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July, August and September are done. The first quarter of the financial year is in the books, and the Q1 BAS is due on 28 October for most businesses that lodge it themselves.
Back in August we wrote about why Q1 matters and what to do while it was underway. This is the other half of that conversation. The quarter is over, so the question now is what it’s actually telling you.
The revenue figure for the quarter matters less than the gap between it and what you expected.
Put Q1 next to two things: the estimate you made for the year back in July, and the same quarter last year. If you’re ahead, find out why. If you’re behind, find out whether it’s timing or a trend.
One quarter can mislead. A large job that landed in the last week of September. A slow July after the end-of-financial-year rush. A price rise that only started in August.
Three months show direction, not destination. The useful question to ask of every surprise is simple: will it happen again next quarter?
A business can have a strong quarter on paper and a thin bank balance at the same time.
Look at what customers owe you and how long it’s taking to arrive. Look at what you’ve already committed to, like stock, equipment or a new hire. And look at what’s been set aside for tax. If profit is up but cash hasn’t followed, that’s worth understanding before the holiday period, when slower trade and staff leave often land together.
This was also the first quarter where super guarantee left the account with each pay run, rather than in one payment after the quarter ended.
If cash felt tighter than usual in July and August, that may be part of the reason. Your Q1 figures are the first real read on how the new rhythm sits with your cash flow, and whether your buffer needs adjusting.
The most useful thing to do with Q1 is to redo your full-year estimate.
That revised number feeds almost everything that follows. Your likely tax position. Whether your tax instalments still look right. How much you can comfortably draw from the business. Whether a planned purchase still makes sense. How much room there may be for super contributions before 30 June.
Your Q1 BAS, the list of who owes you money, your bank balance on 30 September and the estimate you made in July. Put those four side by side and most of the story is there.
Q1 won’t tell you how the year ends. It will tell you whether the plan you made in July still holds.
As always, if anything sparks a question or you’d like to sense-check your position, we’re here for a conversation.
Call 1300 866 113 or book via our website.
For the first time in two years, the super contribution caps moved on 1 July.
That sounds like an administrative detail. For business owners it’s more than that, because super is one of the few places where you decide how much goes in, when it goes in, and which entity pays for it.
Here’s what changed, what it means, and where the timing matters this financial year.
The super guarantee rate stays at 12%. What changed for employers is when it’s paid. More on that below.
Concessional contributions go in before personal tax. They include super guarantee your business pays for you, salary sacrifice, and personal contributions you claim as a tax deduction.
Inside the fund they’re generally taxed at 15%, which is why they’re worth planning. If your income plus concessional contributions comes to more than $250,000, an extra 15% (Division 293 tax) can apply to some or all of them.
The cap covers all of it combined, across every fund you hold. If your company pays you a salary, the super guarantee on that salary uses up part of the $32,500 before you add anything yourself. Check what’s already gone in before topping up.
If you plan to claim a deduction for a personal contribution, there’s an order to it. You give your fund a notice of intent to claim, and the fund needs to acknowledge it. The deduction depends on that step being done properly.
If your total super balance was under $500,000 on 30 June 2026, you may be able to use unused concessional cap amounts from up to five previous years.
This matters for owners whose income swings. A lean year followed by a strong one is exactly when this rule earns its keep.
Unused amounts only last five years. Anything left over from 2021–22 needs to be used by the end of this financial year, 30 June 2027, or it expires. Your available amounts are shown in ATO online services.
Non-concessional contributions come from money you’ve already paid tax on. The proceeds of an asset sale, an inheritance, or cash built up outside the business.
The annual cap is $130,000. If you’re under 75 and your total super balance was under $1.84 million on 30 June 2026, the bring-forward rule lets you contribute up to $390,000 at once by using the next two years’ caps early. Between $1.84 million and $1.97 million, that limit drops to $260,000. Between $1.97 million and $2.1 million, there’s no bring-forward, only the $130,000 annual cap. At $2.1 million or more, your non-concessional cap is nil.
One detail to know: once you trigger the bring-forward, later increases to the cap don’t lift it. Your limit is set by the year you start.
If you sell a business and qualify for the small business CGT concessions, some of the proceeds may be able to go into super without counting towards the non-concessional cap, up to a lifetime limit. For 2026–27 that limit is $1,935,000.
The qualifying rules are detailed, and the order you do things in counts. This one is worth planning well before contracts are signed.
From 1 July 2026, super guarantee is paid with each pay run rather than quarterly. It’s calculated at 12% of qualifying earnings and generally needs to reach each employee’s fund within 7 business days of payday. Longer deadlines apply in some cases, such as a new employee’s first contribution.
If your own company pays you a salary, the same rules apply to your super.
It’s a cash-flow change as much as a compliance one. The quarterly buffer has gone, so super now leaves the account in step with wages.
Three questions set up the year. How much has already gone into super since 1 July, including super guarantee? Do you have unused cap from earlier years, and does any of it expire on 30 June 2027? Is anything larger coming, like a sale, a property settlement or an unusually strong year, that could change the picture?
Your latest payslips, your fund statements, the carry-forward screen in ATO online services and last year’s tax return. That’s most of what we need to map out your contributions for the year.
Super rewards decisions made early in the financial year, not in the last week of June.
As always, if anything sparks a question or you’d like to sense-check your position, we’re here for a conversation.
Call 1300 866 113 or book via our website.
The end-of-year break is closer than it feels. And if it’s anything like most years, somewhere between Boxing Day and the end of January, with the phone quiet and nowhere to be, someone at the table will say it out loud. We could get used to this.
Ask most people and they’ll give you a number. 60. 65. The year the mortgage is finally gone.
But the number is rarely the point. What matters is what sits behind it.
For some, it’s freedom. The day work becomes something you choose rather than something you have to do.
For some, it’s a very specific dream. Finishing early. Taking the long trip while you’ve still got the energy for it. Being around for the grandkids, or finally seeing the places you’ve talked about for twenty years, with the people you want beside you.
For others, it’s security. Less a dream than a quiet confidence that if your health, your industry or your circumstances made the call for you, you’d be okay. That matters more than people admit. According to the ABS, only a third of Australian retirees say they left work because they reached retirement age. For about one in five, it was their health or losing their job that decided it.
And some people love what they do and have no intention of stopping. For them, retirement isn’t an end date. It’s the point where they keep working because they want to, not because they have to.
Different numbers, same goal: getting to the point where work is a choice.
Once you know what’s behind your number, it becomes something you can plan around.
Two ages are worth knowing. Your super generally becomes available at your preservation age, which is 60 for anyone born on or after 1 July 1964, although before 65 you’ll usually need to meet a condition of release such as retiring. The Age Pension starts at 67, subject to the income and assets tests. If your number is earlier than 67, the years in between are funded by what you’ve built yourself.
The earlier you know that, the more room you have to plan for it.
For business owners, retirement isn’t just a date. It’s usually a sale, a handover, or a gradual step back, and the way your business is set up has a lot to say about how that goes.
How the business is owned. Whether a company, trust or partnership still suits where you’re heading. How you draw income from it today, and how much of that ends up working for you in super or investments outside the business. Who takes over, and whether they’re ready.
Your personal finances sit in the same picture. The family home, investment property, a family trust or an SMSF. When they’re set up to work together, the plan holds up better when life changes course.
Good structure isn’t only about protection. Planned well, and planned early, it can also mean keeping more of what you’ve built.
That might come down to how and when super contributions are made, how income is drawn from the business over time, or how a future sale is structured. There are tax concessions designed specifically for small business owners who sell, and whether you qualify often depends on decisions made well before the sale.
This isn’t about aggressive schemes. It’s about using the rules as they’re intended, with enough time to do it properly.
Start the conversation now, while there’s still room in the year. Talk it over with the people who are part of the picture. Work out what you’d actually want your days to look like, and roughly when.
Then bring that picture to us and we’ll test it against the numbers. That’s the part we can help with.
As always, if anything sparks a question or you’d like to sense-check your position, we’re here for a conversation.
Call 1300 866 113 or book via our website.
Retail and hospitality businesses operate under a unique kind of pressure. The doors are open, the venue is busy, and revenue can look exceptionally healthy on a Friday night. Yet when the end of the month arrives, the actual margin left over is often thinner than the till suggests.
Rising input costs, award rate increases and the unpredictable nature of seasonal trade mean that managing a retail or hospitality business requires more than just making sales. It requires tight financial control and a structure built for resilience.
We consistently see three areas that separate the businesses that get by from those that build value.
Knowing your daily or weekly break-even point is critical, but it is a moving target in hospitality and retail. When supplier prices rise or award rates go up, that number changes. Owners who stay ahead review their pricing and their break-even metrics regularly. They do not wait for the end of the financial year to find out their margins have eroded.
Cash flow in these sectors is rarely linear. A strong holiday period can mask underlying structural issues, just as a quiet winter month can create unnecessary stress if working capital is not managed well. The strongest businesses actively manage their cash-flow timing, holding clear reserves and understanding exactly how much cash is required to bridge the quiet periods without leaning heavily on short-term debt.
Opening a second location or expanding a product line is the goal for many owners. However, growth places immediate strain on cash reserves and management systems. An entity structure that worked for one location often fails to provide the right asset protection or tax efficiency for two. Expanding without upgrading your payroll and compliance systems often leads to costly administrative errors.
The goal is to build a business that rewards your effort. If your daily operations are leaving little room to review the financial structure underneath, it is a good time to look at the numbers together. A clear financial strategy gives retail and hospitality owners their control back.
As always, if anything sparks a question or you’d like to sense-check your position, we’re here for a conversation.
Call 1300 866 113 or book via our website.
Healthcare and allied health practices are currently operating under a unique set of pressures. While patient volumes remain solid and demand for services is high, the reality of running a practice is becoming more complex.
Costs are rising across the board, from staffing to consumables and software. At the same time, margins are often thinner than top-line revenue suggests. For many practice owners, the administrative load has grown significantly, leaving less time for strategic planning and practice management.
When daily operations demand your full attention, the bigger structural and financial conversations tend to get pushed back. However, deferring these reviews can limit your practice's growth and impact your long-term wealth.
Through our work with healthcare professionals, we consistently see three core issues surface during practice reviews.
Many practices are still operating under the entity structure they set up on day one. A structure that made sense for a solo practitioner or a small clinic may not offer the right asset protection, tax efficiency, or flexibility for a growing team with multiple locations.
As revenue increases and the risk profile changes, your structure needs to evolve. A proactive review ensures that your practice is housed in an entity that supports your current scale and future ambitions.
Growing a practice means taking on more staff, which brings a corresponding increase in compliance and payroll obligations. Superannuation is a critical area where mistakes can be costly.
With the ATO taking a firmer stance on late or incorrect superannuation payments, practice owners need robust systems to manage payroll accurately. As your team expands, manual processes become a liability.
A busy practice does not automatically translate into personal financial freedom. We often see a gap between the clinical income generated by the practice and the wealth that actually reaches the owner's personal balance sheet.
Bridging this gap requires a clear strategy for profit extraction, tax planning, and investment. It means looking beyond the daily cash flow of the clinic and structuring your finances so that your hard work translates into long-term security.
The businesses that thrive are those that take the time to step back from daily operations and review their foundation. If your practice has grown but your financial structure has not changed, it is a good time for a conversation.
As always, if anything sparks a question or you'd like to sense-check your position, we're here for a conversation.
Ready to review your structure? Call 1300 866 113 or book via our website.
– Cedomir and the entire Attune Advisory team
This is general information only. Please seek professional advice for your specific situation.
If your business operates through a company, and you have at some point taken money from the company for personal use, you may have already encountered Division 7A. Even if the name is unfamiliar, the rules likely apply to your situation.
Division 7A is a section of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 that prevents business owners from accessing company profits informally, without paying tax on them. In practice, it means that payments, loans, or debts forgiven by a private company to a shareholder or their associate can be treated as assessable income in the hands of the recipient, unless they are structured correctly.
The most common scenario we see is a business owner drawing money from the company during the year without putting formal loan documentation in place. In some cases, these amounts sit on the books as a director's loan and are intended to be repaid. In others, they are simply informal drawings.
Where no complying loan agreement exists, the ATO can treat that amount as an unfranked dividend, which means it becomes taxable income, and without any franking credits attached, the tax impact can be significant.
One of the most practical ways to manage a Division 7A exposure is through a complying loan agreement. This requires the loan to be documented in writing, to carry the minimum interest rate set by the ATO for the relevant income year, and to be repaid within a set term (generally seven years for unsecured loans, or up to 25 years where real property is used as security).
The ATO publishes the minimum interest rate for Division 7A loans each year, so the rate applied to your loan needs to reflect the rate for the year the loan was established. Getting this wrong, even by a year, can unravel the structure entirely.
Division 7A issues cannot usually be resolved retrospectively without cost. If the income year closes and the amount has not been placed under a complying loan agreement or repaid, the ATO may deem a dividend to have arisen for that year. By the time an accountant identifies the issue, the options are narrower and the outcomes are more expensive.
This is why Q1 of the financial year is a useful moment to review the current year's director loan account position. Any informal drawings taken since 1 July are still within the current income year, which means there is time to structure them correctly before year-end creates a problem.
Business owners with both a company and a discretionary trust often encounter Division 7A when trust distributions are allocated to a corporate beneficiary but not actually paid across to the company. Those unpaid present entitlements can also trigger Division 7A treatment if they are left unaddressed.
This is an area where the rules have evolved over time, and the interaction between trust structures and Division 7A is worth reviewing with your adviser, particularly if your trust distributes to a bucket company.
If your business operates through a company, it is worth asking yourself a few questions. Has any money been drawn from the company this financial year that is not yet documented as salary or a formal loan? Does your trust distribute to a corporate beneficiary, and has that entitlement been dealt with? Are any existing Division 7A loans at the correct interest rate and on track for repayment?
These are not questions that need to produce anxiety. They are simply the kind of structural hygiene that protects your position and ensures you are not carrying unintended tax risk.
If you would like to talk through your company structure and how Division 7A applies to your situation, call us on 1300 866 113 or book a time via our website.
This is general information only. Please seek professional advice for your specific situation.
Income protection is one of the most under-reviewed items on a business owner's financial checklist. It is often set up during the early days of a business and then quietly forgotten as the business grows.
The question is not just whether you have cover, but whether the cover you hold today still reflects your current income, your business structure, and the life you are actually protecting.
When you first start a business, your income protection is usually based on a modest set of numbers. As your business matures, your drawings increase, your personal liabilities often grow (such as upgrading a family home), and your business structure may become more complex.
If your insurance has not been updated to reflect these changes, you may be significantly underinsured. A policy that was adequate three years ago might only cover a fraction of your current lifestyle and obligations.
As your business grows, you may transition from a sole trader to a company or a trust structure. This changes how you draw income, which in turn can affect how your income protection policy defines and assesses your earnings at claim time.
It is critical that your policy aligns with how your income is actually distributed, ensuring there are no surprises if you ever need to call on it.
For most business owners, income protection premiums held outside of superannuation are tax-deductible. This makes reviewing your cover not just a matter of risk management, but also a component of your broader tax planning strategy.
Ensuring your cover is structured correctly can optimise your tax position while providing the protection your family and business rely on.
The start of a financial year is a natural time to review your position, but you should also trigger a review if:
Reviewing your cover does not necessarily mean something is wrong. It is simply good financial hygiene to ensure your safety net grows alongside your success.
If you want to talk through how insurance fits into your broader financial and business plan, the Attune Advisory team can point you in the right direction. We work alongside trusted specialists to ensure your entire financial picture is secure.
This is general information only. Please seek professional advice for your specific situation.
To talk through what this means for your situation, call the Attune team on 1300 866 113 or book a time via our website.
The start of a new financial year is a good time to look at your property portfolio with fresh eyes.
Not to make big moves. But to ask whether what you hold is still structured the right way, and whether the strategy you started with still fits where you are now and where you are headed.
A few things worth considering:
Property tends to sit in the background until something forces a review. The best time to look is before that something arrives.
Many business owners set up their property holdings early in their journey, often in their own name, a simple family trust, or a company. Over time life changes. A new partner, children, a growing business, a change in risk appetite, or simply the passage of years can mean the original structure no longer serves you as well as it once did.
Common pitfalls we see include:
Review ownership: Does the current structure still match your goals for asset protection, tax efficiency, and succession? A short conversation can often highlight simple adjustments that reduce complexity and cost.
Update depreciation: Buildings, plant, and equipment depreciate at different rates. A fresh schedule aligned to the latest ATO rulings can deliver immediate tax savings with no change to your day-to-day operations.
Check your lending: Interest rates, loan terms, and offset arrangements all affect how much of your cash stays in your pocket. A review now can identify whether restructuring debt or adjusting facilities would improve cashflow without increasing risk.
Stress test the plan: Ask yourself: if rates rise further, or if one tenant vacates, or if family circumstances change, does the current setup still work? The answers often point to small, proactive changes that protect what you have built.
The earlier you look, the more options you have. Waiting until a trigger event (a refinance, a tax audit, a family change, or a market shift) usually leaves you with fewer choices and higher costs.
At Attune Advisory we regularly help business owners and investors review their property structures through a practical, tax-effective lens. We focus on making the complex feel manageable and on giving you clear, calm guidance so you can make well-considered decisions.
If you would like to sense-check your current setup ahead of the busy tax year ahead, we're here for a conversation.
This is general information only. Please seek professional advice for your specific situation.
Ready to talk? Call 1300 866 113 or book a conversation via our website.
The first quarter of the financial year is one of the most underused opportunities in the business calendar.
Most owners are still catching their breath after 30 June. They lodge the return, close the books on the year, and get back to running the business. Q1 becomes reactive by default.
The owners in the strongest position at year end tend to do something different. They treat July, August, and September as the quarter where the year is actually shaped.
Here is what that looks like in practice.
By the end of July, proactive SME owners have a working estimate of their full-year income. Not a precise forecast, and that is rarely possible. But a realistic sense of direction.
That early read matters. It determines whether there are distribution decisions to consider, whether planned purchases should be brought forward or pushed back, and whether there are any structural questions worth addressing before they become urgent.
The goal is not certainty. It is simply not being surprised.
Business structure tends to get reviewed when something forces a review. A tax bill that feels too large. A compliance issue. A growth milestone that exposes gaps in the current setup.
The better time to look is before any of that happens. Q1 is quiet enough to have a considered conversation about whether the current structure is still fit for purpose, and whether the way income is flowing matches the personal and business goals behind it.
A structure that made sense at a lower turnover, or under different personal circumstances, may not be the right fit now.
Q1 is when the year's compliance calendar becomes real. For most businesses, the Q1 BAS covers July through September and is due by 28 October. That is close enough to plan for but far enough away that the businesses who stay on top of their records through the quarter lodge cleanly and on time.
The ones who scramble in October are generally the ones who put the records aside during Q1 and picked them up again under pressure.
Getting payroll, banking, and contractor documentation in order early in the quarter removes that pressure entirely.
The conversations that tend to be most useful are the ones that happen before a decision is made, not after.
A brief Q1 check-in with an advisor can surface issues that are still easy to address, confirm that the year is tracking the way it should, and flag anything worth considering before it becomes time-sensitive.
It does not need to be a long conversation. But it does need to happen early enough to be useful.
The financial year does not wait for you to feel ready. Q1 moves quickly, and the decisions made in this window tend to echo through the rest of the year.
If you want to make sure you are starting FY27 the right way, we are here.
This is general information only. Please seek professional advice for your specific situation.
Running a successful business and building genuine personal wealth are not the same thing.
For a lot of business owners, the gap between the two is wider than it looks. Revenue is strong. The business is growing. But when they look at their personal financial position, the picture is less clear.
The money is in the business. The question is how to move it into lasting personal wealth.
It is not usually a deliberate decision. It happens gradually.
Profits get reinvested. Growth gets funded from retained earnings. The structure that made sense at the start, a company, a trust, a combination of both, quietly becomes a holding pattern rather than a vehicle for building personal wealth.
The business keeps generating income. But if that income is not flowing into the right places at the right time, it can stay locked inside the entity indefinitely.
How your business is structured has a significant effect on how income flows, and ultimately on what you can access.
Different structures have different implications for tax, distributions, asset protection, and the ability to move wealth into personal hands or long-term vehicles like superannuation.
There is no single right answer. The right structure depends on your situation, your goals, and where you are in the journey. What matters is that the structure you have in place is actually designed to serve the outcome you want.
If it was set up at the start of the business and has not been reviewed since, it may be worth a look.
One of the most common gaps for business owners is the concentration of wealth inside a single entity.
The business itself has value. But if that is where most of your wealth sits, you are exposed in ways that are worth understanding. The business can have a bad year. It can face disruption. The value can change.
Building assets outside the business, through property, investment portfolios, superannuation, or other structures, creates a more resilient personal financial position. It also creates options that are not dependent on the performance of the business at any given moment.
For business owners, superannuation is often underused.
The contribution caps have increased for FY27, and the tax advantages of building wealth inside super remain significant for most business owners. For those with an SMSF, there are additional structural options worth understanding.
The earlier you engage with super as a deliberate wealth vehicle rather than an afterthought, the more it can do for you over time.
If your business stopped generating income tomorrow, what would your personal financial position look like?
That is not a comfortable question. But it is a useful one. The answer tends to clarify whether the wealth you are building inside the business is translating into genuine personal financial resilience, or whether there is work to do on the structure.
If you would like to talk through how your current structure is working and what options exist for building wealth more effectively, we are here.
Call 1300 866 113 or book a time via our website.
This article contains general information only and does not constitute legal or financial advice. Please seek professional advice for your specific situation.
