RBizz Corporate Accountants - Resources #Productivity

Protecting you and your business: taking out insurance

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 16:43:38 +1100

Protecting you and your business: taking out insurance

We all hope that our pathway along the business journey will be smooth and uncomplicated.

But the reality is that accidents can happen, along with unplanned injuries, damaging weather events and legal suits from disgruntled clients.

So, what can you do to protect your business from these potential negative consequences? The answer is to take out the relevant business insurance for your company.

Five common kinds of business insurance policies and how they protect you

1. Public liability insurance

Public liability insurance covers your legal costs and compensation claims if a third party – such as a customer or passer-by – suffers an injury or property damage because of your business activities. It’s an essential policy to take out if you interact with customers in a physical space.

2. Product liability insurance

If a product you design, manufacture or supply causes injury or damage to a consumer, product liability insurance protects you. It handles legal defense fees and settlement costs and is a vital policy for all retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers that produce or sell physical products.

3. Business contents insurance and tools insurance

Business contents insurance covers the cost of replacing or repairing your internal assets – items like computers, furniture and stock – if they’re damaged or stolen from your premises.

Tools insurance covers the cost of repairing or replacing your vital portable gear – things like your laptop, specialist machinery or hand tools – if they’re stolen, lost or damaged.

Having contents and tools insurance in place to cover the expense of repairs or buying new equipment means you can get back up and running without major out-of-pocket costs.

4. Employers’ liability insurance

Employers’ liability insurance covers your compensation costs if an employee falls ill or is injured while working for your business. The specific legal requirements vary from country to country, but it’s often mandatory for employers to take out protection against workplace-related health and safety claims.

5. Professional indemnity insurance

Professional indemnity insurance protects you against legal costs and damages if a client suffers a financial loss because of your professional advice or services. It’s a crucial policy for consultants and experts, shielding your business from client claims of negligence, errors or omissions in your work.

Working with you to understand your insurance needs

Whatever stage you’re at in the business journey, it’s important to think about the insurance needs of your business and the specific areas where you may need protection.

We’re not insurance experts, but we can work with you to define the basic policies you’ll need. We can also connect you with the best insurance brokers and agents for your business type, industry or niche sector – so you get tailored advice on your insurance requirements.

How to accept payments online – and why it’s smart

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 16:43:13 +1100

How to accept payments online – and why it’s smart

One of the best things about online shopping is instant, hassle-free payment. Enter your details, click, and you’re done. If your customers can make an instant online payment, they’re likely to pay you more quickly – and they’ll appreciate the simplicity too.

The details

Online payment methods include credit and debit cards, ACH (Automated Clearing House) services like Paypal, and repeat payments through direct debit. Payments are managed by merchant service providers – specialist companies that process transactions on your behalf. Some focus on credit and debit cards, while others stick to ACH or direct debit.

Choose a provider that can integrate with your accounting software, and you can add a super-simple payment button to future invoices.

The costs

While your merchant service provider shouldn’t charge any set-up fees, they will charge transaction fees. These range from 2-4% of the invoice for debit or credit cards, and under $2 a transaction for direct debit. These fees are an added expense, so they need to be included in your profit calculation – smart accounting software will do this automatically.

Because credit and debit fees can add up, many businesses don’t offer online payment for invoices over a certain amount.

The benefits

Businesses using online payments get paid faster. Of course, not every client will pay instantly just because they have the option, but it should speed up your average payment time.

A bonus benefit? Customers appreciate the ability to pay online, so offering it as an option can be a big point in your favour.

Ready to reap the benefits of online payments? Get expert advice and set-up support from our accounting team.

Talk to Us About Accepting Payments Online

If you’re ready to speed up payments and simplify your invoicing, come and talk to us. We can help you choose the right payment provider, integrate it with your accounting software, and set up an efficient online payment process for your business.

Why flexible working is the new normal

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 16:42:56 +1100

Why flexible working is the new normal

"Gone are the days when flexible work was a perk. Whether it’s hybrid roles, remote options, or custom hours, flexibility has become a baseline expectation." - Recruitment Trends for SMEs by Onside.

The pandemic may have introduced us to the idea of working from home, but the ability to flex where we work from is now a core expectation for many employees.

Why should your business embrace flexible working?

According to a recent survey by Robert Walters, 54% of employees prefer a combination of in-office and remote work.

We’ve learned about the efficiency benefits of working from home, making the most of the reduced travel time and the ability to work non-conventional office hours to get the job done.

But we’ve also come to realise the advantages of spending time with our team in the office, and how this can build team spirit, aid collaboration and get us working as a unit again.

The ideal scenario is hybrid working, where time is split between mandated office days and the flexibility to work from home when that makes employees’ lives easier.

How to embrace flexible, hybrid working

Flexible working will be different from company to company and sector to sector. But there are some key ways you can embrace hybrid working in your business:

Have a clear hybrid policy: Define which roles are eligible for hybrid work and set core collaboration days so you can work on team connections at the office.
Invest in cloud tech and online ways of working: Make sure your remote employees have the necessary tools and technology to work from home.
Put your focus on output, not presence: Employee performance should be based on what each employee delivers and achieves, rather than hours spent in the office.

Talk to Us About Flexible Working

If you’re reviewing your people strategy or adapting to hybrid working, come and talk to us. We can help you design flexible working arrangements, align policies with business goals, and build a productive, engaged team.

Automation can ease your business workload

Mon, 19 Jan 2026 14:05:52 +1100

Automation can ease your business workload

Running a profitable business is one of your key goals as an owner. Without profits, there’s no capital to reinvest in the business, no funds to grow the company and no money for your own dividend payment at the end of the financial year.

So, is cost-saving the answer in these challenging economic times?

Better productivity through automation

Automation is an important way to ease your business workload, with a host of different business apps and cloud solutions offering ways to automate your admin.

With ‘smart business tools’ increasing in number and choice, software is utilising automation algorithms, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and cognitive solutions to help remove the mundane admin tasks from your workflows.

Core processes that will benefit from automation include:

Automated bookkeeping – Simply take a photo of your receipts, expenses and invoices and ‘optical character recognition’ (OCR) technology will digitise the output and pull it through to your accounts software. No data entry, no human error and no lost receipts! We can do the rest to ensure your records are accurate.
Automated credit control – chasing up debts and late-paying customers takes time. Automated credit control apps track your debtor numbers and automatically sends out customised chaser emails as soon as an invoice is late. This reduces your credit control time, speeds up cash collection and cuts your aged debtor figure.
Automated payment collection – the easier it is to pay you, the faster your customers will pay. Automated card payments and cloud-based Direct Debit solutions allow you to automatically take payment from a customer as soon as an invoice is due. Some solutions will even automate the invoice matching and bank reconciliation process.
Automated reporting and forecasting – the better your reporting and business intelligence, the easier it is to make informed decisions about your company strategy. Accounting platforms and fintech tools now offer automatic, real-time reporting and forecasting, giving you access to the important numbers and metrics, fast.
Automated digital marketing – digital marketing is key to raising your brand’s profile. Marketing platforms offer important time-saving ways to create, schedule and post social media content, or email automations to send a pre-programmed cadence of emails to specific target audiences within your wider customer base.

Talk to us about embracing the power of automation

If your admin is holding you back, come and talk to us about how automation can pick up some of the heavy lifting as well as giving you the metrics you need for decision making. We can review your business processes and identify the automation opportunities, helping you choose the best apps to drive your business efficiently.

Hiring staff for your business

Mon, 08 Dec 2025 11:28:12 +1100

Hiring staff for your business

Recruiting new employees is a vital part of your growth as a business. As your company expands, you’ll need more people in specific roles and a larger workforce in general.

But once you’ve found the right person for the job, what are the key things to consider?

Here are four key elements to include in your hiring checklist

1. Get the legal side in place

Make sure you issue a clear, written employment contract that outlines all the key details of the employment. This will include the role title, hours worked, location of work, pay rate and any included benefits and bonus entitlements, etc.

It’s also important that you’re compliant with the Fair Work Act, which governs all legislation relating to employment in the workplace.

2. Add the employee to your digital systems

As soon as your new employee starts working, add their details to your payroll system. You will need their tax file number (TFN) and their superannuation details, so you can pay them correctly through Single Touch Payroll and make tax and super deductions from their wages.

You’ll also need to add their personal details to your HR system, so everything’s set up for leave requests, performance reviews and recording their employment records and training, etc.

3. Plan the onboarding journey

Making your new employee familiar with the business is vital. Put together an onboarding process for your employee that covers orientation, training and an overview of the business.

This onboarding will cover both their specific job responsibilities and mandatory training on Work Health and Safety (WHS) policies and site procedures.

4. Manage their superannuation choice

Provide your new employee with their Superannuation Standard Choice Form. This allows the employee to nominate their preferred fund. It can also be used to sign the employee up to the company’s default super fund.

You’ll be required to register each new employee and to make the necessary contributions correctly via a SuperStream compliant method.

Getting it right from the start

Whether you’re a new start-up or an established business, it’s important to cover all the right bases when taking on a new employee.

Our team can help you put together a hiring checklist to ensure you’re meeting all your legal, HR and payroll requirements.

Liberating you and your business with AI: sales and marketing

Fri, 07 Nov 2025 18:34:09 +1100

Liberating you and your business with AI: sales and marketing

Sales and marketing are fundamental elements of finding new customers. But sales and marketing activity can also be a major draw on your time and resources.

So, wouldn’t it be great if you could automate some of the basic sales, marketing and social media activity? The reality is that AI is more than capable of taking on these tasks.

Let’s look at five areas of your sales and promotional activity where AI tools and AI agents can take on some of the fundamental workload.

1. Sales

AI sales agents can automate some of the most time-consuming parts of the sales process, including lead qualification, follow-up emails and scheduling. Agents score leads based on their likelihood to convert, helping you focus on the most promising prospects. They can also analyse sales calls to provide insights on what works, and what doesn't.

AI product example: HubSpot Sales Software is AI-powered sales software that offers guided selling, sales engagement, deal management, reporting and analytics, CPQ (configure, price, quote) and coaching for your human sales team.

2. Business development

To boost your business development, AI agents can help you find new opportunities and increase your access to prospect data. They can scrape public data sources, like LinkedIn, to build comprehensive lead profiles, identify key contacts and even track job changes to turn existing relationships into new business opportunities.

AI product example: Apollo.io is an AI-driven sales platform that provides you with sales intelligence, pipeline builders, a call assistant and enrichment of your prospect data.

3. Marketing

A true AI marketing agent automates and optimises your whole campaign, not just the campaign content. Agents use your customer data to personalise customer journeys, predict the best time to send emails and even recommend the next best actions for improving the campaign's performance. You get better marketing results with less time-intensive manual effort.

AI product example: Active Intelligence is an AI-powered marketing tool that brings together data points and purpose-built AI agents to deliver fully realised marketing strategies.

4. Social media

AI agents for social media can automate your content creation, scheduling and performance analysis – all within the one tool. Agents can generate post ideas, write captions and suggest the best times to post for maximum engagement. They can also provide insights into what your audience is saying about your brand, competitors and wider industry trends.

AI product example: OwlyGPT is a social media AI assistant from Hootsuite. Owly pulls from real-time social conversations to generate fresh insights, effective strategies and social content that resonates with your customer audiences.

5. Data analytics

AI-powered data analytics tools help you quickly make sense of your sales and marketing data, without needing to be an analytics expert. AI agents can track hundreds of metrics, identify patterns in your customers’ behaviour and give you tangible insights into which sales and marketing actions will drive the best results.

AI product example: Zoho Analytics is an AI-driven business intelligence and data analytics platform that’s designed to help businesses make sense of their data, without requiring a deep technical background. Zi, their AI Assistant, gives instant answers in the form of charts, reports and key performance indicators (KPIs).

These strategies provide less time spent on low-level sales and marketing tasks and more time to focus on your wider business strategy, talking to customers and working to develop your offerings.

10 ways to improve business performance

Sun, 05 Oct 2025 20:37:16 +1100

10 ways to improve business performance

Here are ten ways to make sure that you continue to drive through each business quarter with purpose, vision and the courage to super-charge your business.

1. Eliminate distractions: Time is the scarcest resource and biggest killer for most businesses. When we get busy we can also get distracted and focus too much time and energy on the wrong things. Be brave - slash standard meeting times, reduce unnecessary admin and delegate roles and responsibilities.

2. Say goodbye to bad customers: If possible in your business, get rid of ten time-wasters, bad payers, or customers who cause you pain. You will feel instant relief and spend your time better elsewhere.

3. Invest More: Having freed up time and headspace from deploying points one and two above, make sure you ring-fence time, key people, and money for some of the initiatives below. Redeploy with passion!

4. Get a Plan: You don't go on a journey without a map or any idea of where you're headed - so why fly blind with your business? Have a planning process, create a kick-arse plan - and execute. We can help you get started.

5. Surround yourself with positivity: Make sure the people in your business understand and share your vision. Bring them onboard, listen to them and give them ownership. Don't let people who don't get it, or don't care, be a millstone around your neck. If they're not right, do them a favour and free up their futures.

6. Use Technology: Technology can help you decrease admin, improve comms, improve reporting and accountability. Whether it's for team communication, cloud accounting or generative AI, slash paper and automate where possible.

7. Keep on top of the numbers: Do you have enough information to monitor business cashflow and see emerging trends? We can help you identify the metrics to track on a regular basis, in order to run your business efficiently.

8. Be Different: Break the mould and position yourself to attract ambitious, growing and engaged clients, and employees.

9. Deploy Marketing: Create a simple marketing plan to increase reach and penetration. Set aside a budget to treat this seriously. Start by making sure you really understand your customers. Existing customers are prospects too, keeping them happy is your first step. The more you know about them, the easier it will be to attract more of the same.

10. Take a break: Don't underestimate the time you have away from your business. It can allow you to come back refreshed with new enthusiasm and inspiration for the way forward.

Do you need to improve the cash flow position for your business?

Sun, 10 Aug 2025 19:43:13 +1000

Do you need to improve the cash flow position for your business?

Keeping on top of the financial management of your business can be hard work. It's possible to have a profitable business that is struggling to find the cash flow to pay expenses and fund growth. Likewise, you could have positive cash flow but are not turning a profit, particularly if you are scaling.

Turning a profit is at the heart of running any successful company

But without an even and predictable flow of cash into the company, you can't cover your overheads, you can't pay your employees and you can't run your day to-day operations – let alone think about expanding and growing the business.

In the end, you need both. But if you’re going to be in control of your financial destiny, it’s important to get your head around the important process of cash flow management.

Let’s look at some of the key things to understand about your finances:

Profit is a by-product of a successful business – as the owner, you want to make profits, but profitability isn’t the only goal. A business can easily be profitable, but also be highly unstable in the longer term. What you want is stability and consistent revenues.
Cashflow keeps your business alive – good revenues (income) serve to bring cash into the business. Without cash to cover your operating expenses, you have no means to keep the lights on in the business. So cash really is king!
Know your cost base and overheads – the flipside of your cash flow position is your costs. In an ideal world, you want more cash inflows than cash outflows, so it’s important to know your expenses and costs and to manage them carefully.
Be proactive about spend management and easing expenditure – if you can take action that reduces your spending, that is hugely positive for your cash flow position. Choose cheaper suppliers, negotiate better deals and bring that cost base down.
Drive more revenue, through increased sales and marketing activity – if you can increase your revenues, you also boost your cash flow. So it’s important to be proactive about running targeted sales and marketing campaigns to increase your sales.
Keep the cash flowing and the profits take care of themselves – if you achieve the ideal cash flow position, the company sits on solid financial foundations, the cash is there for investment and the business can grow. It’s that simple.

Talk to us about improving your cashflow management

Whether you’re new to running a business, or a seasoned owner who needs some financial support, we can give you the cash flow advice you need.

We’ll review your finances, delve down into your cash flow, and will come up with key ways for you to increase your cash income and reduce your cash expenses. It only takes a few small changes to achieve a far better cash flow position for your business – helping you maintain positive cash flow AND generate profits.

....

Setting Goals and Measuring Performance

Sun, 10 Aug 2025 19:41:46 +1000

Setting Goals and Measuring Performance

Goals are what drive the long-term performance of your business.

Agreeing on clear targets, and measuring your progress over time via key performance indicators (KPIs), helps you to understand exactly where the business is going.

But how does this kind of performance management work in practice?

Track your performance with KPIs

Tracking your goals via KPIs show you where the company is hitting the mark and (importantly) where you need to do better – putting real drive and motivation behind your overall strategy.

To make performance management drive your profits and productivity:

Set targets and work to a long-term strategy – define your key goals for sales, profit, growth and cashflow etc. And ensure these target are closely aligned to your wider strategic business plan – so you’re tracking the metrics that matter.
Track performance with real-time information – integrate a KPI reporting app with your accounting software, and monitor the key financial and non-financial metrics. Use this dashboard to regularly track your KPIs – giving you a clear current view of performance.
Motivate your team to be more productive – explain your key targets to the wider team, and keep them engaged in meeting these goals. Motivation and engagement levels are higher when staff can see what they’re working towards.

Talk to us about setting up a KPI dashboard

If you’re looking to track, monitor and boost your business performance, we can help. We’ll help you choose the right KPI reporting app, and get you in control of your key metrics.

Get in touch to start boosting your performance.

The art of delegation

Mon, 28 Jul 2025 18:27:06 +1000

The art of delegation

How often do you get to the end of a working day and wonder where the time went?

Perhaps you never got to item 3 (or even item 1!!) on your to-do list. How can you solve this problem without working longer hours? The answer is very simple, but the art in the solution is where the gold is.

The answer to free up time is to delegate more – either to existing team members, new people you recruit, or externally to outside contractors. However, if delegation were that easy, everyone would be doing it now, right?

So, what is the art of delegation?

We say art, because delegation is not an exact science; different approaches are needed depending on who the ‘delegate’ is. Time and effort are required to effectively pass on tasks to others.

Often, the time the delegator needs to put in initially is greater than if they did the work themselves – that’s why so many people don’t delegate.

The view that ‘it’s quicker for you to do it yourself’ holds you trapped and unable to be more productive and effective yourself. It also stops others from developing better ways to do things than you already know, i.e. if you teach them your way, then they can master that AND add their own value – two minds being better than one.

Here are some essential principles to apply to help you to delegate (as opposed to abdicate!):

Delegation

Assess the task, issue to the right person and support - helps build trust and respect
Be specific and crystal clear for greater communication
Request they repeat back instructions, so you know you were understood, enabling higher productivity
Set a time frame and request clarification that the task has been achieved, ensuring jobs are completed on time and are profitable
Both parties to review - opens the door for future work

Abdication

Issue tasks to anyone and forget about it - shows distrust and a lack of respect
Giving unclear and little information results in poor communication
Don’t ask if you were understood - results in low productivity
Don’t set a time frame – it can mean jobs are delayed and over budget
Different expectations can result in disgruntled clients
No review results in no future work

Delegation is a skill to be learned; applying these principles consistently will ensure long-term success.

“No person will make a great business who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit” – Andrew Carnagie

Action list:

Which tasks am I currently doing that I could delegate to others?
What can I do with the time I free up?
Who are the best people for me to delegate these to? (Make sure they want to do these as part of their career development).
What is the best way to document what is expected and how it should be done?
What support and review process is needed to ensure success?