December, 2020
 
A Meri Kirihimete to all of our clients, supporters and networks this year. Here we share about our impact in the community, our progress and some quick business updates for our clients.

Kia ora koutou,

Meri kirihimete me ngā mihi o te tau hou
Merry Christmas and New Year salutations

This year has been huge, and we wanted to share some of the positive moments and milestones that we have all collectively contributed to as the Social Currency team.

At the end of this month we will hit 2 years and 4 months into Social Currency. Together we’ve made a significant impact in the lives of local youth across New Zealand.

Since growing to over 400 clients, we want to continue to provide kiwi businesses with access to valuable and affordable tax and accounting advice.

We've created low-cost resources to download online and continue to post a weekly tax tip on Facebook. We also joined a couple of our clients, Ryan Ashton from AFQY and John-Jo Ritson from Flashworks to share tax and government relief information when we were in lockdown. 

We wanted to share with you all first, that with the support of our clients and wider team, so far we have donated $67,769 to supporting at-risk kiwi kids!

If you follow us and know that we donate 10% of revenue, this total comes from $677,694 of accounting, tax, advisory and impact reporting services provided to clients. We've also donated an additional $3,315 to other organisations in the community supporting kiwi kids and their whanau.

This takes our total donations made since day one to $71,084 - so we're pretty excited about continuing our impact! These donations are changing lives; every dollar is contributing to providing mentors and positive role models so that kiwi kids can be successful no matter what.

We've supported our four partner charities with over $26,000 in donations and support in the last 9 months. These are established organisations working to support resilience & success in kiwi kids. You can see our partner charities here.

Your decision to partner with us is benefiting our community. We value all of your support hugely, whether you’re a client, partner charity, business partner, referrer or support us in other ways.

Quick updates for clients:

- By now you should have received your tax reminders for the 15th of January provisional tax. 

- If you've received a student loan notice or receive one shortly, please refer to your myIR for the current balance and amounts due (we don't have access to this information and rely on what the IRD provides our system).

- We have received some information from the IRD in relation to 2021. The Government has proposed a package to support businesses and individuals in the
event of Alert Level escalations due to resurgences of COVID-19 in the community. The package retains some key existing financial support and adds new elements based on experience and business feedback. This allows businesses to plan knowing what support they will receive if Alert Levels rise to 2 or above and they are directly impacted. This support will be available late February or early March 2021 subject to the necessary legislation being passed. For further detail, please see the Minister of Finance’s media statement.

- You can check out what's happening across NZ in business via Xero's update here.

- There's a new top tax bracket coming next year, pending legislation. This is where the IRD attribution rules come into play for higher income earners.

- The Small Business Cashflow (loan) Scheme has been extended until the end of 2023. Applications opened on 12 May 2020 and can now be submitted up to and including 31 December 2023. Interest will not be charged if the loan is fully paid back within 2 years.

We will close for the holiday period on Friday 18 December at 5pm, we'll be open again with Renee in the office on Wednesday 13 January.

Wishing you all a well-deserved break, and we look forward to working with you to support your business and vision in 2021 and beyond.

If you’d like to find out more about working with us to support at-risk youth, please get in touch.

Ngā mihi nui,

Lisa and the Social Currency team

Cholmondeley Children's Centre: impact partnership

Social Currency supported the recent Cholmondeley sailing regatta and had a few clients join us for a sailing experience around Lyttelton Harbour.

The day was a huge success and together we raised an amazing $13,670 for Cholmondeley Children's Centre! These funds will go directly towards their annual operating budget of $2.3 million which is 80% community funded.

Pictured: Lisa, Hannah, Eamonn, Renee and Conrad

Social Currency - 9 months of impact

Social Currency has made a significant impact in the first 9 months of the 2020-2021 financial year. Together with our clients, we've been able to donate over $28,000 from the 1st of April 2020. No matter what we are committed to donating 10% of sales. 

In lieu of client Christmas gifts we made a donation to Variety Children's Charity and they gave us a phone call with this feedback for us: "we are super thankful for your donation and it's going to be helping kids have a special Christmas this year". ❤

We look forward to the next 3 months through to 31 March and remain positive about the following 12 months. We will continue working to make a difference through our 10% impact model.

Merry Christmas from our team - 2021 is going to look a bit different for us at Social Currency.. introducing our new team members

Lisa and Renee have been your points of contact and will continue to be. We are excited to share that in 2021 we will be growing our team to better support our clients.

In January we will have Annelies Dixon joining us as an operations, administrative and projects support, Sophie Herbert is with us as bookkeeping support, Martina Marr is a contract accountant with us and we have a fourth intern from Ara Institute of Canterbury, Jayat Dhawan, joining us in February. 

In great news we were able to support two of our previous interns, Simi and Jess, into fulltime employment with other accounting firms. We've also been working recently with our third intern, Tyla, who has been an amazing team member throughout 2020.

We'll share new team photos in the New Year!

This year we launched the eBook of the first 12 months of Social Currency - and it's on sale this Christmas!

Do you want to create a lasting impact? Learn about how Lisa created a successful impact business in 12 months. Download the eBook for our 🎄Christmas🎄 special of $19 here: https://www.socialcurrency.co.nz/ebook
This could be the gift you are looking for to inspire someone you know who has been thinking about starting a business too 🎇

Help us help more at-risk youth

Social Currency supports local at-risk youth by donating 10% of our revenue to charities and youth programmes in our community. If you’re looking for an accountant and business advisor with a difference, you can partner with us to benefit local youth. If you’re a charity or business who wants to align with Social Currency, there are many ways you can support us.