Month: November 2019

Should you consider using visual search technology?

Posted on by Adam_Admin

Using visual search technology for your business is a great way to increase customer engagement. When presented with a paragraph of black and white text, it is unlikely that customers will remember much of it. However, studies have shown that the average person can recall 65% of the visual content they see up to three days later, meaning that using visual elements in your marketing increase customer retention.

isual search technology uses images to conduct an internet search rather than keywords. This is particularly useful for businesses dealing with tangible products such as fashion items, decor, food, artworks and furniture. Visual search is expected to significantly impact the eCommerce world, with the rise of the image-based culture evident through social media platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest.

Online shoppers today have higher expectations on the quality of websites. If a retailer website has no images for their products, they are likely to look somewhere else. One study found that 69% of young consumers preferred to shop based on visual-oriented searches. This is mainly because visual search allows customers to find what they’re looking for five times faster than text-based searches.

Another reason why you should consider using visual search for your business is that it goes hand in hand with social influencer marketing. Influencers are the target for many brands due to their large, established follower base. They generally share image-based posts which can be used by consumers to search for the items in the picture.

Implementing visual search also makes SEO easier on your part. Visual search technology has an image-to-text feature that tags image automatically, without you having to put individual tags for each post. This way, your images are SEO ready with tags you might not have thought about yourself to be discovered by customers.

Using technology to improve workplace safety

Posted on by Adam_Admin

Ensuring the safety of employees in the workplace should be one of the top priorities for managers and business owners. This will not only improve your employees’ health and wellbeing but will help you avoid any arduous paperwork and legal obligations that can arise from even the smallest of injuries. Here are some technological tools you can use to improve the safety of your workplace:

Mobile devices:
Mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets, laptops and hand-held monitoring devices are convenient, easy to use tools that offer a range of workplace safety functions. They can be used to conduct inspections, record hazards, report accidents and communicate information instantly. These allow employees to keep up to date with on safety and health risks and ensure that everyone is aware of what is happening in the workplace. Safety apps offer functions like health and safety checklists, hazard identifications, and notifications to keep workers updated.

3D visualisation technology:
This software produces realistic images that allow you to easily recreate and imagine new or existing workplace sites. This can help employees become more closely aware of their surroundings and allow them to see any potential dangers or risks in advance. They are then able to prepare for the dangers before even being physically present on the site.

Equipment monitoring:
Internet-connected sensors can be installed on machinery used in the workplace to monitor its operation by measuring the machine’s temperature, vibrations, and noise. This helps detect any fault in the equipment, which is then sent to the manager/employer in real-time through the internet. This ensures equipment is kept in good repair and prevents employees getting injured from malfunctioning equipment.

Drones:
These are small aircraft directed by remote control and are fast and easy to use. Drones act as a safety measure as they are able to travel almost anywhere, meaning that they can inspect areas that are potentially dangerous or hard to safely access. Sending a drone to check the area prior to physically going to the site can inform workers of risks without endangering them.

Wearable technology:
These are devices that can be worn on workers’ bodies or accessories such as tool belts, watch bands, or clothing. Wearables often have sensors that can monitor the vital signs of employees (heart rate, skin temperature, blood oxygen level etc) which can be valuable for detecting health failures quickly. Some wearables can track workers’ movements and activity and send alerts to managers/employers if a worker falls or becomes unconscious. Other wearables can monitor the environment of the workplace, measuring elements such as extreme temperature, smoke, moving objects and dust.

Icebreaker activities employees will actually enjoy

Posted on by Adam_Admin

Icebreaker activities can often be uncomfortable, especially if people are already anxious about meeting a whole new group of people at once or worried about their first day with a new team or at a new job. It is important to have icebreakers that aren’t distracting or too nerve-wracking. For example, the popular ‘tell everyone an interesting fact about yourself’ can often result in someone stressing about what interesting and appropriate to share for the entire time instead of listening to anyone else’s contributions, and feeling self-conscious about their answer. Here are some alternative icebreakers that will help new teams really get to know each other and have a smoother transition into the job.

Quizzes:
A quiz is a great way to ease the team into interacting with each other as it means that a single person doesn’t have all the attention on them at once, which can be stressful, and everyone can break into smaller groups that will make it easy for them to get to know a few people at the same time. This will also demonstrate people’s interests and can get the team bonding over similar hobbies.

Scavenger hunt:
This is another activity that will get people into smaller groups working together and can encourage teamwork and problem-solving, which will likely be skills that they’ll need to work together. Having a scavenger hunt in the workplace can also help new employees get to know their way around.

Speed networking:
Speed networking is a great way for people to get to know each other one-on-one without the pressure of prolonging a conversation until it gets awkward. Have a different question for each round (e.g. what’s your favourite holiday destination? Do you have any pets? What do you like to do in your spare time?) and give everyone 30 seconds to both answer the question. This will allow people to interact with all team members individually.

Socialise:
It can be beneficial to get out of the office and do something fun. This lets the team relax and have fun and really get to know each other on a social level. Whether it’s having a beach day, going to the local pub, having a picnic, or getting brunch, getting the team to have fun without the pressures of the workplace can be a great way for them to bond with each other.

CGT concessions for shares and trust interests

Posted on by Adam_Admin

For taxpayers wishing to access the small business capital gains tax (CGT) concessions for shares in a company or interests in a trust, they must first meet the standard requirements as well as further conditions in place for such entities.

A taxpayer can apply for small business CGT concessions to lower or dismiss their capital gain from the disposal of CGT assets. If the CGT asset is a share in a company or interest in a trust, further conditions that will need to be met are:

  • The taxpayer must have carried on a business just before the CGT event or meet the maximum net asset value test.
  • Meet the 90% test, satisfied when the CGT concession stakeholders in the company or trust where the shares or interest are held have a total small business percentage in the entity of at least 90%. The percentage can be held directly or indirectly through multiple included entities.
  • The company or trust in which the shares or interests are held must either be a CGT small business entity for the income year or meet the maximum net asset value test. The rules for determining whether an entity is connected with the company or trust for this purpose are modified. Under the modified connected entity rule, the company or trust controls another entity if it has a control percentage of at least 20% or more, in that other entity.

The share or interest must satisfy the modified active asset test which looks through to the activities and assets of the underlying entities. The asset of an underlying entity will only be an active asset if the previous conditions have been met

These requirements apply to CGT events after 8 February 2018. If you made a capital gain relating to shares in a company or an interest in a trust before then, you must meet the basic conditions and just before the CGT event you must either be a CGT concession stakeholder in the company or trust or meet the 90% test.

Annual leave and pay over the holidays

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As the holiday season approaches, so does the shutdown period for many businesses. This is the time of year when it is easier to take off work due to many businesses slowing down, however, there are questions that surround this period, namely if you will get paid or not.

When calculating leave over the Christmas and New Year period, for permanent staff that would typically work on the public holidays, those days must count as a public holiday rather than a day of annual leave. Regular employee rights apply to Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Years Day public holidays. If you work in an industry that may require staff to work these days, normal requirements and relevant penalty rates are in effect. Employees can choose not to work on a public holiday on reasonable grounds such as how much notice the employee received or whether employers expected them to work on a public holiday. Employers do not have an automatic right to terminate an employee if they refuse to work on a public holiday.

Employees may be instructed to take their annual leave for the remaining days during the shutdown period. Employers can require this if the relevant award allows it or, if the industry’s award does not have a stance on compulsory annual leave over the holiday period, employers can still require employees to take annual leave if the business typically shuts down over Christmas. You cannot compel your employees to take their leave each year. However, an employee cannot unreasonably refuse your request to take annual leave, if they have accumulated it over a long period.

Employees that have not accrued enough leave to cover the holiday period can arrange with their employers to take leave in advance or unpaid. Workers who do not agree to this, however, cannot be forced by an employer to take unpaid leave unless the industry award allows them to. If not, employers will have to pay workers at a normal rate for the period of the shutdown.

To avoid issues in the midst of the holidays, review employment contracts and understand your holiday rights and obligations, as an employer or employee. Communicate with relevant parties before any shutdown period and organise any business needs. By getting this done early, you can fully enjoy the holidays when they arrive.

Super when you’re self-employed

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If you are a sole trader, or in a partnership, then you are not obligated to make super guarantee (SG) payments for yourself. However, you should still consider making personal contributions to super to help you save for retirement.

Your methods of contributing to super can depend on how you pay yourself. For example, if you receive a wage, then you can set up a regular transfer into super from your income before tax. If your income is from business revenue, you can periodically transfer a lump sum into your super depending on your cash flow.

When contributing to personal super contributions with your after-tax income, you may be eligible to claim tax deductions on them. Before claiming a deduction, you must give your selected super fund a ‘Notice of intent to claim or vary a deduction for personal contributions’ form, and received an acknowledgement from your fund.

You can contribute up to $25,000 a year in concessional super contributions, which are the contributions you can claim tax for, and an additional $100,000 a year in non-concessional super contributions, which you don’t claim deductions for. If you are aged 75 years or older, you are only able to claim tax deductions for contributions you made before the 28th of the month after you turned 75.

You should also check if you are eligible for extra government co-contributions to your super, which are available to eligible low and middle-income earners to increase their retirement savings. If you have a yearly income of less than $52,697 before tax, and you meet the eligibility criteria, then the government will match 50 cents for every dollar that you contribute to your super from your after-tax income. For example, if you contribute $1,000 to your super, the government’s co-contribution will be $500. This will get paid directly into your super account after you lodge your tax return for the year. There is a maximum amount the government will contribute which depends on your income.

Introducing ASFP

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Plans are underway to carry out a system change during the December closure of the ATO to introduce Activity statement financial processing (ASFP). This change will move the majority of taxpayer financial information into one accounting system that will have multiple accounts.

ASFP will shift activity statement and franking deficit tax accounts from the current ATO system into their primary accounting system, covering all the different taxes they administer. This change is intended to help improve ATO digital services by delivering simplified transaction descriptions and summary views of “statement of account transactions” with the ability to view full account transaction if required.

During the closure, a number of ATO online services will be unavailable. These include;

  • SuperMatch: A service that enables APRA-regulated funds to consolidate member accounts.
  • EmployerTICK: An online service employers can voluntarily use to validate employee details, prior to making the first contribution to a super fund.
  • Fund Validation Service (FVS): A service that enables employers and funds to obtain APRA-regulated funds’ e-commerce details that support SuperStream transactions.
  • Electronic portability form (EPF): An ATO-hosted form that can be used by fund members to transfer the whole balance of super accounts between APRA-regulated funds, or to member’s self-managed super fund.
  • Member Account Attribution Service (MAAS): A service for super providers and life insurance companies to report the opening and closing of accounts, and changes to a member’s account phases and attributes when they occur (event-based reporting).
  • Member Account Transaction Service (MATS): A service for super providers and life insurance companies to report member contributions or transactions more frequently and at a transactional level.
  • Small business superannuation clearing house (SBSCH): The superannuation clearing house is a free online super payments service that can be used by employers with 19 or fewer employees or have an annual aggregated turnover of $10 million or less, to pay super contributions in one transaction to a single location.

Businesses will still be able to report using STP, however, these records won’t be processed and displayed until the ATO systems are back up and running. The ATO’s “System maintenance page” and “Superannuation Dashboard” will be updated with dates of planned system outages.

Strategies to increase profit

Posted on by Adam_Admin

Whether you are struggling to keep up a steady income or wanting to grow your business, increasing sales revenue is often a central goal for businesses. Here are some strategies you can consider when looking to improve profit:

Redesign operations for maximum efficiency:
If you really look at the operation processes of your business, you’ll often find that there are certain systems and routines in place that may not be necessary. Try to eliminate the tasks and activities that do not make valuable contributions to the business. Look for any operation processes that can be streamlined to maximise efficiency and save time.

Increase marketing efforts:
Oftentimes, you’re going to have to spend money to make money. Many businesses benefit from investing in a strong marketing campaign or even looking for cost-effective marketing opportunities on social media. Giving your business an instant presence through online networks such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Twitter does not have to cost a fortune. Sharing regular updates on your business, pictures of your products or interesting content your followers will like is a great way to keep your business in people’s minds and build a rapport with your customers.

Get your staff more involved:
Your employees may be inclined to stick to the tasks they have been assigned and leave the business promotion to whoever has that job. Your employees are often the ones directly dealing with customers, engaging in meetings, and making phone calls. Therefore, it is important that you encourage the salesperson in your employees and motivate them to invest in the process of maximising sales revenue. Think about inspiring staff in meetings, providing them with commissions or benefits that will make them want to give back, training them on how to close a sale and how to deal with customers effectively.

Take care of existing customers:
While it is easy to get carried away with getting as many new customers and followers as you can, don’t forget that it is often easier and cheaper to make a sale to an existing customer than a new customer who you have not developed a relationship with yet. Existing customers will have more trust in your products or services if they have already had a positive experience with your business. Put effort into maintaining a good relationship with existing customers and focus on cross-selling and upselling products and services to them.

How to avoid non-paying clients

Posted on by Adam_Admin

Running a business is hard enough without having to chase up payments from your customers. Here are some measures you can take to prevent yourself from having to deal with the profitability imbalance, negative client relation, and legal ordeals that come with chasing up owed debt.

Research the customer:
Before you enter into an agreement with a client or other businesses, make sure that you know who you’re dealing with and do some research. There are government certified websites available to check whether a company is registered and legitimate. Find out about their history, make sure they are reliable, still in operation and to look for any bad reviews and other people’s experiences with them. Look out for those who ask for discounts or complain that your fees are too high. If you get the idea that the client may not pay, consider avoiding the job instead.

Have a signed contract:
Regardless of how much you trust your client, it is still a good idea to have a written contract in place so that everyone is on the same page and you have evidence to refer to in the case of a dispute or confusion. The contract should consist of the terms and agreements, payment schedule, preferred payment method, the exact product or service to be completed and late payment policy. This will encourage your client to make their payments on time, and will also come in handy if any legal action is required in the event that payment isn’t made.

Have a good invoicing system:
Make sure that you invoice customers quickly with professional and easy to understand statements. This helps you keep track of your customers and helps your customers understand the payment requirements. You can set payment terms and policies to ensure that you will be paid how you and your customer agreed.

Ask for deposits or instalment fees:
If you ask for a deposit and the client does not want to pay, it shows that they are probably not trustworthy and may not be willing to make a full payment. If the client does pay you a deposit or instalment fees but does not make a final payment, then you will not have wasted as much time and effort on this work than you would have otherwise.

Proactive consolidation with ILBAs

Posted on by Adam_Admin

Inactive low-balance accounts (ILBAs) are a new category account that needs to be reported and paid to the ATO. This was introduced in the Treasury Law Amendment (Protect Your Superannuation Package) Bill 2019 that came into effect on 1 July 2019 after first being announced in the 2018-19 Federal Budget.

ILBAs are designed to protect accounts from fee erosion. Where possible, the ATO will proactively consolidate super on behalf of an individual.

A superannuation account is considered an ILBA if the following criteria are met:

  • No amount has been received by the fund for crediting to that account for an individuals benefit within the last 16 months.
  • The account balance is less than $6,000.
  • A prescribed condition of release has not been met.
  • The account is not a defined benefit account.
  • There is no insurance on the account.
  • The account is not held in a self-managed super fund (SMSF) or small Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) fund.

An account will not be considered an ILBA if, in the last 16 months, the individual has changed investment options, insurance coverage, made or amended a binding beneficiary nomination, declared that they are not a member of an ILBA or there was an amount owed to the super provider on behalf of the individual.

Funds are required to identify ILBAs on 30 June and 31 December each year, then report and pay them to the ATO by the statement date.

  • 31 October in the same year for accounts identified on 30 June.
  • 30 April of the following year for accounts identified on 31 December.

Individuals that have an account that they do not want to be transferred to the ATO as an ILBA, can:

  • Consolidate super accounts using ATO online services through myGov.
  • Contact their super fund for more information. Or;
  • Authorise their super fund to provide a written declaration to the ATO.