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Happy New Year! 🎉 Now go eat a frog 🐸

January 13, 2022

Things that should be on your radar this month

1. Now’s the perfect time to review and reflect on 2021 and start making plans for what you want to achieve or do differently this year. Check out our full list of 22 things for business owners to do in 2022

2. ICYMI, the SA Government has introduced a support package for businesses impacted by the latest Covid-19 restrictions. The WA Government has also followed suit

3. Whether you want to start a part-time side hustle or full-time operation, this guide covers a range of low-cost online businesses that you can start from home in 2022

4. If you’re looking for low-cost and innovative ways to market your business, then why aren’t you on TikTok or IG reels yet? Read about this 19-year-old content creator who helped save her family’s struggling candy shop by building up a huge TikTok following

5. The Aus Treasury has announced draft legislation for depreciation of intangible assets (i.e – patents, copyrights and software licenses). Hailed as a win for small businesses and startups, the legislation acknowledges the importance and value of tech resources

Tech to help streamline your business

Carrd - A simple to use website builder (with free options) that lets you create one-page sites for everything from personal profiles to landing pages to capture emails – and everything in between

Slack - In 2022, being agile is more important than ever. Transform the way you work with easier communication between internal and external teams

Annature - A pay-as-you-use platform if you need electronic signatures from your customers. Cost effective and super simple to create signing documents and looks great on the customer-end too

The highs + and lows – of small business life

+ In December, Liam met with the Paytron team in Sydney for a strategy day. It was a great opportunity to throw around ideas to shape their product that can help our clients

+ We’re loving the direction we’re heading right now! We’re pleased to report that December didn’t feel like a race to the finish line – and our break has felt like a chance to celebrate our achievements so far (champagne, anyone?)

– Nothing at the moment, life’s great! (And we feel super privileged to be able to say that as so many small businesses have found themselves back navigating Covid-19 complexities – please support your local small businesses however you can!)

Try these ideas this month

Quick tips: Cleaning up to start the New Year, but not sure what you can throw out? Check out the ATO’s record-keeping rules for business to find out exactly what you have to keep

Longer read: On that note, make this year the one that you stay on top of reconciling your receipts. Start 2022 on the right foot by using a receipt-tracking app (this means you also get to chuck all those piles of receipts straight into the recycling). Learn how you can easily set up a better management system for your receipts here

Productivity booster: A quick little productivity hack for 2022 is to eat THAT frog. Please don’t eat an ACTUAL frog. It’s a metaphor for tackling the most difficult task – but also the one that can have the greatest impact – to start your working day

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If you want to hear more about our story of starting Project Alfred, Liam was recently interviewed by Benjemen Elengovan for the Founders Lane podcast. It was interesting and outside of his comfort zone being interviewed, but a great experience, so go have a listen!

Whether your business had a break over the Christmas season or not, we hope your 2022 is off to a great start. Now’s the perfect time to set some goals for the year, and put strategies into action, especially when it comes to growing your business.

That's just our two pennies' worth.

- Liam and Amy, co-founders of Project Alfred
(changing the way people think about accounting)

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