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There are only 21 work days ‘til Christmas 🎅

November 23, 2022

Things that should be on your radar this month 👀

1. If you step down as a company director by December 1, you’re officially off the hook for your director ID rego. But if you’re a current director and still haven’t registered, you’d better get cracking to make the November 30 deadline. Here’s a step-by-step guide so you can get it done and off your plate.

2. Tend to lodge late? Fees on tardy lodgments for tax returns, BAS, FBT, GST and Single Touch Payroll will cost you 35% more from January.

3. The ATO is proposing to cut its WFH deduction shortcut rate to 67c, and you’ll need to keep super detailed records if you want to claim more.

4. Unemployment is at its lowest since 1974 at 3.4%, but reopening borders to the global labour market could see it rise in 2023 (and the flood of layoffs in tech won’t help).

5. Can’t keep up with all the crypto drama? Here’s a solid explainer about the FTX crash – and what it means for crypto regulations.

Tech recs to help you get through December

📝 Coda: We recently used this knowledge base app to help us juggle two big projects at once. Using Coda, we were able to collate documents, visualise timelines, map out meeting schedules, and more. This app comes pretty close to our top tech rec of the year for its countless use cases (don’t worry Notion – we still love you).

🎁 Draw Names: If you’re still pulling your office Secret Santa out of a hat, trust us – there’s a better way. This app even lets you exclude pairs of people to inject some drama into your office holiday celebrations.

🌊 Dive: This meeting assistant seamlessly integrates with the Google ecosystem to easily plan, execute and document virtual meetings while delegating tasks to your team in real time.

The highs 📈  and lows 📉 of small business life

📈 This month, one of our clients hit their goal of crowdfunding $1M. This win didn’t just give us the warm fuzzies, it reinforced one of the reasons we started Project Alfred: to be accountants that celebrate our clients' successes, not one that just processes their payroll.

📉 Speaking of supporting one another, we’ve been pretty disappointed to see a couple of our clients falling victim to super late invoice payments – both big-name businesses and fellow small biz owners. While we expected better from larger organisations, we had higher hopes for those who know the stresses of starting a small business and managing cash flow.

Productivity hacks 👩‍💻

  • This is less of a hack and more of a poll: do you rate sit-stand desks? We don’t have standing desks at Project Alfred, but recently we’ve been wondering if we’re missing out. A study found that you’re nearly 50% more productive while standing, but we’re keen to hear what our community thinks. Reply to this email if you’ve got an opinion; we’d love to hear it!
  • We don’t know who needs to hear this – but stop taking on big projects in December. The holiday period is busy enough without a pile of new work on your desk, and there’s nothing worse than starting January with a million things already on your to-do list.

    If you find yourself twiddling your thumbs towards the end of December, take the opportunity to work on all those tasks you’ve been pushing back throughout the year. You’ll thank us later.
  • If you’re getting sick of Christmas parties, we recommend ditching the boozy lunch (but not necessarily the booze) and doing something a little more interesting. Together with our content agency Slice, we’ve organised an escape room for one of our end-of-year events; and not only do we think it’ll be more fun, we’re treating it as an opportunity to do some joint problem solving with people outside the PA team.

    Activities like these are a great way to build stronger relationships with your clients and collaborators, and businesses are likely to have more flexible December calendars – plus, who doesn’t love some healthy competition?

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We’ve had a lot to say about December in this issue, but in the office, we’re still pretty focused on Movember. Our co-founder Liam has been growing a stache this month to raise money for men's health and it’s coming along pretty nicely! There’ve been some incredibly generous donations from our community – we love working with people who can get behind a good cause.

If you follow Project Alfred, you’ll know that we’re huge advocates for work-life balance. Work-related stress is one of the most common causes of depression, which affects one in eight men in Australia at some point in their lives. And while depression can be debilitating to anyone experiencing it, men make up the overwhelming majority of deaths to suicide in Australia.

Liam has chosen to donate the money he raises to Beyond Blue in support of their NewAccess program for small business owners. If the pressure of running a business is starting to feel overwhelming, the program provides a space to talk through those feelings while putting together a practical plan to address any issues you’re having – it’s an excellent initiative.

If you’d like to support Liam’s Movember drive, donate here.

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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