The Empire Blog

Giving your employees bonuses to reward their work is a great incentive for boosting team morale, showing your appreciation and creating a positive work place. However, you should be aware that providing gifts instead of increasing their salary may make you subject to Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT). Fringe Benefit Tax is a tax that employers […]

Before launching a campaign, creating content or building the perfect website it is so important to understand the basic marketing fundamentals of your small business. What is the point in having a beautiful website if you don’t have consistent branding and a well-defined target market? Or doing a mail out campaign if you aren’t tracking […]

Get BizFit! Guess what… It is nearly June 30. Say whaaaaaaaaaaat? Yep. This year is disappearing in the blink of an eye meaning the new financial year is just around the corner. At Empire Accountants we are big believers in ongoing improvement and development in our business and in ourselves. We think the end of […]

Accountants aren’t usually considered the most colourful of folk. The wallflower of the finance world, it’s easy to think we’re all number crunchers and spreadsheet lovers who let their hair down but once a year, sometime past June; who spend too much time face-to-face with your money and your paper work and not enough face-to-face […]

Xero – Those four little letters get this little Accountant rather excited over here at The Empire… Xero has changed the way we do business and it is changing the way our clients do business – for the better. It is really exciting that this little accounting software from NZ has such a significant and […]

Over here at The Empire we are massive believers in plans. Tax plans, business plans, marketing plans, you name it, we love a plan. The week we strategically planned for the writing of the tax planning blog also happened to fall into the same week of the 2014 tax lodgement deadlines… Coincidence? I think not! […]

When starting your own business, exploring the market and how your business fits into your industry space is equally as imperative as the numbers itself. Before you jump in and get started, market research should be carried out to understand if your idea is feasible. This will allow you to find out whether there is […]

Starting a business? Let’s talk Cash flow. One of the most important tools when starting out in business is a cash flow forecast. Staying close to your business numbers especially in the early days is vital. So what is a cash flow forecast? Generally speaking, a cash flow forecast is a financial tool that predicts […]

Last week we shared with you our “top 3” items for starting a new business.  We thought it might serve you best to elaborate on each one a little further. Let’s start with Business Structures… The structure you operate your business from provides the foundation for your compliance, reporting, tax implications, personal asset protection and […]

You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great – Zig Ziglar Starting a business is an exciting yet daunting decision to make. In the beginning, the majority of business owners we speak with have a thousand and one things to achieve but limited resources to do so […]

What is a Self Managed Super Fund? A Self Managed Super Fund (SMSF) can be used as a great tool to provide for your retirement.  A SMSF has the same role as any other industry or retail super fund; the difference is that the members of an SMSF are also the trustees. This means that […]

Some say Xero is revolutionising the accounting industry, others say it’s just beautiful; what do we think over here at Empire Accountants? Both of these things are 100% spot on! It is true that this product has changed the way we do business and if you get us started on how, we’ll probably bore you […]