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Although small business owners are trending away from paper receipt filing, some 49 per cent continue to do so, despite the claims that lost receipts are costing a quarter of them up to $10,000.
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Lost receipts costing a quarter of small businesses up to $10,000: NAB, Slyp
07 July 2021
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New research released by NAB and Australian fintech firm Slyp shows that lost receipts are costing 25 per cent of Australian small businesses up to $10,000 a year, while a further 8 per cent reported the administrative fumble to have cost them as much as $100,000.
It’s a concern shared by nearly half of the 307 small businesses who took part in the report, of whom 47 per cent reported feeling stressed or anxious over record-keeping.
NAB executive for business banking Tania Motton said that paper receipts can impose added stress on small business owners.
“Australian small business owners are incredibly hard working and the data shows that, for many, paper receipts can add undue stress and complication to tax time,” Ms Motton said. “81.1 per cent of small businesses say the availability of digital receipts would improve their tax-time process.”
According to the data, 62 per cent of respondents said they lose paper receipts come tax time, and reported to have turned to recovery methods like manually comparing transactions listed on bank statements and “checking their diaries” in a bid to retrieve them.
Less than half of the small business owners surveyed reported having a filing system in place to collect receipts throughout the year, at 49 per cent, while as many as 9 per cent reported to have relied on the “good, old-fashioned shoebox system” to keep their records.
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While as many as 60 per cent of small businesses reported relying on internal efforts come tax time, 79 per cent said they prepare early. For Janina Lear, an event organiser at Geelong’s Piccadilly Markets, that preparation includes sifting through hundreds of receipts by hand.
“In the days leading up to the tax deadline, I traditionally have a stack of hundreds and hundreds of receipts on my desk and the thought of processing them all by hand makes me feel physically sick, even more so when I realise a substantial chunk was missing,” Ms Lear said.
“Usually, I hand all receipts over to my accountant, but this year COVID has forced me to take the task on myself to save money. In fact, it’s cost me more, considering how much time I spent sorting receipts when I could have been boosting sales for my business.”
According to the research, business owners consider gathering old receipts the most time-consuming part of the tax process, at 42 per cent, and fact-checking, which follows closely, accounting for some 39 per cent.
Slyp co-founder and CEO Paul Weingarth said the research shows that there’s a clear disconnect between manual processes and the tools available to small business owners.
“Three-quarters, [or] 75 per cent, of Australian small businesses say they’d like to change the way that they process paper receipts in the next financial year, and more than two-thirds, [or] 69.6 percent, say they’d be more inclined to purchase through a retailer that provided digital receipts,” Mr Weingarth said.
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