business records – Terrace Consulting

The business impact of the recent earthquake and aftershocks

November 28, 2016November 28, 2016 by Judy

Some interesting snippets coming out of the aftermath of the recent earthquake and aftershocks.

Forsyth Barr were caught out in Christchurch in 2011 when they couldn’t get back into their building to access paper documents that were not in electronic form. As a Forsyth Barr director said” you have to assume you will never get back in.” Forsyth Barr arranged for computers and a place for their staff to work but couldn’t replace the original documents stuck in their condemned building in Christchurch. They did however put a plan in place that worked for them this time when their Lower Hutt office was closed after the 14 November earthquake.

Some legal firms in Christchurch only had paper copies of wills and lost them in 2011. How embarrassing!

Electronic filing

November 23, 2015November 23, 2015 by Judy

Four years ago I wrote about the business decision you needed to make about whether to store business information in paper format or in electronic format. Or both.

Paper or paperless?

October 29, 2015November 4, 2015 by Judy

A recent article from Xero explained the main reasons why paper is still in common use for keeping a record of business matters. These reasons as cited by Xero are:

Geriatric care and business information : commonalities

August 24, 2015October 28, 2015 by Judy

My mother is 93 and living in a rest home. I’m not terribly happy with her situation and I’ve been reading Atul Gawande’s book “Being Mortal” looking for better options for people like her. I was surprised in the first few chapters to find some similarities with business information systems.

Where is the valuable intelligence in your business

August 13, 2015October 28, 2015 by Judy

Business information, whether electronic and hard copy, holds valuable intelligence about your business activities.

Losing this valuable information, or being unable to access it quickly when needed, could result in loss of contracts and lower profits.

Your business and the ‘Cloud’

July 23, 2015October 28, 2015 by Judy

You’ve heard of the ‘Cloud’ and probably wonder what it’s all about. Although at a basic level it’s really only another term for ‘Internet,’ the ‘Cloud’ is a way of storing information resources so that they can be easily accessed and shared when you’re away from the office. Another major benefit is

A structured electronic filing environment or a random Google-type search process

July 6, 2015October 28, 2015 by Judy

A structured electronic filing environment works better than having a ‘bucket’ of items that you search right through to find the item you want

What does this mean and what is the difference?

The value of document management systems

June 17, 2015September 7, 2016 by Judy

I’ve never been a great fan of electronic document management systems. I can see how they can be useful but I’ve seen a lot that, in spite of hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to install them, are not used effectively because the people who are expected to use them find them too hard.

Now there are many reasons for this and it’s not always the fault of the system itself.

End-of-year tax advice

March 14, 2015October 28, 2015 by Judy

I’ve researched tax information in various countries to offer you the following links to help you to prepare your records so your accountant can prepare your annual accounts in the most efficient and cost-effective way.

Shoebox filing

March 11, 2015October 28, 2015 by Judy

Recently I’ve noticed a number of accountants offer their services to do a one-off service to sort out the shoe boxes of paper records their clients bring to them. It seems that a lot of small business owners still put all their receipts and invoices into a box or maybe a folder or envelope and don’t bother to look at them again.