December – it’s finally here!

Single Touch Payroll (STP)

By now you would have heard whispers here and there about Single Touch Payroll.  This means it’s now possible to lodge your payroll electronically with the ATO.  In fact, if you have over 20 employees or more you should be now using STP as it is now required from 1 July.  Once set up it means that you will no longer have to do payment summaries at the end of the financial year and all employees payroll information is available to them through MyGov.

If you use Xero and employ over 20 people you may have noticed a big white box in your payroll section.  This is where you go to set up to get things rolling.

Before registering (in the big white box), make sure your payroll codes are set up to be included at W1 on your BAS and IAS. Click on the code, open it up, and make sure you tick “include at W1” where applicable (which will be most payroll codes).

After that it is quite simple, open the big white box and follow the on screen instructions.  However this will require a call to the ATO to have it activated.  We know, we know … but from our experience this will take approximately 5 to 10 minutes on the phone, instead of the usual 28 working days, so this is actually a pretty good outcome.

If you have less than 20 employees and also have the big white box appear it is ok to set up STP for yourself as well.

For more information visit: https://www.ato.gov.au/Business/Single-Touch-Payroll/

How much difference did your dental performance make in the world

The results are out! November was dentistry month for APL and for every dental you performed, we gave a day of dental hygeine to a child in the third world.
What’s more, for every 40 dentals we donated to a full dental check-up to a person in the 3rd world at risk of dental disease.

So did your actions make a difference? Here are the results:

Yes, you guys completed 1700 dentals in November, and now something very special will happen:

• Underpriveliged children in India will receive 1700 days of preventative dental hygeine
• 43 people in an underprivelidged area will receive a full dental check up

So give yourselves a pat on the back and share this with your team – your dentals made something special happen!

Your cytology samples will give ‘the gist of life’ for December

So for the month of December we would like you to focus on ‘bugs under the microscope’ – cytology! And what better way to celebrate every single cyological sample than to give a child in Africa life saving malaria treatment (Malaria is a protozoan disease which of course can be identified on the microscope). We think that this would be a very special Christmas gift for a family in Africa so we will use Profitdiagnostix once again to measure the number of cytology samples that all of you collect. And for each sample we will fund malaria treatment to a child in Africa using the online charity B1G1 (www.b1g1.com).

Please feel free to share this with your team to inspire them to save lives in both pets and humans (we can’t argue that sometimes that fine needle aspirate is indeed also a life saver).

Also, in keeping with the theme of ‘bugs under the microscope’ we will run a December webinar on ‘cytology’ and find out what some practices have done to inspire frequent use of cytology as a diagnostic tool.

This web event will be held on December 12th at midday Brisbane time (1:00pm VIC and NSW) – 45-60 minutes duration.
You can register here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/1315426881059/WN_QQOOJ3UZRSqaS6EalXQxJA
All your team are welcome, these events have a strong clinical focus and its all about high standards of care, not money.

Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT)

We had a few queries about this last year, so we have decided to include it again in our December newsletter this year.

Don’t let the ATO crash your party!  We’re all about having fun here at APL but we are also accountants therefore ‘rule followers’ – even when we party!

The ATO have some grinchy rules in place to make sure they put a damper on things.  Here is a summary:

The gifting process must be ‘irregular and infrequent’ (much like Strudel and Chica’s display of obedience and recall).  There is also a limit of less than $300.  Anything of $300 and over will incur a fringe benefits tax obligation.  Any gift under $300 will not incur fringe benefits – but is it a deductible expense?  It is only deductible if it is not classed as entertainment.  For example:

1.  You buy your staff member and their pet (of course) a bag of treats worth $100 (it’s a big bag).  This is a deductible expense and no fringe benefits is triggered.

2.  You take your team out to a (pet friendly) restaurant and the meal costs $200 per head.  This does not trigger fringe benefits tax but is not a deduction either because meals out are classed as entertainment (regardless of how tame the gathering is – it’s still entertainment).

3.  You buy gifts worth over $300 for each staff member.  This is like taking your dog to a no dog beach.  Of course it’s possible to do, a ton of fun, your dog will love you and you will probably get away with it 80% of the time, but this would trigger fringe benefits tax, and you would be hit with a penalty and a ton of paperwork that no one wants to take care of.

With these 3 scenarios in mind – party as you wish!

For more information visit: https://www.ato.gov.au/General/Fringe-benefits-tax-(FBT)/In-detail/FBT-and-Christmas-parties/

Our trading hours over the Holiday break

We will be closing at midday on Friday 21 December 2018 and we will reopen again on Monday 7 January 2019.

If there is an urgent matter between these times please contact Anne.

Thank you!

With another year down we’d like to thank each and every one of you for a wonderful year.  We’d also like to take this opportunity to wish you all the very best for the Holidays and New Year.  May it be safe, merry and prosperous!

Dog tales

Single Touch Payroll has arrived, so we decided to take matters in our own paws and test how easy it really is.

Chica volunteered to make a video for those of you who may find it difficult:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Nap58o5-GrFHNtHNCTmoBry3G0EN5-LZ/view?usp=sharing

Say (or bark) no more!

Please Note: Many of the comments in this publication are general in nature and anyone intending to apply the information to practical circumstances should seek professional advice to independently verify their interpretation and the informations applicability to their particular circumstances. In particular, please note that the APL dogs who often prepare this newsletter do not have opposable thumbs so have to type with their noses.