Blog
Welcome to our Personal Finance Blog
Money bewilders most of us. How to spend it, save it, invest it, and how to best protect the person who makes it.
These questions we all face daily — a puzzle we all attempt to understand and solve just about every day. Yet despite money's centrality to our lives and businesses, it's something we all grapple with, and mostly in private.
- Money is the 'Lord Voldemort' of topics; feared by most and mentioned by a few. It's oddly uncomfortable to discuss socially and rarely even with our partners, parents, and children.
Perhaps that's because managing our money and life's risks inevitably involves the fusion of both the emotional and practical aspects of our decision-making processes. The most difficult of questions are those with both economic and emotional answers.
Our educational Personal Finance Blog is for people who want to grow and remain wealthy. And while the journey toward wealth is clearly marked, you still have to be looking in the right direction.
At Sapience, we're all about The How.
Understanding the psychology of making good decisions
Ask many men ‘how they are feeling’ and they'll tell you ‘how they are thinking’ - because they don't understand the question.
The problem we face traditionally as men is, ‘How you think determines how you make decisions, so what determines how you think has a more direct and measurable impact upon your business then you may first, well, ‘Think’.
So how do we improve the quality and speed of the decisions we’re making every day, while decreasing decision overload? How do we know if we’re building the right service or product? – Such questions fundamentally come down to the quality of our decisions.
Surprise: Small Businesses are not just small corporations
Modern Small Businesses are not miniature versions of big business or large corporate organisations. And using the 'C word' in small business never gets you very far in the right direction.
Trying to apply the dysfunctional processes and slow responding mindsets of corporates to a Modern Small Business doesn’t work.
So how relevant is Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to Small Businesses?
Following your north-star in a very crowded world
Do you ever get the feeling that time is speeding up?
The major transitions in human history have been driven by the need to domesticate cattle and plants, the large-scale mechanisation of jobs; and now the immediate dissemination of information around the world upon demand.
With the arrival of each new age, the speed of change has left us wondering, where is this all going?
What's your defense against the dark arts, in business?
Ever had a bad day at the office? Ever had a tough week?
Maybe the last 2 years in business haven’t been what you hoped for.
Perhaps Harry Potter and his mates can relate.
Growth
We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and everyone should be really excellent. Because this is our life. ― Steve Jobs
The Australian Fair Work Commission has determined a Philippines based 'independent contractor' was an employee unfairly dismissed by her Australian employer.
The recent case of Ms Joanna Pascua v Doessel Group Pty Ltd highlights just some of the issues Australian businesses face when working with overseas contractors and staff.
- In this case, on weight, the FWC determined Ms Pascua was an employee because the contract indicated Ms Pascua was required to perform work “in the business of another”, instead of for her own enterprise.
In August 2024, a new definition of what is an employee and employer came into effect in the Fair Work Act.
This new definition extends the High Court’s decision in CFMMEU v. Personnel Contracting Pty Ltd and ZG Operations Pty Ltd and Jamsek to rely on the nature of the contract between the parties, not just what the contract says.
- The intent of the legislative change appears to be to ensure that clever drafting of a contract alone will not be sufficient to define an independent contractor arrangement.
- The Fair Work Act now requires that the true relationship between the parties is, “determined by ascertaining the real substance, practical reality and true nature of the relationship between the individual and the person.” The totality of the relationship needs to be considered including how the contract is performed in practice.
What does this decision mean for employers?
What makes this decision unusual is how an international employment arrangement can be drawn into the national workplace system.
Regardless of the geographic location of an employee, if your business is an Australian national system employer (bound by the Fair Work Act), and the individual is deemed to be an employee, the same rights and obligations may apply to that employee as to other employees located in Australia, and to ensure you have characterised the employment relationship correctly.
- Intentional underpayment of wages or entitlements can be a criminal offence
- ATO revises advice fee tax deductible rules
- Payday Super changes pending
- Minimum wages increase from 1 July 2024
- New tax on people who have more than $3m in their Superannuation?
- Pay your employees’ super on time
- Take advantage of the 1 July 2024 Super Cap Increases
