A Few Things to Sleep on

After a disturbed sleep last night, dreaming I was made redundant by my 86 year old Dad, and thinking my earplug was a pineapple lump (I did unfortunately try to eat it), I decided possibly the whole COVID 19 issue was having more of an impact on me than I had previously realised.

So here we are, at Alert Level 1, 12 weeks after we first moved into lockdown. It seems to me that everything is different and yet everything is the same. I hope the kindness and incredible support for each other in the business community remains, and the whole country understands how extremely difficult it will continue to be for most businesses. Not least the Prime Minister who raised my ire at her comment that she was ‘angry’ that the Warehouse Group is considering redundancies and store closures.

I implore businesses to take a long term approach and consider what you need to do now to ‘right size’ your business to ensure you remain viable long term. With many businesses not being eligible for the extended wage subsidy, the usual business cycle affected by winter, and unemployment predicted to worsen in the coming months, as hard as these decisions are, it is better to make them now.

Employment legislation changes that will cost employers are still being implemented (The Employment Relations (Triangular Employment) Amendment Bill).  While we were in lockdown we also had the Employment Court determine a Courier Driver was an employee not a contractor, and that discretionary incentive payment should be included in holiday pay calculations.

If you use MYOB for your payroll you would have been notified of an error in their system which requires you to review how you have calculate pay going back 6 years. While MYOB have identified an error and come clean about it, most other payroll systems and/or the way organisations have them set up are incorrect according to a random spot check IRD did approximately a year ago. We have a number of training courses coming up including a payroll course which will address all things payroll, and if you have concerns about your payroll we can conduct an audit for you, work through the MYOB recalculations that are needed or provide one on one training to your business so you can do this internally.

To continue to support organisations we are providing a spot in our Newsfeed for anyone who is offering a free service to help their fellow business people. So, if you have something to offer (for free), that you think could help others, please let us know. Our first offering is from Gilbert Robertson at accounting firm Your Success. Gilbert is offering you a free business review. For more information click here.

Finally, now that we can gather in groups greater than 10, we have scheduled a Free Seminar . It will give everyone a chance to network once again, catch up on the changes and case law in the Employment arena, and maybe discuss just a little on COVID-19.

Wishing you all dreamless sleeps.

Manaaki

Kay Chapman