboxed makes the sometimes painful discipline of keeping receipts and invoices a lot quicker and easier, and is great
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Data Entry Is Dead

Today internet based bookkeeping and accounting systems are being built to send data to each other, fast making data entry and double handling obsolete. If your business’ bookkeeping or accounting processes involve significant human data entry, there is likely to be an affordable, automated alternative
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Paperless Record Keeping With Evernote

We've written before about the benefits of going paperless. All you need is a scanner, and a way to store the information. There are some great tools out there for keeping your records, Evernote is one of the best. Evernote is a freemium web service
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Meaningful Financial Reporting Starts With A Strategy

Good bookkeeping and accounting provides information that is relevant to your business and decision making. If you want your numbers to be meaningful, they need to be linked to a strategy so you know what it is you’re trying to achieve. The information and reporting
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Consider Going Paperless For Better Information And Processes

If you’re looking for ways save time and get better, more valuable and timely information out of your accounting processes, consider going paperless. One of the first things we do with new clients is map out and analyse their existing accounting processes to find ways
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Hold Off On The Upgrade To MYOB AccountRight 2011, Unless You Really Need It

The new version of MYOB, AccountRight 2011, holds much promise, but we recommend holding off while all the bugs are ironed out. The release has been much anticipated. There are many good new features, though most are long overdue. The key for us though is
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Generate Great Questions With Good Benchmarking

Business owners and managers can learn a lot by comparing their business’ key metrics against others. As a general rule, benchmarking your business against others raises more questions than you have information to answer. Every business is unique, no matter how simple or small it
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Automatic Superannuation Payments

Good news, the days of manually paying individual superannuation funds for each employee may be over for some. The Australian Government recently launched the Small Business Superannuation Clearing House. It is a free service for businesses with 20 employees or less that takes one payment
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