With HR tasks often taken on by the time-poor business owner, or spearheaded by a lone director, keeping costs low gets the priority more times than not, purely out of necessity.

It’s easy to see HR as a cost to be dealt with as the business grows in size, however, small businesses can use their agility to their advantage, with a strategic approach and cost-effective measures able to elevate this area beyond simply hiring, firing and paying.

Start-ups are able to open the door to countless opportunities that a more focused HR function can detect through, all the while improving defences against an HR misstep that could crumble your start-up before it’s even left the ground.

With this in mind, here are three ways you can empower your HR Director and bring cost-saving efficiencies to your business without breaking the bank:

Give HR a voice at the top table

Beyond the piles of admin, contract crafting and compliance checks, HR shapes the culture of your company, something cast aside by too many start-ups too focused on business operations. This has been a focus at The Access Group to ensure that our business is operating not only to its maximum efficiency, but with its people in mind.

Attracting top talent and keeping them engaged in a place they feel motivated to do their best is the responsibility of HR, and a failure to consider this is a great way to ensure a revolving door of staff turnover. With increased staff demands for flexibility, cross-industry talent shortages and business costs continuing to climb, keeping HR in mind during decision making processes makes for a streamlined operation where people feel valued and sets a foundation for growth.

Embrace technology

Introducing another tool into a workflow that’s already stretched thin is an understandable hesitation from small-business owners. Particularly when being executed by a team member where the HR function is not in their job title, technology can be a great equaliser in giving you the tools and resources to let you punch above your weight.

Finding a cost-effective HR solution that’s right for you will pay dividends in money and time, giving countless hours back to your team to work on what you do best. Identifying ineffective cost centres through your payroll, ensuring contracts are compliant with constantly changing IR laws and spotting timely talent opportunities are must-haves for small businesses looking to stay afloat.

Invest in their development

No matter the size of your HR team, growing their skills and professional development should have a roadmap the same as any other employee on your books. Are there any qualifications they’d be boosted by having? Any key workshops they can attend in order to upskill? Don’t pigeon hole those responsible for the people of your business to an afterthought and a sedentary position in the company.

So many of these opportunities don’t require massive capital investment or a dedicated team, rather, start-ups and small businesses can unlock a host of advantages through a shift in focus on their HR Director, whether that’s their primary role or not. The life of a small business is filled with too many challenges and uphill battles to sell yourself short on the area that keeps people walking through your doors everyday and houses valuable growth insights. Empower the people in your business and they will pay for themselves.

The post Empowering your HR director: the small-business guide to helping the people person appeared first on Inside Small Business.

The Australian Tax Office (ATO) has been vocal about its plans to hold wrongful and misleading claimants to account. With the ATO casting a watchful eye over this year’s tax returns, here are our top tips to help Australian small businesses lodge returns correctly this tax time.

1. Don’t go it alone

For small businesses, the key to successfully lodging this year’s return is getting up to speed with entitlements and obligations under the various stimulus measures. However, trying to make sense of these is especially challenging due to the breadth of economic and regulatory changes that have taken place in the past 12 months.

Fortunately, you don’t have to go it alone. The benefits of seeking out a certified tax professional cannot be understated in this context. From talking to our own accounting partners, it’s clear a huge amount of time and effort, many late nights and early mornings, have been invested in understanding the various nuances of the new tax arrangements, and how to help clients navigate them.

2. Declaring JobKeeper payments

Of all the stimulus measures extended to businesses this past year, JobKeeper has undoubtedly been the essential life raft. However, businesses need to understand that JobKeeper payments are taxable and must be included in their tax return.

Businesses should seek guidance from their accountants to ensure they are properly declaring their JobKeeper payments, to avoid underreporting income and possibly incurring penalties.

3. Navigating tax depreciation incentives

Another entitlement businesses need to consider are tax depreciation incentives, including instant asset write-offs or ‘temporary full expensing’, the loss carry-back offset and the backing business investment. Claiming these expenses correctly can go a long way in helping businesses offset losses and save money.

Instant asset write-offs, sometimes referred to as “temporary full expensing”, allow businesses with an annual turnover of less than $5 billion to fully write off the value of eligible depreciating assets such as office equipment and business vehicles. They can be used for multiple assets (if the cost of each individual asset is less than the relevant threshold) as well as new and second-hand assets.

Furthermore, the ATO has granted a 12-month extension to the instant asset write-off scheme until 30 June 2023. This means any eligible assets purchased following June 30 should be carefully recorded for next year’s return.

Setting up for success

Tax time can be overwhelming and without the necessary preparations, has the potential to cause a lot of anguish for small businesses. However, by seeking the guidance of an accountant, businesses can outsource some of the headache and have full confidence they are maximising their return while sticking to the rules.

The right technologies can also go a long way in alleviating many tax-related challenges. Leveraging advanced technologies including open cloud platforms with automated workflows can streamline business operations, help with record-keeping and ensure compliance, making tax time easier and allowing you to focus on what matters most – your business.

After a year of substantial change, one thing is for sure. Those who take advantage of their accountants’ expertise and invest in the right solutions to keep their bookkeeping on track will make the most of this financial year and beyond.

The post How small businesses can boost their returns and avoid trouble this tax time appeared first on Inside Small Business.

With female business builders making up nearly 40 per cent of the global workforce , any kind of discrimination is unacceptable from a cultural and economic point of view, especially when it involves failure to pay what is owed.

The impact of late payments on small businesses has been widely discussed as an issue that must be eradicated for all entrepreneurs, regardless of gender. However, the research identified a worrying trend of inequality: female entrepreneurs are more likely to suffer from late payments than their male counterparts.

Out of the 11 regions surveyed globally, women in six of those regions reported higher instances of being paid late. Importantly, this is not just about payments becoming overdue because one in 10 are eventually written off as bad debt.

Small businesses are not able to absorb these costs or the lost hours spent on admin and the result can be disastrous. In the next 12 months, one in four female entrepreneurs will prioritise chasing late payments to be more cost efficient, and ironically will become less productive.

From the moment they start-up, female entrepreneurs are faced with more discrimination factors than men – it is now endemic. Research from The Entrepreneurs Network found that only nine per cent of funding into start-ups in the UK went to women-run businesses. Men are 86 per cent more likely to be venture-capital funded and 56 per cent more likely to secure angel investment. Recently published findings from Unilever Foundry show that 39 per cent of female founders frequently encountered sexism while running their business.

The fact that late or non-payments is a more common occurrence experienced by female entrepreneurs is part of this wider problem. Women report more instances of sexist comments, disregard for their business ambitions and lack of female mentors as significant underlying reasons why there is now a heightened cultural stigma around chasing late payments among female entrepreneurs – more so than men.

There is no place for bias in business – all entrepreneurs should be free to pursue their ambitions without suffering the consequences of these cultural barriers that are encountered far too often – regardless of gender.

Now is the time to disrupt and challenge these harmful stereotypes, making sure that small businesses – the engine room of all economies – are paid what they are duly owed for the services they deliver to our economy.

Kerry Agiasotis, Executive Vice President, Sage Software Asia Pacific

The post Calling for a culture change appeared first on Inside Small Business.