Posted on December 13, 2022 by Kelsi Keep
What Is Xero Me?
Xero Me is a self-service accounting app that links into Xero. The app has multiple functions that benefit a wide range of businesses and allows common business activities to be streamlined.
The app is free to download and use, and its functions depend upon your organisation’s Xero Subscription.
Functions of The App:
- The App allows for employees to submit timesheets on the go, for their current pay period.
- The timesheet interface allows for notes to be added to the timesheets, a useful feature to communicate variations in hours or to add extra notes for the payroll admin or bookkeeper.
- Once timesheets are submitted by the employee, users granted “Approver” responsibilities can review and approve the timesheets
- Once the pay run is processed, employees are able to view and download previous payslips within the app.
- The app allows also for employees to submit leave requests to be approved by the approving manager or user with the payroll admin user access.
- Notifications are sent to users of the app and the payroll admin through each stage of the payroll process, keeping everyone up to date in real time.
- Xero have addressed users’ data privacy concerns by allowing the app to be locked. This helps to prevent the users and organisations data as if the phone itself is lost or stolen the app cannot be accessed until the password is entered.
Track Expenses
If your Xero subscription includes “Xero Expenses” then you can link this with Xero Me.
Employees and managers can make expense claims and track expenses incurred for work using Xero Me. This is done by uploading a photo of the receipt and a description of the expense and using the Xero Me app.
Through the Xero Me app:
- Expenses can be input as either reimbursable or non-reimbursable
- Expenses can be linked to a designated account
- Users to add notes for the bookkeeper regarding the transaction
This allows the bookkeeper to easily determine if an employee is to be reimbursed for expenses or not.
The ability to categorise and track expenses is an extremely useful function for businesses as Xero Expenses analytical tool allows for trends in expenses to be identified. Expenses claims can be filtered in several ways from status, account, or employee. This allows business owners to see where most expenses claims are coming from and allows for better budgeting of expenses and cash flows.
Streamline Business Processes
Overall, the biggest benefit of integrating the Xero Me app into your business is that it streamlines business process and allows more time to be spent on more important tasks that will help grow the business.
Timesheets are no longer needed to be emailed in or sent in on a paper timesheet. This has many benefits as it not only speeds up the payroll process as time is not spent chasing staff for information. It also reduces the chance of transposition errors and incorrectly input timesheets as the data is sent directly to Xero payroll for processing.
If you would like to discuss using Xero Me for your business, please contact our office of 9316 7000.
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Posted on August 29, 2022 by Kelsi Keep
If you own a closely held private company, you have probably heard your accountant talk about Division 7A at one point or another. If you had no idea what your accountant was talking about this article covers the background of why division 7A was brought in and what it’s effect is on the drawing of after tax profits from a private company.
Background
When Division 7A of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 (ITTA 1936) was introduced in 1997 the tax rate for companies was significantly less than the top marginal rate for individuals + Medicare levy.
Drawing a dividend from a company would trigger a top-up tax liability where the shareholder’s individual tax rate was higher than the company rate. (eg. 36% company tax rate vs 47% top marginal rate for individuals including Medicare)
This created an incentive to draw the company’s after tax profits (or unrealised profits) in the form of a loan, rather than a dividend for closely controlled private companies (where there were no third party shareholders or directors to complain) to avoid paying the top up tax.
Section 108 of the ITAA 1936 was the integrity provision intended to prevent shareholders from drawings funds from private companies tax free.
This section relies on the Commissioner forming the opinion, after either a voluntary disclosure or audit activity, that a loan or other advance or crediting should be deemed to be a dividend if it could not be proven that at some stage the loan was going to be repaid.
Usually, there was no real intention of repaying such loans, and with no further tax liability, the shareholder accordingly enjoyed the extra funds.
Division 7A was introduced to fix this situation, replacing its predecessor, section 108 ITAA 1936.
What is Division 7A?
Under section 109D ITAA36, a private company is deemed to have paid an unfranked dividend (limited to the company’s distributable surplus) if it makes a loan during an income year to a shareholder (or associate), that is:
- not fully repaid before the “lodgement day” (the earlier of the company’s tax return due date or the date the company tax return is lodged) for that year; and
- not one of the types of loans that Division 7A(D) excludes from being treated as a dividend
The excluded loan that we are interested in here is that covered by section 109N ITAA 1936.
This provision sets out criteria for the loan which, if met, will result in the company not being taken to have paid a deemed unfranked dividend in that income year.
The criteria are:
- the loan terms are defined in a written agreement that is executed before the company’s “lodgement day”;
- the interest rate on the loan for income years after the one in which the loan was made is equal to or greater than the benchmark interest rate for each year; and
- the maximum term of the loan is seven years (unsecured) or 25 years (secured)This exclusion from being treated as a dividend also applies where a trust has an unpaid present entitlement (UPE) owing to a private company, and the trust makes a loan to a shareholder (or associate) in that company.
Section 109E requires that minimum annual repayments are made each year after the one in which the loan was made for excluded loans.
The reality is that minimum annual repayments are rarely paid by transferring money.
An effective way to make a cashless repayment is to offset a dividend declared by the company against the loan. Each party (lender and borrower) makes a legally effective payment to the other, without the need to transfer any money.
Proposed Legislation Changes
The 2016 Federal Budget announced that the government will make targeted amendments to improve the operation and administration of Division 7A. These changes will provide clearer rules for tax payers and assist in easing their compliance burden while maintaining the overall integrity and policy intent of Division 7A.
The start date has been delayed over the years and has now been revised to be from 1 July 2020 to income years commencing on or after the date of Royal Assent of the enabling legislation.
Watch this space for further information once legislation has been drafted and we have a clearer idea of what the changes will entail.
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