Research from accounting software company Intuit Quickbooks suggests one in three SMEs consider tax time one of the most stressful times of the year. And we might be in September, but plenty of businesses are yet to finalise their tax for FY23.
Jennifer Duke talks to Australian comedian and radio presenter Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann, who started out as an accountant before shifting to comedy. They’re also joined by Damien Greathead, Accountant & Advisor Lead at Intuit Quickbooks Australia, for a very entertaining chat about what businesses can do to ease tax-time pressures.
Intuit Quickbooks is a supporter of this podcast
Find out more: https://fearandgreed.com.au
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Jennifer Duke: Welcome to the Fear and Greed business interview. I’m Jennifer Duke.
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Jennifer Duke: We might already be into September, but I reckon it’s
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Jennifer Duke: a safe bet that plenty of businesses are yet to
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Jennifer Duke: finalise their tax for the last financial year. Unsurprisingly, research
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Jennifer Duke: from accounting software company Intuit QuickBooks suggests that almost one
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Jennifer Duke: in three small and medium-sized businesses consider tax time one
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Jennifer Duke: of the most stressful times of the year. So, I
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Jennifer Duke: wanted to do something a little bit different today. I’m
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Jennifer Duke: joined by not one, but two guests. Damien Greathead is
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Jennifer Duke: Accountant and Advisor Lead at Intuit QuickBooks, Australia, a supporter
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Jennifer Duke: of this podcast. Damien, welcome to Fear and Greed.
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Damien Greathead: Wonderful to be here, Jennifer. Thank you.
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Jennifer Duke: Our other guest started out as an accountant before finding
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Jennifer Duke: huge success as a comedian, radio presenter, and more. You’ve
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Jennifer Duke: probably heard of him, Anthony “Lehmo” Lehmann. Good morning,
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: Jen, it is a pleasure to be here, and dare
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: I say it, longtime listener, first time guest. Very excited.
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Jennifer Duke: So before we get to tax time, I really have
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Jennifer Duke: to know, how did you go from 10 years as
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Jennifer Duke: a chartered accountant to becoming a successful comedian? How does
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Jennifer Duke: a transition like that ever happen?
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: Yeah, well, it certainly didn’t happen overnight, but I was a chartered accountant for
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: 10 years. I say from 1991 to 1997. A little maths joke
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: there for you, Jen. But it was from 1991 to 2001 and I did standup comedy
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: at the same time, for seven of those years. So,
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: it was a very slow transition from accounting into comedy.
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: I didn’t wake up one morning, go, ” You know what? I
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: might have a crack at jokes.” But because I’m an
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: accountant and I’m very conservative, it took me a long
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: time to quit my day job. I really had to
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: make sure I was in a position to have a
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: crack at this career. Whereas most comedians I know just
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: go… They throw in their day job at the drop
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: of a hat and focus on comedy, but I really
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: took my time with it.
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Jennifer Duke: Well, it’s probably pretty good that you did, because I
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Jennifer Duke: believe that one of your comedy shows is called Taxing
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Jennifer Duke: Lyrical. So you obviously got a lot of material from
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Jennifer Duke: the accounting industry that helped. What do you think it
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Jennifer Duke: was about accounting that gave you so much humor?
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: You know what? One of the things that I really
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: tapped into in that show, is the lack of respect
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: that I think accounting gets from people. A, people say accountants
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: are boring, which I completely disagree with. I think accountants
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: aren’t boring, and I blame Monty Python for that. I
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: think Monty Python’s characterisation of accountants back in the sixties
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: and seventies led people to this conclusion that accountants are boring.
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: I don’t think that’s the case. I just think accountants
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: need better publicity, Jen. I think accountants need their own
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: TV show, which believe it or not, we don’t have,
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: There are TV shows for vets and doctors and lawyers.
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: Even ice road truckers get a TV show. I think
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: accountants should have a TV show and some working titles
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: for the TV show, Bondi Accountant could work. Accountant Wants
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: a Wife, that’s another option, or So You Think You
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: Can Add. I reckon that could work as well. So,
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: we just need better publicity. So, it was the divergence
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: between my view of accountants and the general public’s view
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: of accountants, was my main focus in that particular show, and
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: I told a few stories from my time as an accountant.
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Jennifer Duke: Well, maybe Damien will bring you in a little bit
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Jennifer Duke: here with some of your stories in the accounting landscape.
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Jennifer Duke: Where are most SMEs up to in terms of their
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Jennifer Duke: tax process right now? We’re in September. Have they wrapped
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Jennifer Duke: up FY23, or are we still working through it all?
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Damien Greathead: Oh Jennifer, I think people are only… those SMEs, they’re
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Damien Greathead: just getting started on their tax processes. I think the
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Damien Greathead: simplest tax returns and in terms of pay-as-you-go type client,
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Damien Greathead: they’re probably filed, they’ve probably filed themselves, but any of
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Damien Greathead: those folks with a slightly complicated return, such as having
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Damien Greathead: a business, they’re probably still deep in the process of
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Damien Greathead: still getting their documents together, getting everything in order and
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Damien Greathead: getting a complete set of records over to their accountant.
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Damien Greathead: I think that is one of the big challenges in
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Damien Greathead: the accounting industry, is these time deadlines and this squeezing
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Damien Greathead: of time as accountants sit there waiting for their clients
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Damien Greathead: to get the data into them so that they can
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Damien Greathead: get to work doing what they do best, which is
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Damien Greathead: processing that data and then finding ways in which they
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Damien Greathead: can minimize the tax liability for their clients.
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Jennifer Duke: Definitely. What are some of those kind of bigger mistakes
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Jennifer Duke: that you’re seeing SMEs making right now?
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Damien Greathead: Well, I think one of the biggest mistakes that we
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Damien Greathead: see is that people just aren’t organised. I think a
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Damien Greathead: lot of people leave their tax responsibilities until the last minute,
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Damien Greathead: and a whole lot of that stress… There’s as many
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Damien Greathead: as 30% of the population procrastinates and holds off because
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Damien Greathead: they don’t really understand the process associated with the year-end tax.
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Damien Greathead: But one of the key things that we found, is
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Damien Greathead: that just being organised throughout the course of the year,
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Damien Greathead: collecting information throughout the course of the year, using technology
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Damien Greathead: to do that, means that come tax time, everything’s at
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Damien Greathead: your fingertips, everything can be sent to your accountant with
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Damien Greathead: the click of a button, and that actually alleviates an
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Damien Greathead: enormous amount of stress for the SME business owner.
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Jennifer Duke: I feel like that needs to be all of our
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Jennifer Duke: tax New Year’s resolutions, start using the technology properly and
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Jennifer Duke: get on top of it all.
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Damien Greathead: Well, it’s the funny thing, the apps that are out
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Damien Greathead: there, and QuickBooks has a great mobile app obviously, which you can
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Damien Greathead: snap pictures of your receipts, Invoice on the Go. So,
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Damien Greathead: there’s no real reason that we should be doing our
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Damien Greathead: accounting or bookkeeping at the weekends or in the evenings.
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Damien Greathead: It should be on the go if we enable that
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Damien Greathead: technology to do exactly that.
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Jennifer Duke: Stay with me. We’ll be back in a minute.
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Jennifer Duke: My guests today are Aussie comedian, Anthony “Lehmo” Lehmann, and
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Jennifer Duke: Damien Greathead from Intuit QuickBooks, Australia. So, let’s look at
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Jennifer Duke: setting up better for the year ahead, as we were
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Jennifer Duke: talking about. It’s not too late right now. If you
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Jennifer Duke: haven’t done all those things and you are sort of
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Jennifer Duke: staring down the barrel right now of how do you
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Jennifer Duke: get back on top of it, what’s your best advice?
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Damien Greathead: Best advice, if you’re not talking to an accountant or
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Damien Greathead: bookkeeper, it’s definitely worth the investment. They can help you
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Damien Greathead: identify the right tools for your business from an accounting
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Damien Greathead: perspective. So I think my number one piece of advice,
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Damien Greathead: if you don’t have a good advisor in that accounting
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Damien Greathead: and bookkeeping space, find one. Because they will help you
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Damien Greathead: get set up now, which will allow you to track
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Damien Greathead: everything throughout the course of the year, and actually probably
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Damien Greathead: give you a whole bunch more value and a whole
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Damien Greathead: lot more insights into what’s actually happening in your business.
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Damien Greathead: Interestingly, out of the research, one in three was stressed
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Damien Greathead: by tax season, but as much as 25% weren’t concerned
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Damien Greathead: about tax time, because they were connected to an accountant.
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Jennifer Duke: So, we are only eight weeks in. So, you’re basically
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Jennifer Duke: saying, “No one panic, it’s okay. It’s not too late.
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Jennifer Duke: You can still fix this if it’s a mess.” Right?
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Jennifer Duke: That is the takeaway.
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Damien Greathead: Yes, absolutely, Jennifer. I think there’s plenty of time to
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Damien Greathead: get on track for the new financial year. Obviously if
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Damien Greathead: we’re reaching into the glove box and the shoebox to
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Damien Greathead: get last year’s receipts and whatnot, there’s not much we
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Damien Greathead: can do about that now, but we can certainly focus
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Damien Greathead: on the new financial year.
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Jennifer Duke: So Lehmo, is it hard to motivate people once the
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Jennifer Duke: pressure of tax time has passed? It’s like that New
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Jennifer Duke: Year’s resolution that I was talking about. Everyone says they’re
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Jennifer Duke: going to do better, and then eight weeks later you
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Jennifer Duke: are putting your receipts back in the shoebox.
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: Yeah, exactly. QuickBooks has done some great research asking people
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: about the stress of tax time, and here’s some interesting
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: numbers for you, Jen. 17% of people have said they would
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: rather sit in the middle seat of a long haul
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: flight than do their tax return. Now, that is saying
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: something. If you’ve ever sat in the middle seat of
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: a long haul flight… I can’t sit in the middle
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: seat of a Melbourne Sydney flight, let alone a long
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: haul flight.
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Jennifer Duke: Or a train.
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: Yeah, 18% would rather make small talk with an unpleasant
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: neighbour than do their taxes, and one in five Aussies
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: would rather pick up dog poo than complete a tax return,
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: which I am very happy to pick up my own
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: dog’s poo. It’s other dog’s poo that I have an
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: issue with. So, it causes a lot of stress for people,
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: and we kind of picked up on this in the
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: series of sketches that I did with the QuickBooks team.
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: If you put it off for the whole year, you’re
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: courting a very stressful end of financial year. Just to
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: be on top of your financial situation, it’s actually empowering. I
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: know with myself, once I’ve finished my tax, I have
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: a deep sense of satisfaction. Instead of sitting in the
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: middle seat, it’s like being upgraded to business class, Jen.
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: That’s the joy I feel.
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Jennifer Duke: There needs to be a carrot dangled at the end of
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Jennifer Duke: the tax process, like a box of chocolates that waits
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Jennifer Duke: for you right after you’ve done it.
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: Yeah. But to me, I say… Because comedians are notoriously
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: bad when it comes to doing their taxes. I know one in particular, he didn’t
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: do a tax return for eight years, and it was quite a
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: successful period in that guy’s career, and when he eventually
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: got around to catching up on it all, it was
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: a very expensive and stressful time for him. You just
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: can’t let it go. But I say to certainly my
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: comedy friends, and this applies to all SMEs, if you
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: get on top of it and you do it, as
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: I said, the sense of satisfaction from being on top
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: of your financial situation is worth more than any carrot
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: you can dangle at the end of it, because it
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: allows you, even if your financial situation is not great,
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: it enables you to plan for the future.
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Jennifer Duke: That’s a great point. That’s a really great point. Damien,
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Jennifer Duke: Intuit has a lot of data at its disposal. What
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Jennifer Duke: does it tell us overall about those benefits of a
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Jennifer Duke: small business working with an accountant or bookkeeper and that
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Jennifer Duke: digging your way out of a situation and that future planning?
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Damien Greathead: Yeah, a couple of really interesting data points, Jennifer. First
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Damien Greathead: one being that stress that I mentioned earlier. So, 25%
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Damien Greathead: of Australians that don’t find the end-of-year tax process stressful,
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Damien Greathead: they’re connected to an accountant and bookkeeper. We know that
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Damien Greathead: the job satisfaction and business satisfaction as much as three
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Damien Greathead: times higher for those business owners that are connected with
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Damien Greathead: a really great accountant or bookkeeper. Also, we know that
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Damien Greathead: the likelihood of success, so the survival rates of small
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Damien Greathead: businesses beyond five years, those survival rates triple when you
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Damien Greathead: are connected with an accountant or bookkeeper. A lot of
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Damien Greathead: people think, ” I’m a startup, and I can’t afford an
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Damien Greathead: accountant or bookkeeper,” but I would actually say that you
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Damien Greathead: can’t afford not to have an accountant or bookkeeper, particularly
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Damien Greathead: in those early days, to make sure that you’re set
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Damien Greathead: up correctly, to make sure you’ve got the right tools
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Damien Greathead: in place, to make sure your cashflow is in a
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Damien Greathead: really great position because you might have great profits, but
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Damien Greathead: if you don’t have cashflow coming into the business, that’s
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Damien Greathead: incredibly stressful as well. So survival rates, threefold beyond that five-
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Damien Greathead: year mark when you’re connected to an accountant or bookkeeper. So,
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Damien Greathead: ask your friends, ask your colleagues or your local network
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Damien Greathead: who they go to for their accountant and bookkeeping, and
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Damien Greathead: I’m sure they’ll be able to help you get set
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Damien Greathead: up for success.
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Jennifer Duke: Damien and Lehmo, thank you both so much for talking to
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Jennifer Duke: Fear and Greed.
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Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann: An absolute pleasure, Jen. Thank you for having us on.
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Damien Greathead: Jennifer, thank you so much. Big fan of the podcast
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Damien Greathead: as well, and Lehmo, love your work. Thank you so much.
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Jennifer Duke: That was comedian and former accountant, Anthony “Lehmo” Lehmann and
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Jennifer Duke: Damien Greathead, accountant and advisor lead at Intuit QuickBooks Australia,
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Jennifer Duke: which is a supporter of this podcast. This is the
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Jennifer Duke: Fear and Greed Daily interview. Join us every morning for
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Jennifer Duke: the full episode of Fear and Greed, Australia’s best business podcast.
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Jennifer Duke: I’m Jennifer Duke, economics correspondent for Capital Brief and filling
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Jennifer Duke: in for Sean Elmer. Have a great day.