Archive for category: News

“Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there” (Will Rogers)

In the hostile business environment in which we find ourselves, every small advantage could be the difference between success and failure. While traditionally companies and their shareholders have looked at profit and the cold hard numbers for determining the current and future success of a business, there are many other non-financial measures, which can give as clear a picture as to just how strong a company is. These non-financial measures can provide clarity and context for the financial KPIs (key performance indicators), while at the same time offering a way to see whether your business is living up to its mission statement and vision in a way that the numbers cannot.

If looked at carefully these measures can help illuminate your business’ strengths and weaknesses, while also pointing to areas which may be affecting business performance.

Here then are four significant non-financial performance measures every business owner should be analysing.

1. Efficiency and Delivery
   
   The profit margin may look good, but what it cannot do is tell you just how hard you are working for that profit, or where things can be improved. How you choose to examine your company’s efficiency and delivery will depend strongly on exactly what service you are offering. For those in manufacturing an excellent statistic to look at is the “Product Defect Percentage”, which can be worked out by dividing The Number of Defective Units in a Given Period by The Total Number of Units Produced in the Same Period. This combined with a general Efficiency measure, which in the manufacturing industry can be measured by analysing how many units are produced every hour and the plant’s uptime percentage, can give you a very clear idea of inefficiencies in the system.

   Deadline-driven companies and those in the transport or logistics industries may want to look more closely at their “On-time Rate”, being the percentage of time products were delivered on time as scheduled. Dividing the Number of On-Time Units in a Given Period by The Total Number of Units Shipped in a Given Period will give you your “On-Time Rate”.

   Customer support tickets are also a wealth of information. How many new tickets are opened, how quickly they are closed and how many go unanswered are all valuable when calculating customer satisfaction as well as flaws in your processes.

2. Customer retention and conversion rates
   
   Your customer is obviously the backbone of your business. Keeping them happy will result in success, and likewise their dissatisfaction can result in bankruptcy. Tracking the pure numbers of clients that you have, and their loyalty will give you a good indication for the coming year. Did you gain new clients, and did your old ones stay with you? Answering no to either of these questions highlights problems. If you are getting in lots of new clients, but not managing to keep them then you need to look at costs, quality and service levels, because your PR and marketing are clearly working. Alternatively if you have a core of very loyal customers, but are struggling to find new work, then what is needed is additional budget on getting your name out there.

   Using the formula, Customers Lost in a Given Period divided by the Number of Customers at the Start of a Period, will give you your Customer Retention Rate.

   Further to this is just how successful your team is at closing a sale once that customer is through your door. Are you making sales, or winning pitches? Just how regularly? The formula for working out your conversion rate is: Interactions with Completed Transactions divided by Total Sales Interactions. If this is going up then your sales team is working optimally, but a declining conversion rate may hint at the need for morale boosts within the sales team, or even additional training.

3. The power of promotion
   
   Every business owner will know that the word of mouth and customer recommendations are the single best way to increase business and yet very few entrepreneurs or new businesses will track this statistic. It requires a little work but setting up a “net promoter score” survey is a good way to gain feedback from your customers or clients.

   There are principally two kinds of net promoter score surveys, ones that focus on a customer’s loyalty to the brand, known as a “relationship survey” and ones that want to analyse a customer’s experience at a specific event known as a “transactional survey”. While the latter will allow you to drill down into the details of each customer contact point, it is the former which will give you a stronger overall impression of the reputation of your brand.

   This survey should be a maximum of 4 or 5 questions to avoid fatigue and increase responses. These questions should all focus on whether people enjoy interacting with the brand, where their problems may be, and a final question can ask how likely they are to recommend the company with a score out of 10.

   The likelihood that customers will recommend a brand to others can be worked out by assigning people who score the company a nine and higher as promoters and those who score it six or lower as detractors. Then take the Number of Promoters and minus the Number of Detractors to find your Net Promoter Score.

   Don’t forget to leave a comment box at the bottom of your survey and ask whether the customer wants to be contacted. People may have additional insights that your survey doesn’t cover.

4. Maximising your workforce
   
   Staying ahead in business depends on your employees and getting the most out of each person’s skills will greatly benefit your bottom line. Retaining good staff is an important part of the business as in the long term having experienced and knowledgeable employees will make everything else work more smoothly at the company.

   High performers need to be identified and retained. A good business owner is always aware of the company’s “High Performer Turn Over Rate”. This statistic reveals the company’s ability to firstly attract, but also more importantly retain, good employees. Your High Performer Turnover Rate can be calculated by dividing the Number of High Performers Who Departed in Past Year by The Number of High Performers Identified.
   
   If you find your company is leaking high performers and the turnover rate is higher than you would like, it would be wise to work out just why this is happening. Your company’s “Salary Competitiveness Ratio” will give you an idea of whether people are leaving for money. You work it out, by taking your Average Company Salary and dividing it by the Average Salary Offered by Competitors.
   
   If it’s not your salary offering, then perhaps chances for advancement have been stifled? High performers tend to be ambitious. Looking at the “Internal Promotion Rate” gives a great indication of whether staff are being allowed to grow and develop at a reasonable rate. It can be calculated by dividing the Number of Promoted Individuals by the Total Number of Employees.

   No matter what you do, people will leave, so getting high performers into the company is always important. Looking carefully at the efficiency of your hiring process with regard to time and cost to recruit new employees, will also show whether your HR systems could use an improvement. Remember, every month a position is vacant means your company is running sub-optimally and losing out on profit.

“All forms of rental income must be declared to SARS … We are … determined to make it hard and costly for non-compliant taxpayers not willing to meet their obligations. We are working hard to improve system capabilities, in order to detect those taxpayers who do not comply by using data to identify risk” (extracts from SARS media statement 11 March 2021).

The Basics

Airbnb is an online app which allows homeowners to rent out their property to travellers on an ad hoc basis with very little admin from their side. Users of the app simply search and select properties that have been listed in the area they are visiting, then pay on the Airbnb platform. The owner is responsible simply for letting them in and making sure the property is as described in terms of quality and cleanliness. In return for this service Airbnb takes a percentage of the total rental charged as commission.

It’s a simple and clean system that to date has been extremely difficult for SARS to track. The recent announcement by the revenue service that it was aware owners were not declaring this income and thus underpaying owed taxes and that they are determined to tax this income does, however, suggest that things are about to change.

“We are determined to make it hard and costly for non-compliant taxpayers not willing to meet their obligations. We are working hard to improve system capabilities, in order to detect those taxpayers who do not comply by using data to identify risk,” SARS announced.

This in itself poses a problem for SARS as while it’s easy to see just who is renting their property out on Airbnb by looking at adverts and cross-referencing them with ownership records, it is more difficult to see just how much time was spent by guests in the property. Nonetheless, the announcement does seem to indicate a determination by SARS to put a stop to tax avoidance in this area and this could spell trouble for those who have been letting out their properties, most likely in the way of audits. But just what is owed by owners, and how would they correct this situation?

Income tax returns and registering for VAT

There is no doubt income derived from letting a property out on Airbnb must be declared on your income tax return. As SARS made clear, “This is the same principle that applies to any person who has rental income from letting out their property as a homeowner, placing them under the same obligation to declare such rental income to SARS”.

According to registered CA(SA) and Group Financial Controller for SYSPRO Louise Buchanan, “A property owner who hosts fee-paying guests like in the case of Airbnb, has to declare the rental income on their income tax return as it is considered gross income.” She warns that in addition to this, any property owner earning more than R1 million within a 12 month period would also need to register as a VAT vendor and charge VAT 15% on rental income.

What about deductions?

As always, any income that comes with costs can be reduced by a portion or percentage of certain of those costs allowable for tax purposes.

According to Buchanan only expenses which arise in relation to the production of rental income can be claimed as a deduction.

“These include levies, rates and taxes, electricity and water, home-owner’s insurance, advertising, bond interest and agent’s fees,” she says, cautioning that, “If only a portion of a property is rented out, then only pro-rata expenses related to that portion are deductible”.

What about Airbnb themselves?

Airbnb has a notice on its site which states that “In areas that Airbnb has made agreements with governments to collect and remit local taxes on behalf of hosts, Airbnb calculates these taxes and collects them from guests at the time of booking. Airbnb then remits collected taxes to the applicable tax authority on the hosts’ behalf.”

This can sometimes be confusing for the home-owner who may believe that tax has been paid on their behalf already. Unfortunately, South Africa is not one of the areas in which Airbnb has made an agreement with government to collect and remit taxes on its behalf. Owners with properties in other areas are, however, able to take advantage of this fact, and a full list of these areas can be found here.

What to do if you didn’t declare Airbnb income and owe back taxes

Homeowners who have not been paying taxes on their Airbnb income are still liable for those taxes and SARS has made it abundantly clear that they aim to find and crackdown on non-compliant owners.

“Taxpayers are reminded that failure to comply with their tax obligations may result in administrative penalties being imposed in addition to interest, or even criminal action being taken against them,” the revenue service said.

Buchanan explains that in practice what this means is that administrative penalties are likely to be imposed along with interest, but has also warned that it would not be unheard of for criminal action to also be taken against a defaulter. She therefore urges all Airbnb owners who may be in default to consider declaring their Airbnb income through the SARS voluntary disclosure programme, which offers more favourable penalty amounts and a significantly reduced chance of criminal procedures being instated.

If you are an Airbnb owner who has not declared this income, it would be wise to speak to your accountant to evaluate just how much you might owe in back taxes and to try clear up the situation before you are the subject of a tax audit.

“You are what you share” (Charles Leadbeater, We Think: The Power of Mass Creativity)

Instagram is a popular photo and video-sharing social media platform with over one-billion active users around the globe. Users are able to share photo or video posts as well as temporary “Stories” that exist on their profile for just 24 hours. What many don’t know is that users are also able to shop directly from e-commerce brands through the app, and this is just one of the benefits for small businesses.

For the entrepreneur Instagram offers a cheap, reliable and easy way to build a following and engage with customers and has become a marvellous way to reach customers even for the newest of endeavours. To help you take advantage, here are some top tips for getting your business noticed on this platform.

1. Use a business account
   
   Signing up for Instagram is an easy process akin to signing up for any other social media site, but the business owner needs to take an additional step if they intend to use their Instagram account to market their business, by switching the personal account to a business one.

   You will want to do this as Instagram business accounts offer owners access to unique features which are not available on a personal account, including Instagram Insights, Instagram ads, Instagram Shopping, a call-to-action button on your profile, contact information and even a variety of messaging inboxes. These functions will allow the business owner to better engage with customers and bring their products front-and-centre to their client base.

   To change to a business account, go to your profile and tap the hamburger icon at the top right –

1. 1. Tap Settings, then Account.
   2. Tap Switch to professional account.
   3. Tap Business and follow the prompts.

2. Know why you are on Instagram
   
   Defining the reason for your existence on Instagram will immediately help you to create the kind of page that you want. Are you there to get the company noticed, to direct people to your website or shop, or sell directly to your customers from the app?

   In order to effectively achieve those goals you will also need to define your target market. Who are you trying to reach? Instagram’s users are primarily between the ages of 18 and 35, but this does not mean they are the only ones there. Indeed, Instagram claims that more than 500-million people use the site daily, so knowing which demographic within that huge database you are targeting will help you stand out.

3. Shape your page
   
   Now that you have defined who it is that you are looking to target and just what you hope to achieve, you can set about shaping your actual page profile to be attractive to that demographic and for that purpose. There are a variety of aspects of your page that you will be able to change to including your username, your actual name, and your website. More subtle perhaps is making the decision as to which business “Category” you fall under as this will provide followers information without using up bio space and will help you get recommendations for people who are searching in your field.

   The most important part, however, is the actual bio itself. Your business’ bio should directly reflect the brand promise as well as its personality. Are you informative? Funny? Motivational? Are you a local business or aiming for international sales? What makes you unique and what do you want people to do once they have seen your profile?

4. Create engaging content
   
   This is without a doubt the most critical part of a decent Instagram account, and is also the most elusive. On Instagram your brand will be judged by the effort you are putting into your images, so this isn’t a place to put up sayings with a single colour background. While you don’t need professional photography, your photos and videos do need to be at least well-lit, well-composed, and in focus. What you are looking for is not simply beautiful photos, however, but photos and images that tell the story of your brand and make your audience feel like they know you better.

   Take your followers behind the scenes of your brand with shots inside your offices, or of your manufacturing process. Teach your followers something that aligns with your brand or show them how to overcome a business challenge which you just accomplished. Share your mistakes. Listen to your followers and Regram (share), their content about your brand. Ask questions, and respond via video to questions they are asking. It all comes down to getting your customers to buy into your business, believe in it and then start backing it.

5. Create an aesthetic
   
   Now that you know what kind of content you want to put up it’s also important to think about the aesthetic you want for your content. You chose the colours for your logo carefully because different colours give off different impressions of the brand. Now you need to take that idea and extend it to each and every photo and video you upload on the site. Will you be highly corporate with defined lighting, or a softly lit and warm account? What colours will the curtains be, and how is the décor arranged when you do your live interviews? These things will all help make your content instantly recognisable and more shareable in the future.

   An easy way to achieve this kind of consistency is to use Lightroom presets. Here are a few unique filters that can get you started. Take a look at other user’s accounts to try to find the looks you like or that you think may fit with your brand and start from there.

6. The Writing is also important
   
   While Instagram is definitely a visual medium, your captions on each post are also vitally important. Your captions are a great place for expanding your brand, nudging clients to your website and making a sale. While captions can be long, and some brands take advantage to tell stories, it’s the first two lines that will be always visible and which will capture audience’s attention. Getting the right information in those first two lines is therefore critical. Importantly, the caption is also a great place to introduce your unique hashtag.

   Creating your own hashtag is a good way to drive instant engagement with your business, and over time it will become an easily-spread marketing tool that others will use to share their own posts with your business. Because the hashtag is unique to you, this allows you to also search for all mentions of your business online quickly and easily, and every time someone uses your hashtag they will be exposing your business to their followers.

7. Use Instagram tools to find the right metrics
   
   Business profiles on Instagram aren’t all that different from Facebook business profiles. Through Insights, you can view statistics like impressions, engagement data, and more. You can also get a breakdown of the demographics of your followers, including information on their age, gender, location, and most active hours. This information will help you make informed decisions about when you should be posting and what kinds of content your followers like the most.

   For starters though, according to SimplyMeasured, the worst days to post on Instagram are Wednesdays and Sundays, while Mondays and Thursdays are considered the most likely to be successful.

   These tools can give you great insights into just how successful your time on Instagram is. The two most important things to look out for are “Follower growth rate” and “Engagement”. While the number of followers gives you very little idea of how good your posts have been of late, the rate at which that number of followers is growing does. Additionally, looking at how many likes and comments you are getting on your posts will show you just how interested those followers are in what you are posting.

8. Engage
   
   If you want more engagement, you are going to need to engage yourself. No Instagram account will be successful simply by uploading images every day. Search out other brands or products that are similar to yours and comment on their posts. This will not only put your brand front-and-centre for people looking for companies like yours on your competition’s page, but it will also teach algorithms that you are an expert in this field and that other users should be directed at your page for that kind of service. Working with other brands and influencers will also allow your brand to be shared beyond your normal circle and engaging with them is a great way to get noticed.

The future of money is digital currency” (Bill Gates, Co-founder of Microsoft)

Note: The risks and consequences of willfully or negligently failing to make full and true declarations to SARS, or to submit documents or information requested by SARS are now substantial, so ask your accountant for advice specific to your circumstances!

Cryptocurrencies have been around for over a decade, with the first and most famous one – Bitcoin – launched in 2009. Since then, many other cryptocurrencies have been created and supported in the market, including for example Ethereum, Litecoin, Dogecoin and Bitcoin Cash.

Regulators have been slow in responding to the rapid fintech developments behind cryptocurrencies. However, further cryptocurrency regulation is certainly on its way, and the Intergovernmental Fintech Working Group (IFWG), a group of South African financial sector regulators, published a policy position paper on crypto assets to provide specific recommendations for the development of a regulatory framework.

In the meantime, however, many cryptocurrency owners may be unaware that their cryptocurrency gains will most certainly be taxable by SARS – and in the year of assessment in which income or gains are received by or accrue to the taxpayer – not only if or when the cryptocurrency is withdrawn and converted into legal tender.

What’s the sudden spotlight on cryptocurrencies?

A number of recent developments have catapulted cryptocurrencies into the spotlight.

The first was the Bitcoin boom over the last year. Having maintained a price under $10,000 for years, excluding two peaks in December 2017 ($13,000) and June 2019 ($12,000), Bitcoin’s price started to skyrocket in September 2020 as big-name companies such as PayPal, Mastercard and Square began to accept it.

Early in 2021, the price of Bitcoin reached a staggering $60,000, following Tesla’s announcement that it had acquired $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin and the public listing of US cryptocurrency platform Coinbase Global on the Nasdaq. In February, Bitcoin breached the $1 trillion market capitalisation mark.

Local Bitcoin investors would have seen the price of their bitcoin jump from under R100,000 in March 2020 to just under R430,000 at the end of 2020 to almost R1 million in April 2021, doubling in value in just a few months.

Many South Africans started investing in cryptocurrencies during the boom, with a global crypto platform operating locally saying it had registered more than a million new cryptocurrency accounts in under two months, South Africa being in the top four highest growth locations.

SARS’ scrutiny not surprising

It is not surprising that these substantial gains and the fast-growing number of South African investors in cryptocurrencies have come under specific scrutiny from SARS. It presents an opportunity to collect substantial taxes from a previously untapped source at a time when all other options for tax increases and new taxes have been exhausted.

In addition, earlier this year, R3 billion was allocated to SARS in the Budget to improve its ability to track undeclared assets and income, including a dedicated unit to uncover “undisclosed offshore assets, including crypto-assets such as bitcoin” and other cryptocurrencies.

Unfortunately, very few South Africans holding cryptocurrency are likely to be aware of the tax liability they could be facing.

So, while cryptocurrency platforms are not yet legally required to report on their clients and while SARS boosts its tracking abilities, our tax authority has simply begun asking for information on crypto transactions in audit letters issued to taxpayers – even to taxpayers that have never traded in cryptocurrencies.

The information requested includes the purpose for which the taxpayers purchased cryptocurrency, as well as bank statements, and a letter from the trading platform(s) confirming the investments and the relevant trading schedules for the period.

Thanks to recent legislative changes that have made it a criminal offence for a taxpayer to willfully fail to submit a document or information as requested by SARS, or to make a false statement to SARS, non-compliant taxpayers could be liable to a fine or imprisonment for up to two years – or up to five years for attempted tax evasion or obtaining an undue refund.

SARS’ stance

In 2018 SARS issued a media statement confirming that the existing tax framework and normal tax rules will apply to cryptocurrencies and that affected taxpayers are expected to declare cryptocurrency gains or losses as part of their taxable income.

It said that cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are considered by SARS to be “assets of an intangible nature”, and that capital gains tax or normal tax may apply, depending on whether you are investing for the long term or trading actively for short-term gain. SARS will likely consider cryptocurrency-related gains to be revenue in nature and the onus will be on the taxpayer to prove otherwise.

For long-term investors, cryptocurrency is deemed “capital assets” and gains will be taxed at Capital Gains Tax rates – up to 18% for individuals and 22.4% for companies. The purchase price of cryptocurrency is deemed to be the price paid on date of purchase.

Active trading will ensure your cryptocurrency is considered “trading stock”, with the income “received or accrued” falling under the definition of “gross income” in the Income Tax Act and profits taxed at normal income tax rates, between 18%–45% for individuals and 28% for companies.

Cryptocurrencies income can be “earned” in various ways, all of which are subject to normal tax.

1. A cryptocurrency can be obtained by so-called “mining”. According to SARS, until it is sold or exchanged for cash, cryptocurrency obtained in this way is held as “trading stock” that can then be realized through an ordinary cash transaction, or through an exchange transaction.
2. Cryptocurrency may be received as income by a self-employed independent contractor for performing services; or received as remuneration or wages for services from an employer.
3. Cryptocurrency may be accepted as payment for goods or services. Where goods or services are exchanged for cryptocurrencies, such a transaction is deemed to be an exchange transaction and the usual exchange transaction rules apply.
4. Investors can exchange local currency for a cryptocurrency (or vice versa) by using cryptocurrency exchanges, or by private transactions.
5. If a trade is made between two cryptocurrencies, for example Bitcoin and Ethereum, the profits are also taxable.

Failure to declare cryptocurrency holdings, income and gains could result in interest, penalties and criminal prosecution.

What you should do now

(Remember to get expert advice specific to your circumstances!)

• SARS says that the responsibility rests with taxpayers to declare all taxable income in respect of cryptocurrency in the tax year in which it was received or accrued. If you mined cryptocurrency; bought any cryptocurrency; exchanged cryptocurrency for another cryptocurrency; or were in any way paid in cryptocurrency, it must be declared.
• As with other asset classes, it is important to understand cryptocurrency investments and the attendant tax obligations, and to plan accordingly. A buy-and-hold strategy is more tax efficient, but professional tax advice is recommended for each individual case.
• If you have received a request for information from SARS – whether or not you have traded in cryptocurrency – immediately contact your accountant for professional assistance.
• Whether or not you have received communication from SARS, if you have not disclosed cryptocurrency holdings, income gains and losses, contact your accountant for specialist tax advice.
• Keep records of all transactions – according to SARS conventional receipts and/or invoices are acceptable proof of purchase and sale price.
• Use software to track crypto transactions – cryptocurrency platforms do not provide SARS compliant tax certificates such as the IT3c provided by financial services institutions for tax returns.
• Declare cryptocurrency holdings, income, gains and losses correctly –
  • SARS has already included questions about cryptocurrency investments in the capital gains tax portion of tax returns;
  • The income or market value thereof forms part of total taxable income in respect of the year of assessment on a provisional tax return (IRP6);
  • Taxable income in the source code or tax return container field provided on the ITR12 form.
• Individuals can make use of the annual Capital Gains Tax exclusion of R40,000.
• Claim deductions – deductions against cryptocurrency income are allowed if they meet the requirements of the Income Tax Act, including whether expenditure is incurred in the production of income or for trade purposes – for example costs relating to computers, servers, electricity and internet service provider charges.
• Offset losses – losses on cryptocurrency bought as investments will count as capital losses. However, it can only be deducted from capital gains. If there are no capital gains to deduct losses from, the losses can be carried over to the next tax year. You will be well advised to obtain expert tax guidance in this regard.