Hello and welcome to our September newsletter. It has certainly been a busy 3 months since our last one, including a staff member who is rapidly growing in size (and it's not due to the consumption of too much junk food), as well as a rather unfortunate and soggy disaster: but more about this further down.

Staff Changes

For those of you who don't already know, Karen is expecting a baby in October and will be leaving at the end of this month to start her maternity leave. Bryony, who started with us in July, will be taking over work for Karen's clients and will still be offering the great level of service that Karen has always maintained.  Karen will be returning to work on a part-time basis in April next year.  We certainly wish her all the very best as she welcomes this new addition to her family.
 
We are also delighted to advise that we are adding a bookkeeper to our staff. Sue Burns, whom we have known for some time in her bookkeeping capacity, will be starting with us at the beginning of October, primarily to assist the accountants through our busy October GST period.  However as many of you have indicated that you would be interested in moving your bookkeeping function to Tyler Price to streamline your accounts preparation, we will also be trialling Sue in this role over the coming months.  So if you would like to discuss the opportunity of utilising this service, please let us know.

Important Tax Dates

For all of you GST registered clients, we will have reached the end of another GST period on the 30th of September and returns are due for filing and payment on the 28th of October.  Please get your information into us as soon as possible to ensure we can get your return completed on time.

For those of you who are registered for GST on a 6 monthly basis and pay provisional tax, your first 2017 provisional tax instalment is also due on the 28th of October.  Tax reminder notices will be going out in the first week of October, so please keep an eye on your inbox.

As always, please let us know well before the 28th if you will not be able to make your payments on time.  The 28th is too late to avoid tax penalties if you want to set up a payment arrangement.

Old Bank Account Is Closing

We switched our banking from ASB to Westpac two years ago.  However, as a number of you have continued to pay our fees into the old ASB account we have kept it open for your convenience. However as we are paying high fees for the convenience of just a handful of you, we have made the decision to close this account for good.  If you have our bank account details saved in your payees or pay us monthly by automatic payment please take the time to check the bank account details to ensure the payments are going to our Westpac account.  The Westpac bank account number is shown on all invoices that you will receive.

New Terms of Engagement
 
By now you should have received our updated Terms of Engagement in your inbox.  For your information, our terms of trade have not significantly changed; the reason for this document being updated is simply because our governing body has changed from being NZICA (NZ Institute of Chartered Accountants) to CAANZ (Chartered Accountancy Australia and New Zealand).  We were also not satisfied with the way the previous terms were set out and we feel this new document sets out things in a more logical and easy-to-understand way for clients.  All that is required for you to do is to please read the terms, review the entities listed and, if you happy with them, to sign the last page in the space provided and return this to us, either by hand, email or post.  
 
Thank you to all our clients who have already signed these and sent them back to us.  If you haven't already done so, you will be receiving a reminder notice very shortly.   Which brings us to our next very important point….

Change of Email Address

If you change your email address, please let us know about this.  It is very important that we have your correct contact details on our database, as important tax reminder notices are emailed to the address that we have on file for you.  If you do not notify us of any updates regarding your email address, important notifications and information may not reach you on time.

Audit Insurance

Yes, it's that time of the year again!  At the end of October, audit insurance policies will be up for renewal.  Letters will be going out to all clients shortly, whether or not you participated in the scheme last year.  In previous years, these letters were posted, however moving forward they will be emailed to clients, so please watch out for these in your inbox.  It is a requirement of our cover to offer it to all clients annually. In order to opt into the scheme, all you need to do is pay the premium and you are automatically covered from that payment date.
 
For those of you not familiar with the scheme, the insurance covers all of your accounting costs in relation to a review or audit of your tax affairs by Inland Revenue. The insurance starts from the moment we receive a letter from Inland Revenue stating their intention to review or audit you.
 
We'd like to remind business owners that Inland Revenue audits are on the increase – particularly in the areas of property development and speculation, trades and hospitality.  So for those of you with interests in these areas, we do encourage you to consider this insurance.

Insurance Policies

As many of you are aware, the Tyler Price office was hit by a flash flood in June. Thankfully, the main damage only extended to the carpet, but this still posed a significant problem to the smooth running of the business, and as such the office was closed for 4 days while the massive clean-up was undertaken.  It is for this reason that we are urging all of our clients to please review your insurance cover and to make sure that policy triggers are understood fully, and that you are aware who (landlord, tenant and body corporate) is responsible for insuring the various parts of the property. If ever there was a document you need to read very carefully, it's your insurance policy!

We would also like to make mention of business interruption insurance which is a type of insurance that covers the loss of income that a business suffers after a disaster.  The income loss covered may be due to disaster-related closing of the business or due to the rebuilding process.  Interruption insurance compensates you for lost income if your business has to close temporarily, or vacate the premises due to disaster-related damage that is covered under your property insurance policy, such as a fire or flood. This type of insurance covers the revenue you would have earned, based on your financial records, had the disaster not occurred.

Companies Office Obligations

In addition to filing documents with the Companies Office, it is a legal requirement for every company to keep and maintain certain records.  This includes accounting records, the share register and other company documents.  Below is a link that describes exactly which company and financial records are required to be kept at a company's registered office address. For those of our clients who own companies, please take the time to read the information in this link:

https://www.business.govt.nz/companies/learn-about/compliance-requirements/records-checklist.pdf

We are aware that a number of our clients have the Tyler Price Accountants' street address showing as their registered office address on the Companies Office website.  If the Tyler Price address is shown as being the registered office, we are then legally required to have the records listed in the link above kept at our office.   We will shortly be writing to these clients to enquire if they would like to keep the Tyler Price address as their registered office address.  If clients confirm they would like this to be the case, we will undertake this responsibility; however there will be an annual charge for maintaining this service as we must ensure that we keep all documents up to date in our files.  We will inform clients of these charges when they are contacted in the very near future.

And lastly, thank you so much to all of you who have recommended us to your friends and colleagues.  Much appreciated!

Thank you for taking the time to read our newsletter.  If you have any questions or need further information, please do not hesitate to pop in to our office or give us a call.  We always look forward to hearing from you.
 
 
Regards, the team at Tyler Price:
Isobel, Bryony, Caroline, Karen, Linda and Sam