Require Help With Some Buisness Decisions

[notto]

Hi Guy's I am a workshop manager for IT Company In Mudgee, NSW.

We are a extremely fast growing buisness due to other stores closing and us having significant financial backing as well as access to a large established buisnesses customer base.

Here are some issues i need to get resolved.

1. Should we use CRM? I am looking at CommitCRM due to price and can do pretty much everything we want except for no myob integration....
i am now going do a trial in the buisness between commit and tspos to see which one will suit us better. cost wise i think tspos will win.

2. we use myob accountright premiere. I think it is too limited.

3 & 4. we buy from multiple different suppliers and i am finding it hard to find someone half decent in the way of high stockage. We use Altech mainly with others helping out. we are currently putting in a application with a online seller that has a reseller option. (we can buy from them at reduced rates.)

5. Should we use something like the UXD tools?

6. I want to get a Microsoft technet Subscription for the buisness is this a good idea?

7. any ideas to improve work flow, efficency?

8. We all hate paperwork. however still need to do it. TSMAN or COMMIT should help with this

9. we need greater accountability. TSMAN or COMMIT should help with this

10. we do alot of things manually. TSMAN or COMMIT should help with this

11. we usually do around the aud $3k-$8k in orders per month to suppliers do you think there is any need to get this under control?? or do something about it.

12. whats a good warranty policy? i am finding that we replace a part but cannot recoup labour cost of install or fix. ie hdd failure.

13. What is a good backup system to use ie should we use nas device with some sort of imaging program i.e. acronis, shadowprotect, ghost with thecus.

14. what is a good brand of KVM as we have 2 and they are not that "compatible with pc's", we need to use usb and ps2 due to the difference in pc's we get.

15. OUR biggest problem is next to no policies and procedures due to us having no time to get them done, literally that is how busy we are. We maintain a healthy relationship with one of our competitors by us not doing cartridges and also sending them work when we are overworked.

16. We also have the biggest building compared to our competitors. we could fit both of them in here and still have room to spare. (2 story). (only building available at the time bigger than previous shop) double the rent....
$30k annually compared to 17k annually. (smaller shop was around 30sqm or less of room).... new building is much bigger.

17. i want to offer remote support is this a good idea?

18. i am finding it hard in this area to get good technicians/IT Consultants - should i train my own or what should i do to get people interested.

19. We build all our systems except for laptops is this a wise idea?
We mainly sell to buisness clients and require quality at a good price. I.e. a couple of companies have bad reputation around here due to a certain large retail chain. QUALITY veruses features/performance is more important.

20. Can some explain to me the correct way for charging GST so that i can get that checked out. I think we are charging gst twice. ie we pay gst on parts we buy we add profit then add gst i do not think that is quite correct. GST problem rectified.

Thanks guys for all input you give me.
It may be a fair bit for you guys to digest i apologise for that.
Just i really need to get things happening as i have ideas but i need some input from other people out there to improve on them so i can pass them onto the BOSSES (people with money) to get some serious changes happening.

 

[K007]

20. Can some explain to me the correct way for charging GST so that i can get that checked out. I think we are charging gst twice. ie we pay gst on parts we buy we add profit then add gst i do not think that is quite correct.

You should add your markup to the net cost of the parts, not the gross.
And yes, it looks like you are double charging the GST.
Watch out, at the first inspection you will have to pay all that extra GST to the government, and you may be also fined for non-standard accouning practices.
If that was VAT, would have been a different story, because VAT is added on for every time the goods change hands, up to the final customer.

 

[notto]

ill give a common example of what i have seen going on that i wan't our accounting department to rectify.

we buy something for say $55 Inc Gst
we add say 15% profit on said item
we add 10% gst.
= $69.575

should it be
cost ex + profit + GST?

so in essance i think the customer\client is being charged twice for gst? This is my concern for gst.

 

[K007]

ill give a common example of what i have seen going on that i wan't our accounting department to rectify.

we buy something for say $55 Inc Gst
we add say 15% profit on said item
we add 10% gst.
= $69.575

should it be
cost ex + profit + GST?

so in essance i think the customer\client is being charged twice for gst? This is my concern for gst.

Exactly. GST stands for Government Sales Tax.
You paid it when you bought the goods, and you claim it against your own GST.
The very last one not to claim it is the final user, and this is how the government makes some money.
If you add your mark-up on top of the price paid + GST, then on top of that you add your own GST, that makes it a doulbe charged tax. It is illegal, although not strictly enforced by fines, but it is strictly enforced by having to pay it all back to the taxman. The only one who's winning is the tax man, and the only one who's losing hard cash is the final buyer.
In the middle is you who's losing from practising high prices, therefore not being competitive.


The only tax I know of which is working like that is VAT. VAT is added again and again and again, if the goods go through 100 resellers, the VAT is added 100 times on top of the previous. Of course, nobody is stupid to buy a such expensive item so it will remain unsold.
There is a reason for that, and the reason is to force out the middle-man and make the manufacturer sell directly or maybe one reseller in betewen.

 

[Larry Sabo]

You need to talk to an accountant familiar with tax laws in your jurisdiction. They differ from country to country. I doubt that it's improper to charge GST on your marked-up cost, even if the mark-up includes GST paid. You can determine your mark-up any way you like, I believe. However, what you collect as GST is surely all payable to the government, less any off-set (input tax credits).

Here in Canada, we can opt for a detailed calculation or the simplified calculation of the income tax credit. In the detailed method, you subtract GST paid on inputs from GST collected on sales and services, and remit the difference. With the simplified method, you subtract a percentage of the taxable inputs and remit the difference. I've switched to that method on the advice of my accountant, since it's more beneficial for me.

To us, GST means "Goods and Services Tax," not "Government Sales Tax," not that it matters.

 

[notto]

thanks guys, i talked with the people in accounts and as such i found some problems did exist which are now rectified. Got to love that all our quoting formulas are now updated with changes.
GST for us is Good & Services Tax.

 

[DavidMorisseau]

If your company is expanding, I would definitely suggest it as wise to implement a CRM application, as this will save you time and money in the long run - and waste lots of time and money if you don't.



These Saas (Software as a service) business management tools can act as a third brain and speed up all aspects of your business, from contact management to project collaboration, to billing - and when they're online that means from absolutely anywhere.



I see you have a lot of different integration concerns. Many businesses will begin by getting a CRM tool, and then realize they want a project management application, then a billing application... and they have to continuously find new applications and then integrate them, when many of them integrate poorly resulting in double entry and less efficiency.



A newer SaaS platform that's getting a lot of good reviews is WORKetc, as it combines all three aspects of business management (CRM/project management/billing) into one system. I know a lot about their application (partially because I use it every day - partially because I work for them) but I can say its leaning into a direction that shows integration is a thing of the past and is far too inefficient. Having all aspects of your business in one simple platform can speed things up tremendously and save big coin.



Many people assume that because of this "all-in-one" feature, WORKetc would be lacking when it comes to features, but its actually quite the opposite. Their platform has more than the majority of the competitors and is also about half the price - here's a detailed comparison: (http://www.worketc.com/compare).

 

[Xander]

If you're buying parts for resale, you shouldn't be paying GST in the first place. Provide your wholesaler with your GST exemption info and charge your customer GST on their purchase.

And, now, make sure you're charging/paying it as HST (which may depend on your province).

 

[notto]

In australia GST is VAT.

It is a value added tax guys.

They make things overly complecated for everyone. anyhow gst side of things is sorted. we have to pay gst on good we buy sell however we claim that back using our base statements.

as for SAAS we wouldn't do this, nor would alot of companies these days that prefer to have phyical product. if we were in sydney than sure but we are not.

that is why we are looking into smaller crm tools. that fit our small budget.

we can easily get commit or TMPOS. its just deciding on the right product for us. one other we had considered was sugar crm however i do not think that will happen.