Our Blog

A growing business is a fantastic problem to have, as many business owners will say in jest. However as your business grows, so does your administration, premises, inventory, employees - and the demands on your time. Take stock and begin to put your finger on what you...

Depending on what type of business you’re in - perhaps you sell jam, rope, or expertise (perhaps all three!) - your chart of accounts that Xero presents you with when you fire it up for the first time is vital to keeping your bookkeeping, tax accounting, payroll and...

As a business owner, do you pay yourself? You may be staring blank at that question, but it’s something you need to be across. As bookkeepers and accountants, we can make the mental leap from “our business” to “someone who works in the business” as a matter of course...

Happy New Year! The beginning of the year is often the best time to get your bank accounts and reconciliations sorted. Invoices and receipts may be few and far between, especially if you’re a sole trader and your accounting or bookkeeping needs are minimal.  If you...

As a bookkeeper, my clients and friends often ask, “does the ATO check every transaction? Is there a rhyme or reason to why a business gets audited?” I often reply in my own cheeky way - why do birds suddenly appear? Bringing things down to earth, the ATO doesn’t...

If you are in business, you may already be in the habit of keeping receipts. If you use Dext or something similar as part of your bookkeeping, receipts and invoices may already be integrated into your Xero. The conventional wisdom for keeping receipts is that if you...

If your business uses Xero Projects, you already know it’s a time saver and fantastic at keeping your accounts organised and in order. But you might find it helpful to take your record-keeping to the next level with Xero’s tracking categories. Will using Xero tracking...

Pricing your services can be a tricky business, especially when you’re starting out. But at Dollars + Sense, one trap we see freelancers falling into repeatedly is pricing themselves too low. How low is too low? Let’s take a client of ours as an example: Joe was a...

If you’re just starting out in business, you might be tempted to skip the accounting software and just use an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of your accounts. Maybe you’ve only got two or three clients and not many overheads so it’s all pretty straightforward, but...

At Dollars and Sense, we help small businesses with their bookkeeping services every day. That’s what you’d expect, right? But sometimes there are intangibles that add value to your business that you might not expect – factors that help you in ways you didn’t even...