Do you use emojis in business communications?

The Wall Street Journal is suggesting it can improve our communications.

I do like to use the occasional 🙂 but it always feels like a risk. Read this WSJ article and let me know your thoughts!

It’s 2019.  What are your plans for this year?

My plan is to re-start CURO!

Yes, it’s bookkeeping, but it’s also so much more than that.  I have been very fortunate to work in numerous industries and learn from many types of business leaders.  Now it’s time to take all that I’ve learned and share it with you.  I want to help you be successful!  And this is the path I’ll be on in 2019.

What are your plans?

This 100-Year-Old To-Do List Hack Still Works Like A Charm

The Ivy Lee Method is stupidly simple, and that’s partly why it’s so effective.

The Ivy Lee Method

1. At the end of each workday, write down the six most important things you need to accomplish tomorrow. Do not write down more than six tasks.

2. Prioritize those six items in order of their true importance.

3. When you arrive tomorrow, concentrate only on the first task. Work until the first task is finished before moving on to the second task.

4. Approach the rest of your list in the same fashion. At the end of the day, move any unfinished items to a new list of six tasks for the following day.

5. Repeat this process every working day.

16 Things we don’t need!

Ads constantly promote items we can’t live without. Resist!

Every waking hour, consumers are bombarded with deals. Online and on TV, in
magazines and on the sides of buses, ads show us objects we can’t possibly live
without.

Except that we usually can. How do you suppose people managed before greeting
card companies made birthday cards “from the cat” or “from me and the dog”?
Before applesauce came in tubes? Before we started thinking our blankets needed
sleeves?

This list of 16 things you don’t need is by no means exhaustive, but it’s a
start.

1. Bottled water – “It’s more expensive than gasoline . . . $6.40 per gallon
($1.83 CAD per litre) for a liquid I can get for free at home,” writes Karla
Bowsher at Money Talks News. If you live where the water tastes weird, get
yourself a filter. Bowsher’s article lists top-rated models that start at under
$20.

2. Paper plates – For a picnic in the park, maybe. But why not get a set of
unbreakable dishes for picnics, barbecues and visits from the grandbabies?
That’s certainly greener and ultimately cheaper if you shop thrift stores and
yard sales.

3. Paper napkins -. Notice a pattern here? Reusable beats disposable any time. I
got six cloth napkins for a quarter at a rummage sale; check post-holiday
clearance sales, too. Or buy a fabric remnant and sew your own.

4. Paper cups in the bathroom – If you’re that concerned about germs, carry the
cup to the kitchen each morning and toss it in the dishwasher. Note: Some people
“cup” their palms and bring water to their mouths. Just sayin’.

5. Disposable hand towels – I couldn’t believe my eyes when I first saw these
advertised. Neither could Mrs. Money of the Ultimate Money Blog: “The last thing
we need is another disposable product, especially one that is pretty much
useless and replaces something that has worked well for so many years.” What she
said.

6. Disposable flossers – Bathrooms sure are full of, um, waste. Rolls of floss
go on sale all the time.

7. Name-brand OTC meds – Compare ingredient labels for any over-the-counter
medications you need; when in doubt, talk to the pharmacist. Tip: Know what
things cost since name-brand pills might be cheaper with a sale plus coupon
and/or rebate.

8. Sandwich bags – No need to buy and toss, buy and toss. Put your PBJs in a
reusable container.

9. Lunch bags – They’re still for sale, but I don’t know why. Get yourself a
reusable lunchbox or lunch bag. (I found mine in the free box at a yard sale.)

10. Ringtones – Your phone came with a ringer installed. Use it.

11. Diaper Genie – A mechanized trashcan just for nappies? Throw them in the
household garbage just as people did back in the dark ages.

12. DVDs – Be honest: How many of your DVDs have been watched more than once?
Now: Add up what you’ve spent on them. When your headache goes away, remember
you can probably get DVDs free from the public library.

14. Magazine subscriptions – Are you reading the ones you have? Then why keep
subscribing? Your favorites may be available for free at the library. (What
swell places libraries are.)

15. Pet costumes – Do I really have to explain?

16. Snuggies – First, put your bathrobe on backward. Next, congratulate yourself
on all the money you just saved.

http://money.ca.msn.com/savings-debt/donna-freedman/sixteen-things-you-dont-need

This week I had the privilege of participating with an amazing group of people on a project to improve our community.  One step at a time.

The collaboration includes COIN, NCC, Nothern Lights, GPA EDC and of course, CURO!

Have you heard of Shifting Gears Skills Link?  I hadn’t either until I ran into Michael VanDerHerberg while he was out for an afternoon stroll his adorable son.  Michael was looking for placement opportunities for clients of The New Canadian Centre.  His clients were engaged in a 3-week training program with COIN and were seeking 10-week job placements.

As a start-up company, still working from my home-office in Bailieboro, I wasn’t sure it was a good fit, but agreed to participate in the process.  After meeting with two potential candidates, I was committed to giving someone a chance to prove they can fit into the Canadian work environment.  Unfortunately, my home office does not provide an ideal work environment for a new employee.  That’s how GPA EDC got involved.

As an existing client of CURO, I asked Dan Taylor, President and CEO of GPA EDC, if he would allow me to use one of his offices on Wolfe Street for this 10-week period.  It didn’t take much convincing for Dan to  support this initiative.  Dan is all about supporting and growing the Creative Economy – those who are paid to think, as he puts it.  Guess what?  Accounting professionals are paid to think!  Accounting professionals are part of the Creative Economy!

And so the collaboration begins.  Roshan begins her 10-week placement on Monday, April 16 thanks to a great team of people who are each dedicated to improving our community in their own way.

Welcome to CURO, Roshan and welcome to an example of great Peterborough collaboration.

1. Telephone Expenses
2. Meals & Entertainment
3. Reporting
4. Deadlines (Due Dates)
5. Receipts Part 1 of 2
6. Receipts Part 2 of 2
7. Stapling 
8. Home Improvements
9. Vehicle Usage
10. Is it worth your time?

Record how much time you spend keeping track of your finances. Decide if it’s worthwhile to do it yourself or hire someone with the expertise you may not have.

If you use your vehicle for your business you can write off some of your motor vehicle expenses.  You can only write off the percentage that is used for business.

Be prepared to prove it to CRA.  You will need a log book with details of your business usage.  I use an app that logs all of my travel and emails me a summary each week.  I also have clients who keep a notepad in their car and document their car’s mileage each time they get in and out of the vehicle.  If the travel was business-related, they indicate what they were doing.  Another option is to note your travel on each page in your datebook.

This can be a great business deduction, but you MUST be able to prove to CCRA that your vehicle use is for business or they will disallow it.

If you work from home and do some renovations to (for example) build a new addition to house your office.  You think it is a great deduction, but it is not!  I do not recommend  that you use household improvement receipts as a deduction.  If you do, any profit you make on your house, from the time you bought it, becomes eligible for capital gains tax when you sell it.  For example: you buy your house in 2000 for $150,000.  In 2010 you put an addition on your house for $30,000 and deduct the expense.  If you sell your house in 2011 for $220,000 ALL OF THE PROFIT, $70,000, BECOMES ELIGIBLE FOR CAPITAL GAINS TAX.  The tax you would pay on the profit from your house (all the way back to when you bought it) will likely never make up for what you would save in taxes by deducting the household improvement expenses.  So if you renovate your home office, don’t deduct it.  If you put up a fence at your home daycare, don’t deduct it.  It is a capital improvement if you do, and your house becomes a capital asset.  You probably do not want that.

Take the time to staple receipts and bills that are more than one page long together.  This will save you or your bookkeeper time at the end of the year.