Research & Development Could Be A Positive Outcome From COVID-19

Welcome to winter!  It looks like there is going to be plenty of snow in the south and hopefully businesses will be able to recommence operations.

Last week Andrew Ward a Foundation Director of Crowdfunding Institute of Australia gave an overview of the crowdfunding industry in Australia. 

This week Peter Towers introduces research and development activities into this theme because some of your clients may have spent the lockdown period pursuing a research and development idea and they'll need systems and processes to be able to claim the Research and Development Tax Incentive.  Next week, we continue the innovation theme when we will introduce Renee Chilton from AusIndustry to give an overview of the Federal government grants that are available to assist people and businesses who have developed new products, processes or services.

Research and development requires the identification of new knowledge from research activities.  Researchers need to be able to describe how the outcome of the core activities in the project could not have been known or determined in advance on the basis of current knowledge, information or experience.

We will discuss the requirements to apply for an “Overseas Finding” if your client wishes to claim any part of the project being conducted overseas.

We'll also discuss the development of research and development plans as these are a very important part of the documentation that has to be prepared and retained relating to each research and development project for which a claim is going to be made under the Research and Development Tax Incentive.

Priscilla Bea Smith, Partner, Cloud Nine Associates Pty Ltd, will discuss training of accountants and bookkeepers to understand the intricacies of the taxation system and how bookkeepers can ensure their work contributes to accurate Business Activity Statements being prepared and how younger accountants can improve their skills and knowledge of taxation matters by participating in advanced training courses.  These type of activities will contribute to accounting firms being able to offer an outstanding range of taxation services to assist their clients to negotiate the significant challenges that COVID-19 is currently presenting and will continue to present post 30th September 2020.

To register for this webinar, Friday 5th June 2020 at 12-noon AEST, please go to the ESS BIZTOOLS' website > Webinars.

If you missed the opportunity of participating in our "COVID-19 Survival Panel" webinar last Friday, we suggest that you (click here) to link to the "COVID-19 Survival Panel" webinars and webinar recordings because the presentations made by Jordan Lowry, Managing Director, Blackstone Business Group and Andrew Ward, Foundation Independent Director, Crowdfunding Institute of Australia, were outstanding.

Jordan Lowry’s presentation “Impact and Mindset – COVID-19” was thought-provoking and summarised Jordan’s experience of dealing with businesses and employees over the last 2 months as they encountered the problems caused by “COVID-19 coronavirus”.

“It’s important for business owners and managers to take time out to care for yourself, because it is very difficult to work if you’re ill or suffering other problems”.

“As a business owner – it’s easy to burn out”.

“It’s important to allocate time to focus on important issues – don’t be a slave to emails”.

“Goalsetting is important – how do we motivate ourselves – we do that by having goals and measuring our success against those goals each day”.

"Set a goal and if it was something that actually means more to you and you may see some really, really big changes!”

Andrew Ward spoke about the challenges confronting businesses, especially the financing of businesses:

"There are a lot of businesses going through pain and it’s important to realise that your competitors are doing that too”.

“Focus is really important – if you can become the leanest cat in the jungle, you can survive”.

“You need to go hard at times, but to know when to slow down and take a break”.

“As the banks start retreating and need to be even more frugal with their investments, it will be more difficult to secure loans from banks and businesses will need to be open-minded to bringing on equity.  There is opportunities to bring equity partners into businesses operated by SMEs utilising Crowd Sourced Funding Equity Raising”.

“But you know, there will be businesses that are not prepared to do equity crowdfunding and can’t get debt and the opportunities will be missed.  It’s important that accountants and advisors to small business are in the position that they can advise clients succinctly”.

Both Andrew Ward and Jordan Lowry made a range of further comments that, I believe, accountants will find quite interesting and motivational in these difficult times.

You can access the PowerPoint slides used by Andrew Ward in his presentation in “Want To Know More”. 

Want to know more about the services that are available from ESS BIZTOOLS and our Affiliates to assist you to proactively assist your SME clients on a wide range of business improvement services which you could offer to your clients?  If so, I invite you to visit the ESS BIZTOOLS' website > Survival in Difficult Times > Learn More where you will be able to view an overview of the material included in the product packages that incorporates COVID-19 products.

Remember we are presenting the special webinars for accountants each Friday at 12-noon AEST until 30th September 2020.

If you would like to have discussions relative to the products and services that ESS BIZTOOLS can provide to you, please send us an email - or phone 1800 232 088.

Stay safe!

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Have a great day.