We have advised on some commercial property transactions recently and most people may not be aware that GST (if its part of the property sale, ie. for commercial property) is counted as part of the property value when calculating stamp duty. See the link here: https://www.apps08.osr.nsw.gov.au/erevenue/calculators/landsalesimple.php

Hi all, this is a great link that provides much more detail and colour on the new SMSF penalty regime the ATO is implementing from 1 July 2014. There is a webinar that explains the actions ATO has at its disposal and also some case studies of common problems Trustees encounter. https://www.ato.gov.au/Super/Self-managed-super-funds/In-detail/News/SMSF-News/SMSF-News---edition-31/?tpissue-32-2014=&page=2#Free_education_for_SMSF_trustees_and_professionals 

Job hunting tips

Make sure you let your personality shine with interesting Hobbies and Interests

Luxury Car Tax

We have received a few questions on Luxury Car Tax.

Here is some basic info on this topic from the ATO:

 

What is LCT?

LCT is a tax of 33% imposed on the GST-inclusive value of luxury cars over the relevant LCT threshold. You generally pay LCT when you sell or import a luxury car. You pay LCT as well as any GST payable.

 

Special refunds may be available for some primary producers and tourism operators for luxury cars they buy

LCT threshold

The LCT thresholds for the 2013–14 financial year are:

o    $75,375 for fuel-efficient cars

o    $60,316 for other cars.

These thresholds are different to the car limit which is used to work out depreciation deductions for income tax.

 

If you buy a car with a GST-inclusive value above these LCT thresholds, you must pay LCT. In general, the value of a car includes the value of any parts, accessories or attachments you supplied, or imported at the same time as the car.

Hi Platinum,

I’ve been checking job vacancies on SEEK lately. And I feel confused about 3 roles of assistant accountant or AP officer which is monitoring cash flow, cash flow variance analysis and supplier reconciliation. So my questions are:

 

1.       What’s procedure of cash flow monitoring

2.       General description about cash flow variance analysis and is it similar to P&L analysis  involving comparing P&L with budget

3.       What’s supplier reconciliation? And what support documents are needed?

 

Thank you,

Tina

PE Ratios

Dear Platinum
I have to calculate PER for the attached financial statement. I have problem finding the market price
of the firm from the following statement from Woolworths. I do appreciate if you help me where can I find market value of the firm from financial statement.

Regards
Marziyeh

Super on entitlements

Hi Platinum

Do we need to pay Super on the employees holiday like annual leave and sick leave as well ?

How about  unused annual leave  ? Thanks heaps.

Angela

Cashflow monitoring and variances

Hi Platinum,

I’ve been checking job vacancies lately. And I feel confused about 3 roles of assistant accountant or AP officer which is monitoring cash flow, cash flow variance analysis and supplier reconciliation. So my questions are:

 

1.       What’s procedure of cash flow monitoring

2.       General description about cash flow variance analysis and is it similar to P&L analysis  involving comparing P&L with budget

3.       What’s supplier reconciliation? And what support documents are needed?

 

Thank you,

Tina

Reconciling Payroll

Dear Platinum,

I got one problem in reconciliation and I think you will bring that in track. The problem is I need to reconcile the bank statement but I do not do payroll and I can not see any amount being paid in the bank register, though it is already being processed, according to payroll officer. so how can i bring the amount in the bank register as paid if it is already been paid. And i know it is not being paid through electronic payment. I hope you will suggest me what I need to do just to get the paid amount into the bank register.

thank you very much

Yours

Madhav

Full Function Accounts Payable

Hi Platinum,

I went to an interview last week, and came across a question which is "Have you experience a full function of Accounts Payable".

My question is: is there something particularly should be paid attention when you process the payment? Also, what does a remittance advice look like (eg, the structure, the content)?


Best regards,

Sarah 

Interview questions: debtor reports

Dear Platinum:

While I am preparaing interview question, I have few questions wanna ask:

1. I saw an ads, the job responsibility states: "produce aged debtor report and debtor statements." Is this meaning Receiable ageing summary or Payable ageing summary, or both of them? what is debtor statements? That position is bookkeeper. 

2. I always see " matching, coding, batching invoice". I understand coding, but for matching, batching a little bit confused. does matching refer to check all the information on invoice is correct? or checking the system does not have this transaction before I data entry it ?
Batching means file invoices in batches in alphebatical order, or in different catogaries, so it is easier for accountant make payment, is that right?

3. could you please give me a little hint about the how to prove you are attention to detail. I really don't know what kind of example I can give to interviewer.

I secured a face to face interview as an assistant accountant. I will have this interview next monday. and it is 45mins group interview. Can you please give me some advices about group interview? also do you know anything about REST system? because on the job responsibility, it states: Data entry into REST for both creditors and receipts of rents."  last one, the job criteria states :" trust account payable/receivable." I never dealing with trust account before, could you please give some advices about trust account?

Thank you

Samantha

Tax Agent duties

Hi Platinum,

Myself is Jaspreet and I need your assistance as I am doing volunteer with a company. They have a position available as a Tax Agent for their clients.Before I apply for that job I want to prepare myself.Could you please explain me what are the steps or duties of a tax agent.

Regards,

Jaspreet

Bookkeeping for two entities

Hi Platinum,

I will go to an interview this Friday. They require the bookkeeper to have experience with inter company accounts and understand how to balance with journal entries for each entity.

I understand 2 units under one entity can have transactions with each other, they can sell inventory or service to each other. And when doing the consolidated financial statement, we have to eliminate the effect of the intercompany transactions so we won't overstate the sales or profit. 

Is that right? Can I add something to make my answer more impressive if they ask this question?

And also, the interviewer is a training school, a registered training organisation, do you have any suggestions on my interview preparation for this kind of entity?

Really thank you for reading this email,

Your response will be appreciated, 

Regards,

Veronica

GL Reconciliation

Hi Platinum,
I came across with a question which is "have you experienced in GL reconciliation, How far have you been exposed to GL reconciliation?".

In the training course, I just understood the theory of GL reconciliation, which is to make sure the data on B/S & P/L match the supporting documents, such as the bank statement, prepayment spreadsheet, invoices.

But what are the steps involved in GL reconciliation? How do you resolve the discrepancy? Do you need to make an adjustment in MYOB or you need to correct the figures in spreadsheet if necessary? how often do you do GL reconciliation? Do you need to run trail balance when you do the GL reconciliation?

Could you explain in details?

Sarah

Balance Sheet Reconciliation

Hi Platinum:

How can we  do reconciliation in balance sheet. for example, we reconcile bank account with bank statement. how to do prepaid account? do we need to create a new excel spreadsheet from original invoice and then compare it with the amount in balance sheet? But some original invoice is missing. Also how can we reconcile GST liabilities or payroll liabilities?  Do we need to compare the original payslip or bass form, but how can do it if some support document is missing, i only got figure from MYOB?

I just found a job  last week and start to do BS reconciliation. There is quite a lot of unclear account. I need to reconcile those account for previous year financial statement. so I am just struggling with this. Could you give me a hand? By the way, thank you for the training, it will be useful in my job. Wishes you well 

Regards

Shirley

Accounting Systems and data

Hello Platinum,

I am wondering whether you can answer some technical questions for me.. 

a) I am wondering what is financial accounting system? Is SAP Financial Accounting System? How Financial Accounting System differs from Accounting systems?

b) During analysis and reporting data, how would you take initiative to identify and confirm data integrity?

Thanks

Tina (Theingi)

Balance Sheet reconciliation

Hi Platinum:

How can we  do reconciliation in balance sheet. for example, we reconcile bank account with bank statement. how to do prepaid account? do we need to create a new excel spreadsheet from original invoice and then compare it with the amount in balance sheet? But some original invoice is missing. Also how can we reconcile GST liabilities or payroll liabilities?  Do we need to compare the original payslip or bass form, but how can do it if some support document is missing, i only got figure from MYOB?

 

I just found a job  last week and start to do BS reconciliation. There is quite a lot of unclear account. I need to reconcile those account for previous year financial statement. so I am just struggling with this. Could you give me a hand?

Thanks

Shirley

Coding tax invoices

Hi Platinum

I found some advertisement requirement is coding tax invoice. Is it the automated purchase number/code given by MYOB when entering a purchase (located on top of the date) or it is a code manually prepared by accounts person.

Regards

Kamrul

Closing accounts at FY end

Hi Platinum

Could you tell me which account  I should close at the end of financial year? Do we need to close temporary account such as accumulated dep. or P & L statement account?

I try to post on the block, but I am not sure if sucessful? Thank you.
Shirley

ERP systems (Great Plains)

Hi Platinum

When job hunting I recently came across a word ERP in an ad, but I don't know what it is. In the ad, it mentioned softwares like Hyperion and Great Plains. I didn't use them before, that's why I'm wondering what is ERP. 

Cheers
Chris

General Purpose Financial Report

Hi Platinum

Could you please explain me what  a "General Purpose Financial Report "is and their purpose in financial reporting.

Thanks,

Jaspreet           

Journals for payroll

HI Platinum

Do i need to enter separate journal for every individual salary/payroll, or i can do it for every individuals salary in a single journal. Thanks

Kamrul

Batching in MYOB

Hi Platinum

In Platinum I did payment to suppliers individually. my question is how can i do batching on myob or Is it possible to pay multiple number of suppliers in single pay run by MYOB

Thanks in advance

Kamrul

Data entry invoice questions

Hi Platinum

I have some questions on data entry of invoices.

I did all the data entry of the invoices first and tried to do the bank and credit card rec but i am totally confused how to do it. Is that something I need to work on daily basis entering all the transaction of particular day and reconcile on that day and move on to the next day or it can be done in the way I have tried to do. I would really be very grateful to you if you could briefly explain me how it can be done in a efficient way.

Also I found some of the coles invoices paid by gift card now is that something we need to record on myob ?

Some restaurant bills and coffee bills. Are all of them meal allowance or not ?

Are all the taxi invoice travel expenditure ?

Thanks

Niresh

Fixed Assets Register - 2 questions

Hi Platinum

I just have two questiones regarding the fix asset register....

1) What do we need to do when the fix asset need to be disposed or transferred, what kind of general entries on MYOB and what kind of adjustment need to be done on the excel spreadsheet

2) When do we decide to dispose the asset if this asset is not in low value pool, (<$300)?

Thank you so much for everything.

Steve

Renee interview test

Hi Platinum

I have a 2nd round interview and they saif they want me to issue a sales order. 

So I need to issue a sales order, and transfer it into invoice, and issue a purchase order ,and enter a purchase invoice, and pay for purchase. I am a little bit worried about the sales side like sales order and tranfer it into invoices. 

I check the Myob myself, to issue a sales order, do I enter from

sales---enter sale----chosse ordere instead of invoice-----put all the information needed( is there any details I need pay special attention to ??) ----record.

For transfering sales order to invoice:

enter sales----sales register---find the transaction and open it----there is a button at the bottom called invoice, click it----transferred( is there any other details I have to pay attention after that?)

( there is a button at the bottom called creat PO, I do not what that is, does that mean when we sell something, we may need to purchase so issue a purchase order??)

They are also giving some commission to their customers, how to record these transactions in myob??

What if any refund happens?

Thanks

Renee

Renee technical questions

Hi Platinum,

I have some technical questions:

If we found out that some transactions shoing on the bank statement, but does not exist in our system ( like some fees, expenses), what should we do?? 

If the transactions are missing in bank statement, but we do have them in our system, what should we do? ( just untick it, and reconcile?) –

If the dispute transactions can not be solved on te first day, is there anything we can do in the system?? ( like move all of them to one temporary account?)

Hope the above all make sense.

Thanks

Renee

Fuel Tax Credits

Dear Platinum,

I am  writing to ask for some help on my interview questions i just came across this morning.
The interviewer asked me how to prepare Business Activities Statement, they asked something about “Fuel Tax Credit”.

Do you have any idea on what is this Fuel Tax Credit about? Most of their clients are from construction industry, that’s why i think they ask me this questions.

Kind Regards

Alice

Bank reconciliation not matching

HI Platinum

I am preparing for this interview, and have some questions about Bank Recon:

When we do the bank recon in training, the transactions were perfectly match with the bank statment.
I am wondering if in te real life, some differences happen, what is the procedure to solve it.
If we found out that some transactions showing on the bank statement, but does not exist in our system ( like some fees, expenses), what should we do??

( My thinking is we call the bank first to look into this trasaction, and if it occurs, we just put journal into the system? what if it does not exist, do we reconcile directly or we have to make some note in our system so that we know in the future?

If the transactions are missing in bank statement, but we do have them in our system, what should we do? ( just untick it, and reconcile?)

If the dispute transactions can not be solved on te first day, is there anything we can do in the system?? ( like move all of them to one temporary account?)

Thanks

Renee

Salary Sacrifice Superannuation

Hi Platinum,

I have one question, could you please help me to solve it?

If a person’s gross salary/ pay package is 250k, he wants to salary sacrifice some of his pay into his super.
He wants his company contribute 50k in total into his super per year including salary sacrifice and SGC. (He is over 50, super contribution cap is 50k)

How to split this 50k between his SGC and salary sacrifice? (His accountant suggests 29300 for salary sacrifice and 20700 for SGC?).

Thanks
Betty

How to journal superannuation contributions

I have a question how to record this transaction into journal, hopefully you will be able to sort it out.

If an employee has a gross wages $4000.00 and tax withheld $1000.00 as well as the company pay 11% of super which is 440.00 then I will make a journal will be :

Salary 4000.00
Super   440.00
Payg liability        1000.00
Cash (to super)    440.00
Cash (to Staff)     3000.00

However my question is if an employee will contribute extra $300.00 to her super and will be deducted from her salary, is it call salary sacrifice? and how to make the journal to this transactions?
as information :

Staff will receive $ 2700.00 ($3000.00 – $300.00)  because she sacrifice her salary $300.00 into super then she receive her salary less.

How to make the final journal? I tried to make it but there is gap $300.00 and I dont know how to allocate it.

Many thanks

Hani

Public Accounting Firm

Hi Platinum
What is public accounting firm? thanks

Shirley

Accounts Payable for Small Firm

Hi Coco,
I wanted to know how often is A/P reconciled in a small to medium sized firm? For example, how many reconciliations would you do during a month?
Thx
Sammy

Exciting Areas of Accounting

Hi, I have come across an interview question with which I would like to get some help. The question is:

There are many different division within this company and within the finance teams – financial accounting, management accounting, capital accounting, analytics etc. Which area excites you most and why?

Choosing a division of my interest and answering is not a problem. But I would be grateful if you could suggest me something specific that an employer would like to hear in the answer. What should I focus on more?

Thanks in advance.

Sid

Mastering Tax

Platinum
I started a career in accounting using MYOB , I have three years of audit experience overseas though. My question is how to master the tax stuff ?

Amr Esmadi

Tax Return Questions

Hi Coco,

Thanks for your reply to my questions.

I do have a few more questions to ask you, as I have been studying tax:
1. Is the Medicare levy only applicable to individuals?
2. Do wine retailers charge the WET tax as well? Are those who charge the WET able to claim it back from the ATO? Is GST charged on top of the WET?
3. Are donations taxable?
4. Can we include any sales of capital assets in our installment income on the BAS when we are working out our PAYG Instalment?
5. How do we reconcile our payroll accounts?

Thank you for your reply.

Sammy

Fixed Assets Register

Hi Platinum,
1) I am doing fixed asset register, On mannual step 1 is ENTER PURCHASE OF 5 DESIGNER CHAIRS (1/1/10)
[ AP procedures]

My question is where to find this information ( price of chairs etc).

2) I did prepayments last saturday. But at the end Prepayment bal on B/S is not matching with total remaining b/c om prep. SS 31/1/11.

I tried to find my mistake but I couldn’t. How can I go through with this problem? Please help.

Thanks for support.

Jas

Large Company Invoices

Hi Platinum,

I would like to know, how are invoices filed in a large company?

Also, when it comes to paying off credit card liability for each period, who will decide how much is to be paid back to credit card company?

Thanks for your help.

Sammy

Accruals

Hi Platinum,

Can you please clarify or explain the following doubts about Accruals:

The very definition of Accruals is considering the expenses and revenues for the P&L period. The way we do at Florian Actual (YTD) v Budget (YTD) results in variance and rounding the Amount to closest $10 and Accrue them accordingly.

Doubts:
1. How can we accrue the actual expenses and revenues for the P & L period without the budget.
2. If you can explain me with a invoice dated 15thof the month for 2 months for $2000.
3. Explain where services provided and payment received $1500 but income unearned.

Thank you and appreciate your help.

John Pulla

Payroll Officer Role

Hi Platinum,

I went for an interview last week for a payroll officer role, but i was having trouble trying to explain to them how the payroll is processed in a large company.

i was telling them how to do it in myob, and they were not satisfied with my answer.
can you please give me some detailed steps, as we only covered payroll in a small company.

Sammy

Reconciliation Officer

Hi Platinum

I got a call from a company for an Interview for the position of Reconciliation Officer. I am wondering what are the potential questions for that particular position?

If they ask me ” why should we hire you?” then what is the best answer? It is very funny ask this question to you but seriously i am very confuse.Just wanna know best answer.

Thank you for your great help.

Anju

Biggest Achievement

Hi Platinum team,
I was asked this question quite a few times during the interview:
What is your biggest achievement in the last 6 months? What shall I say to impress the interviewer?
Thanks.
Jessica

Balance Sheet Analysis

Hi Platinum

Did you ever have a situation where you had to analyse the Balance Sheet?

Thanks Kate

Excel skills required

Hello Platinum
I have questions for you regarding excel skills. I have been told that the interviewer will ask me more questions on excel. Please advise me for the same.Thanks

My question to you please help me to know when and why did i use Vlook up and Pivot tables
What error one can make if they don’t do Vlook up properly and some insights in Excel questions
(like what reports i use to produce on excel and why and how they were useful.
Thanks
Rajal

Welcome

Welcome to platinumaccounting.blogspot.com.au

Platinum Accounting offers training and internship services to people who would like to kickstart their accounting career.

Our goal is to help you with your accounting career and job hunting and we have some interview tips. We will also answer any questions you may have for job interviews.

Please visit us at www.platinumaccg.com.au or call us on 02 88894111 for training and internships