Blogs

07 November – PAYE submissions and payments 25 November – VAT manual submissions and payments 27 November – Excise duty payments 28 November – VAT electronic submissions and payments, & CIT Provisional Tax payments where applicable.

“Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship.” (Benjamin Franklin) Extending 30-, 60- or 90-day payment terms may seem like a simple trick to help your sales teams convert sales, smooth negotiations and boost customer service. What you may not recognise, though, is that those terms are not neutral commercial niceties – they are a form of credit. When your business supplies goods or services today and accepts payment weeks or months later, it has effectively provided an unsecured loan to the buyer. That “invisible loan” has measurable costs: higher working-capital needs, lost interest income, distorted pricing decisions and elevated credit risk. When you sell on extended terms, “accounts receivable” grows and cash on the balance sheet shrinks until the buyer pays. That increases days-sales-outstanding (DSO) and raises the working-capital requirement. If you borrow to cover the gap (common for seasonal businesses or those with tight margins) the interest paid on that borrowing is a direct cost of the terms you offered. Even when you don’t borrow, the opportunity cost remains: cash not received cannot be used to reduce debt, invest in higher-return projects, or fund inventory when demand spikes. Over time the cumulative burden of routinely extended terms reduces agility and margins. Unfortunately, many clients demand extended payment terms, and your competition may be prepared to accede to their wishes. So how do you ensure you keep the business without going out of business yourself? 1. Price the finance Treat longer payment terms as a priced service. Build a transparent financing fee into orders that use 60- or 90-day terms, or publish two price lists: a net price for immediate payment and a financed price for deferred settlement. Customers accept explicit fees more readily than hidden margin increases, and your finance team can model return on capital precisely. 2. Offer structured early-payment incentives Instead of unconditional long payment terms, offer predictable early-payment discounts or dynamic discounting tied to actual payment date. A 0.5–1.0% discount for payment within 7–10 days often costs less than the buyer’s short-term borrowing and converts receivables into near-cash for you. 3. Underwrite and limit credit formally Move from ad-hoc allowances to formal credit applications and limits. Require a minimum credit assessment for extended terms, set credit lines tied to payment performance, and review limits at set intervals. For new or higher-risk customers, insist on shorter terms or staged delivery until a track record is established. 4. Design payment terms as part of commercial deals Make terms a negotiation item linked to value. Trade extended terms for commitments: volume guarantees, longer contract terms, staged milestones, or partial upfront payment. Where applicable, split deals into an upfront deposit and a deferred balance tied to delivery or performance to reduce unsecured exposure. 5. Use technology and supply-chain finance options Make payment easier with accurate, timely electronic invoicing, one-click payment links, and multiple payment methods. For larger B2B (business-to-business) accounts, consider invoice finance or supply-chain finance platforms. They enable buyers to settle invoices early and suppliers to access cash immediately, typically with transparent and lower financing costs than traditional receivables. 6. Make the invisible visible It’s essential to stop treating DSO as a passive metric and make extended terms a line item in cash-flow forecasting. Your accountant (that’s us!) can help you report the cost of terms monthly: financing cost, incremental bad-debt risk, and the foregone investment return on delayed cash. We can also supply a short finance note quantifying the cost and proposed mitigation (discount, guarantee, deposit). The bottom line Payment terms are a commercial tool and a financial instrument. When finance and sales treat them differently, an invisible loan quietly accumulates. By following the steps outlined in this article you can make the loan visible and manageable. That shift preserves customer flexibility while protecting cash, margins and your company’s capacity to invest. If you need help structuring your payment terms, speak to us.

“The key is not to prioritise what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” (Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) In business, it’s too easy for an entrepreneur or business leader to mistake being busy for being effective. Working long hours with back-to-back meetings can look like productivity – but without clarity and boundaries, the important work may not actually be getting done. According to a study conducted by McKinsey, 61% of senior executives believe that at least half of the time they spend making decisions is unproductive. So how can you stop this from happening to you? Time-saving strategies are an essential tool for sustainable modern leadership. Streamlining processes, delegating effectively, and embracing automation can transform your day. Done right, these tactics free up energy for strategic thinking, innovation, and decision-making – all of which can lead to greater growth in your business. Here are some evidence-based tips every business leader should employ to better utilise their time. 1. Prioritise ruthlessly One of the most effective ways to save time is by focusing only on tasks that deliver real impact. The Eisenhower Matrix (dividing tasks into urgent vs. important) remains a powerful tool. Many leaders fall into the trap of handling urgent but low-value work, rather than carving out time for strategic priorities. The fix? Review your to-do list daily and cut or delegate anything that doesn’t directly move the business forward. Treat your time as an investment portfolio and put more into the high-return opportunities. 2. Delegate with trust Effective delegation is a skill, not just because it frees up your time, but also because it empowers your team. Too many leaders hoard responsibilities out of habit or fear that standards won’t be met. But this can bottleneck workflows and burn time on details that others are capable of handling. You should be clearly defining expectations, providing resources, and then stepping back. By learning to fully trust your team you free yourself up for higher-level thinking and decision-making. Just as importantly, you give staff room to grow, in the process increasing employee engagement and retention. 3. The algorithm is your friend Everyone’s talking about AI these days, and with good reason. Technology can be a business leader’s greatest ally. From scheduling tools to delivering automated reporting, letting technology take care of the smaller tasks can strip hours of repetitive labour from your week. The upfront effort and cost of setting up automation pays dividends quickly. According to a Deloitte survey, businesses using automation in finance and operations reported time savings of between 60% and 80% in some high volume, transactional finance processes. As your accountant, we can help you adjust budgets to cater for tech upgrades and installations, and the adjusted workflows that will surely follow. Leaders who resist these tools risk drowning in avoidable admin. 4. Guard your calendar Your calendar is a reflection of your priorities. Yet many leaders allow it to be hijacked by endless meetings. A practical fix is to implement “meeting-free zones” (blocks of time reserved exclusively for deep work). Another technique is the “two-pizza rule” made famous by Jeff Bezos: never hold a meeting if it requires more than two pizzas to feed the attendees. Meetings with fewer staff and clear agendas reduce wasted time and force clarity. 5. Communicate your way These days, business leaders are blessed with communication options. Tools like project management platforms, shared documents, and messaging systems mean you can allow communication to happen without the need for meetings or real-time interruptions. Allowing people to react to incoming information when they have space in their day lowers wasted time and increases focus. This helps everyone in the business, including you, to get more done. 6. Build decision-making frameworks Your job as a business leader is essentially to make decisions. The longer it takes you to make a decision, the more momentum is impeded. Structured decision-making frameworks (such as weighted scoring models) can help you speed up evaluations, reduce second-guessing and come to conclusions faster. This doesn’t just save you time, it also keeps others on track. 7. Invest in personal efficiency Leadership productivity is also about discipline. By simply changing some of the habits you’ve developed over a lifetime, you could immediately become more efficient. For example, you could answer your emails and phone notifications in batches instead of interrupting work to answer them as the notification comes in. Introducing new habits and changing old ones will require daily diligence and repetition. Initially, it may seem draining, but over time you’ll find you are saving hours you can put to better use elsewhere. 8. Time as a strategic asset Leaders who learn to protect and optimise their schedules are the ones who build organisations that are sharper, faster, and more resilient. By prioritising ruthlessly, delegating effectively, automating smartly, and protecting your calendar, you can transform time from a constraint into a competitive advantage.

“Trustees remain accountable for all tax matters of a trust, regardless of the economic activity of the trust.” (SARS) The official trust filing season for the 2025 year of assessment is now open for both provisional and non-provisional taxpayers – and SARS has issued stern warnings to trustees to fulfil their tax obligations. Who must file trust tax returns? A trust is included under the definition of a “person” in terms of the ITA (Income Tax Act no.58 of 1962) and is therefore regarded as a taxpayer. All South African trusts, including resident and non-resident trusts, that are registered for income tax, must file a tax return annually, even if the trust is not economically active. A trustee is the representative taxpayer of a trust. Trustees or representatives must register the trust for income tax and file the required tax returns annually. Alternatively, a registered tax practitioner can be appointed as the representative taxpayer. What must be done? Taking into account recent changes to the legislation, trustees must submit their returns for the 2025 year of assessment and file the mandatory supporting documents listed further below. Recent legislative changes The “flow-through” principle is now limited to resident beneficiaries, so all amounts vested to non-resident beneficiaries are taxable in the hands of the trust. This also affects the submission requirements for provisional tax (IRP6). Foreign tax credits for taxes paid on income or capital gains earned in a foreign jurisdiction can now be used to prevent double taxation. From the 2025 tax year onwards, unused foreign tax credits will be carried forward automatically to the subsequent years of assessment, up to a maximum of six years. The Section 12H Learnership Agreement is extended to 31 March 2027. The definition of a trust is updated to include collective investment scheme portfolios. SARS has issued new rules on how losses relating to distributions are limited under section 25B. Return submissions The final deadline for the submission of provisional and non-provisional Trust Income Tax Returns (ITR12Ts) is 19 January 2026. Mandatory supporting documents

“Christmas is a season not only of rejoicing, but of reflection.” (Winston Churchill) Can you believe November is upon us already? But instead of panicking about Christmas presents, it’s time to get strategic. The end of the year presents a crucial opportunity to settle outstanding matters, measure your business's progress, and establish a strong foundation for a prosperous new year. This checklist can help you achieve this before December rolls around. Your 10-step checklist Back up your data: Back up essential files including accounting documents, client information, and emails. It’s a good idea to keep at least one copy on the cloud and another copy offline on an external hard drive in a secure location. Stay on top of employee matters: Update all employee information as well as employee access and passwords to software programs and computer systems. Conduct constructive performance appraisals or feedback sessions and share rewards and recognition for notable contributions. Connect with your customers: Send festive season wishes and details of your holiday operating hours, and invite your customers to give feedback about your company. Add an out-of-office notification on all your communication channels with specific dates as well as an emergency number. Understand your financial position: Management accounts or reports like the income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement provide insight into the expense patterns, profit margins, revenue trends and financial health of your business, enabling informed decisions. Understand your tax position: Make sure you know your various tax obligations, liabilities and deadlines, and any tax deductions and credits you may qualify for before year-end. Review marketing and sales efforts: Evaluate which strategies worked, which didn't, and why. Collect outstanding invoices: Get your December invoices out as early as possible and don't let unpaid invoices carry over into the new year. Follow up on overdue payments now to boost cash flow and start fresh in January. Verify supplier information: Update your supplier database by confirming contact details, while also evaluating supplier relationships and negotiating better terms. Take stock: Take a physical inventory of all equipment, supplies and stock to better meet customer demand, identify any discrepancies in your records, prepare tax returns and insurance proposals, and effect necessary repairs, maintenance and upgrades. Set a specific day for the count, organise the space, record quantities, and calculate total value. Audit your digital presence: Test every link on your website, check your contact forms, review your social media profiles and call your business number to ensure everything works. Start 2026 off on the right foot Once you’ve ended the year right, you can start focusing on what’s to come. Use your financial statements, marketing and sales reviews, customer feedback and team input to evaluate progress on last year's goals and to set new ones. Create a high-level action plan for each goal to guide your progress throughout the coming year. Please contact us if you need any help with this.

07 October – Monthly Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE) submissions and payments 20 October – End of Filing Season 2025 for Individual taxpayers 24 October – Value-Added Tax (VAT) manual submissions and payments 30 October – Excise Duty payments 31 October – VAT electronic submissions and payments and CIT Provisional Tax payments.

“Accounting is the language of business.” (Warren Buffett) Increasingly, banks and other organisations are requiring businesses to submit up-to-date management accounts when applying for finance. This is because these compact financial reports enable business analysis even when the latest annual financial statements are not yet available. Management accounts also offer owners and managers timely, accurate and actionable financial insights that facilitate performance evaluation, smart management decisions and informed planning – all of which can transform how your business operates and grows. What are management accounts? Management accounts are a set of summarised financial reports. They’re similar to annual financial statements but they aren’t as formal, and they’re produced much more frequently – usually monthly or quarterly. They’re all about providing relevant financial data for informed business decision-making. As such, there’s no fixed format. Instead, management accounts should summarise and combine the financial reports you need to make smarter decisions. These financial reports might include some or all of the following.

“Taking bold action on climate change simply makes good business sense. It's also the right thing to do for people and the planet.” (Richard Branson) Climate change impacts the fundamentals of business operations. Rising heat affects productivity, floods and storms damage infrastructure, droughts disrupt supply chains, and new regulations increase compliance costs. Many leaders still believe their sector will be spared, but no industry is truly insulated. Just as one-third of startups fail because they never properly defined their target market, businesses that fail to assess climate risks may find their models undermined by forces beyond their control. The message is clear: failing to future-proof your business, will result in extremely hard times ahead. Start with the risks you’re facing The first step is to identify which climate risks could most directly affect your operations. These can be physical (think floods, wildfires, and extreme temperatures), or transitional, such as regulatory changes and shifts in customer expectations. According to the latest prediction models, South Africans can expect a hotter, more erratic climate with the country warming at about twice the global average. This means more very hot days that will hurt worker productivity and equipment reliability. On top of this, the country is also experiencing heavier downpours with increased flood damage. These damaging floods, such as those seen KwaZulu-Natal in April 2022 and the Western Cape in September 2023, will result in enormous insurance and economic losses and prolonged business disruption. Despite the flooding, the country is also not in the clear when it comes to water stress. The 2015–2018 Cape Town “Day Zero” drought was devastating for car wash businesses but a boon for borehole drillers. Day Zero may have been avoided, but there will be more droughts in the future. All of these issues can lead to stock and agriculture failures, infrastructure collapse and process interruptions. A lack of water, for example, creates cleaning and hygiene issues as well as lower staff productivity. Insurers in SA have been reporting increasing weather losses and rising catastrophe claims, which will continue to feed through to higher premiums and excesses and tougher underwriting in high-risk zones. You can only build a realistic plan once you understand exactly where your exposures lie. Build a climate profile for your business Once you understand the risk categories, create a profile detailing how they intersect with your company. You need to consider your location, your sector, your suppliers and your employees. A warehouse on a floodplain carries different risks from a retail store in a heat-stressed city. Manufacturing firms may depend on inputs that are vulnerable to drought or fire, and employees may struggle in adverse weather conditions. Many exposures sit within the supply chain, where a small disruption upstream can ripple through global markets. For example, higher than usual temperatures may result in crops failing, or greater costs for HVAC and cold logistics services. Have you factored in these costs being passed on to your business? This profile should be updated regularly, as conditions, regulations, and technologies evolve and more is learnt about the severity of future weather patterns. Segment your strategy Not every part of your business will need the same response. While operations may require investments in resilient infrastructure or more efficient energy use, supply chains might need diversification or tighter contracts with suppliers to ensure continuity. Products and services may need to change as customers shift their preferences toward sustainable options. Segmenting your approach enables you to focus on the areas that matter most. Use data to drive decisions Climate planning is most effective when it’s based on evidence rather than assumptions. It is vital that any planning you do is based on the data from climate models, insurance assessments, and financial analyses. Tracking information like rising temperatures, energy costs, and new compliance regulations will turn climate risk from an abstract concern into a measurable factor in your strategy. In South Africa, municipal climate plans are being adjusted to redraw floodplain rules and heat-safety requirements. Is your business going to even be compliant when they come in? Talk to your stakeholders Your customers, employees, suppliers, and investors are able to offer different perspectives that could keep you ahead of any climate disasters. Customers can tell you what matters most in their purchasing decisions, employees may note practical changes to streamline daily operations and suppliers can share concerns that could highlight problems you had not foreseen. Talking to all of your stakeholders is more important than it’s ever been. Climate planning is an ongoing process Preparing for climate change is not something you can set and forget. It requires regular review and adjustment as risks, regulations, and technologies change. Businesses that take structured action now don’t just reduce their exposure – they’ll also become more attractive to capital investment and build long-term resilience. Climate change is already reshaping the way companies operate. The question is no longer whether it will affect your business but whether you are ready to respond. Speak to us if you need help allocating budget for climate resilience strategies.

“Paying yourself isn’t selfish, it’s sustainable. The goal is to strike a balance that supports your personal life without compromising the growth of your company.” (Salim Omar, CPA and serial entrepreneur) Many founders see skipping their own salary as a noble way to fund growth. In reality, underpaying yourself often backfires. Research shows that 82% of small business failures stem from cash flow problems and unpaid founders can mask true costs, distort margins, and create hidden financial pressure – and that’s just the start of it. What’s the real cost of your time? When founders refuse to take a salary, they are effectively treating their own time as free. In the scramble to conserve cash, they tell themselves they can wait to be paid until profits improve. But unpaid labour is not free. By not recognising this cost, you skew the economics of your business. Imagine you hire a manager to take over your duties. Their salary would immediately appear as a line item. By not paying yourself, you are masking a true expense. This can mislead investors, lenders, and even yourself about whether the business model is sustainable and prevent changes that need to be made. Pricing, margins, and growth targets all look healthier than they are, setting you up for shocks later. This is why savvy investors prefer to see founders compensated fairly. An unpaid or underpaid founder may seem admirable in the short term, but it raises questions about whether they and the company can endure the demands of growth. Burnout is real Founders who delay setting a salary usually do so because they are waiting for a day when they feel the business has “earned it.” The problem is that this line keeps moving. There’s always another milestone, another round of investment, or another expense that feels more urgent. Meanwhile the founder is likely eroding personal savings, undermining their career advancement elsewhere and causing stress and sleepless nights in their own home. A survey by Kruze Consulting of over 200 venture-backed start-ups found that business owners who underpaid themselves for too long often burned out and quit before their companies reached key milestones. By paying yourself out, and minimising the financial risks at home, you can avoid the same fate. Tax benefits Not paying yourself a salary isn’t doing the company as many favours as you expect. All expenses put through the company (including salaries) reduce your company’s tax burden, meaning that the benefit you’re providing the company by not taking a salary is significantly smaller than you think. As a general rule, it’s advised that you take 50% or less of the business’ net profits as compensation and save the rest for reinvestment, but each company is different. As your accountants, we can help you to structure the salary you pay yourself to ensure that the greatest benefit is achieved for all concerned – thereby lessening any guilt you may feel for taking a salary before the business is “ready”. The effect on morale One of the more surprising aspects of not paying yourself a salary is the impact it has on staff morale. Salaries are a hot topic in any business, and the founder’s salary is carefully watched by all who work there. Paying too much to the CEO or founder can lead to resentment, with staff feeling that difficulties on the floor are not shared in the board or that the effort at lower levels is not being adequately compensated. Likewise, founders who take no salary, or a significantly reduced salary, instil distrust and fear among employees who begin to suspect that the company is struggling and likely to go under. This can lead to job-security worries, lower job satisfaction, increases in absenteeism, quiet quitting and higher than normal staff turnover – all of which will impact the business’ bottom line. Paying yourself is paying your business Refusing to take a salary may feel like dedication, but over time it will eat away at both you and your company. Underpaying yourself masks the true cost of operations, distorts financial planning models, breaks employee morale and increases the risk of burnout. Setting a realistic salary is not selfish, it is a structural choice that strengthens transparency, stability, and resilience. Let data guide the choice. Track your revenue, costs, and cash flow. And compare your compensation to industry benchmarks for founders at similar stages. Businesses survive when their leaders are healthy, focused, and honest about costs. By recognising your worth and paying yourself accordingly, you are not taking from the business, you are ensuring it has a solid foundation on which to grow. Speak to us if you’d like help with your salary structure.