New financial support available for business
The government has announced further financial support for businesses affected by Covid-19.
Covid-19 Support Payment
The first is the Covid-19 Support Payment. This is a fortnightly payment of $4,000 + $400 per employee. There are a number of criteria, but the key financial metric is a 40% drop in revenue in a 7-day period any time from February 16, compared to a typical 7-day period between 5 January 2022 and 15 February 2022.
If your business qualifies, applications are made via MyIR. Eligibility criteria can be found here and the instructions on how to apply are here.
Small Business Cashflow Scheme
It has been announced that the SBCS has been extended, so it will be possible to borrow a further $10,000. If you have already borrowed under the SBCS, this will be added to the existing loan. This will be available by the end of March, and will most likely be administered via MyIR also.
End of financial year
March brings with it the end of the Financial Year (for most of us at least) – the 31st of March to be precise. Technology means that this isn’t the major event that it once was, but there are still some pragmatic steps you can take. Any invoices that aren’t going to get paid? Time to mark them as bad debts. Got stock on hand? Best do a quick stock take. And as for bank accounts, it’s worth the 2 minutes of effort to confirm the closing balance on the 31st.
Perhaps more importantly, the end of the financial year marks a fantastic time to review your financial progress over the last year and set goals or a forecast for the 2023 year. If you need some help with this, please get in contact.
What a time to be alive
As a final note, it is hard to ignore current international events. It would be naïve to think that the situation in Eastern Europe won’t affect our little corner of the globe. Due to the ubiquitous nature of social media and connections to the internet, it can feel like how world is crumbling around us as human-kind lurches from one disaster to the next.
But is this really the case? Is the world an increasingly dark and violent place? Dr Steven Pinker has written one of the most well known and hotly debated books on the subject, but a study by The University of York seems to have settled the matter (very much along the lines of Dr Pinker’s publication), It’s findings; the modern world is in fact less violent. Who would have thought?
Dr Pinker goes much wider though, he points out that – for a whole range of reasons – now is the best time in history to be alive. So if you could use a bit more optimism or even context for humanity’s progress, read this interview with him, and you’ll understand why he is (probably) right.
Lets hope it stays that way!