Some of you may have noticed that Santa has been – in the form of the ATO and JobKeeper reimbursements landing in your account! This is great news and a very welcome bit of cash flow relief for the many businesses who have been funding their employee’s pays for the past 6 weeks, and those business owners who have had a massive hit to their business. I’ll be honest, in the past few weeks I’ve shed many tears of utter despair and frustration. This morning they were tears of absolute joy.
If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard, said or read JobKeeper in the past month I could retire – today!
I was a “baby bookkeeper” when GST came into place, but I was around for BAS Agent legislation, the overhaul of Fairwork, the surge of cloud accounting and paperless offices, the introduction of Taxable Payment Annual Reports, and the implementation of Single Touch Payroll. These are all major changes to the way we do business and were implemented often over a number of years with consultation with government, business and other bodies. Something like JobKeeper should have taken three years to develop, refine and tweak, and then implement. It was done in three weeks. And the rules have been constantly changing – within one 24 hour period a particular piece of information on the ATO website changed three times. And the thought of how many times information was updated on the Fairwork website – well that just hurts my brain! Implementing this for our client’s, and taking many enquiries from business owners and individuals who aren’t clients but still trying to guide them, has seriously been like trying to fly the plane while they’re still bolting the wings on!
I’m been consistently working 70 hours a week for the past month. I seem to be living and dreaming (literally) JobKeeper – even my kids know about it. A couple of weeks ago when I was right in the thick of flying through the thunderstorm of JobKeeper, my 10 year old asked me what JobKeeper was and couldn’t understand why it was stressing me out so much. My answer was, “Well Jayden, imagine being given the most amazing present! You can see it through the packaging and are so excited to receive it. But the packaging is so tight you just can’t get through to the present that you so desperately want.” And this is how it’s been for many businesses who are eligible for JobKeeper, but just don’t have the funds to pay their staff before the reimbursement comes through. And the solution of the banks coming to the party and bridging the gap … don’t get me started!
But now that wrapping has been stripped away and the present has landed firmly in the bank accounts of many businesses. Don’t get me wrong, we’re still in for a bumpy ride as we navigate the journey of getting out of Coronavirus Country, but this is certainly the little break in the clouds that we all so desperately need.
If you need some assistance navigating JobKeeper, or anything else bookkeeping related (don’t forget BAS, Cash Flow Boost, End of Financial Year …) we’re here to help so please reach out to us.
