Most of the roughly 2.4 million businesses in Australia are an ABN – someone working for themselves. Most have a home office or work space where the “paper work stuff” gets done.

Here are a few thoughts on that

1. The space should not be shared with your home activities. It should be a place that is in your head set aside for getting the work done or if it is a shared space, like a dining room table. Have routines that puts you into a “this is work, this is my office” frame of mind.
2. Have a good idea of the cost allocation – we certainly can help with this and it can be very tricky. If you own your own house you don’t want to create a capital gain tax event because of the way you claim, on the other hand you don’t want to miss out on legitimate claims.
3. Get a real routine going – for example Tuesday night, you put in an hour for writing the previous weeks invoicing’s. The first Thursday in every month you make sure all bills for the last month are paid and filed in an envelope with that months date on it. All of these routines add up to not forgetting to get paid, pay your bills and stay on top of taxes.

We have seen thousands of businesses with a home office start to make legitimate claims for home office expenses and while it’s usually a small percentage of home bills and looks small it really adds up over a year.

Got a home office? Want to know more? Contact us at Your Business Angels / Fresh Numbers and discuss what you can claim for your home office.