Posted on September 12, 2014 by Christabelle Harris
Every year the staff here at GeersSullivan put together teams to cook up a feast for families staying at Ronald McDonald House. It has been a tradition with the firm since 2005 and this year was no exception with 3 teams giving up their time to plan a 3 course menu, buy the freshest produce on the day and prepare wonderful home cooked meals for about 30 people.
Ronald McDonald House is a home away from home for the families of seriously sick children who are undergoing treatment at Princess Margaret Hospital. Not having to worry about what is for dinner may seem like a small thing, but it gives the families a chance to concentrate on what is most important – helping their ill children. Families are often uprooted from their normal lives with little warning and can spend weeks or even months many thousands of kilometres from home.
After a few busy hours of peeling, slicing, dicing, frying and baking the first team for his year served up a sensational 3 course meal with options for everyone to enjoy. Emily’s pumpkin soup was delicious and the macaroni cheese lovingly prepared by Piera-Lee was a big hit with not only the kids but the adults as well! We roasted up crumbed mini drumsticks, two legs of lamb and two melt in your mouth scotch fillets served with crispy roast potatoes, cauliflower cheese, corn on the cob, a couple of side vegies and gravy to top it all off!
The kids were very happy with ice cream for their sweets especially when they had lots of yummy choices for their toppings. Ryan impressed with putting together two scrumptious homemade crumbles for the adults who could still fit sweets in!! Apple & rhubarb and apple & berry crumble topped off with lump free custard – very nice! None of these dishes would have come together with out the help of Jessica and Annie – it was a real team effort and what a wonderful feast it was!
GeersSullivan is proud to have been a major supporter of the Ronald McDonald House and to give a little bit back to those in need is a big part of what defines us as an organisation.
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Posted on October 21, 2014 by Christabelle Harris
For those of you who have recently jumped on board with the transition to cloud accounting and converted to Xero, here are a few hints and tips that might help you with the day-to-day bookkeeping duties.
Payroll
Xero has recently updated the payroll system so it now automatically integrates with the rest of Xero. In short, all this really means is that there is no longer a need to create a Draft Bill in the payroll system. Xero now automatically posts all the information from the pay run straight to the General Ledger. When it comes to reconciling the wages in the bank reconciliation process, it is now simply a matter of allocating the transaction to the Wages Payable account.
Annual leave
When processing annual leave in the payroll system, always make sure that you have completed the Annual Leave Application before the pay run is completed. This can be done by going to Payroll -> Employees -> Click on the relevant employee -> Leave -> Add Leave Application. If this process is not done, the annual leave taken does not get deducted from the leave balance.
Bank feeds are a great feature of Xero and they are a huge factor in simplifying the bookkeeping process. However we always encourage you to periodically check the bank balances in Xero against your actual bank statement, particularly in situations where bank transactions have been manually imported.
Locking information after reporting
After each reporting period is complete, we suggest that you lock the period so that no changes can be made to information already reported to the ATO. This can be done in the Financial Settings by specifying the ‘Period Lock Date’ as the last day of your most recent reporting period and clicking ‘Save’.
Reporting tips
Xero’s reporting function is something that is always being updated and improved. Here are some tips for some of the reports Xero provides:
- For a Detailed General Ledger, use the Account Transactions report in Xero.
- The Activity Statement report is a commonly used report in Xero. Make sure you are aware that the wages figure (W1) and the PAYG tax withheld figure (W2) do not automatically integrate into this report as they need to be manually input for each period. The best report to obtain your W1 & W2 figures is the Payroll Activity Summary.
- When looking at your reports, keep in mind whether you are reporting GST on a Cash basis or an Accruals basis. Xero does give you the option to view some of your reports on a Cash basis including your Profit & Loss and your General Ledger.
- When using the Aged Receivables and Aged Payables reports, should you want a breakdown of the invoices outstanding that make up the balance for that particular contact, tick the box next to ‘Show Invoices’ & press ‘Update’.
We have several Xero Certified Trainers in the office who would be happy to help with any Xero queries you may have. Feel free to give the office a call should you wish to know more about Xero.
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