Services We Offer

At DBC we offer a variety of business and tax services including 

  • Accounting, Tax and Corporate Reporting

    There are things you must do in order to comply with accounting standards, tax regulations, GST reporting and so on. We believe, that although compulsory in nature, an opportunity exists to create value from your regular accounting and tax reporting obligations.

    This approach examines the entire process from the collection of revenue, payment of suppliers, to the recording of transactions, preparation of activity statements, and annual reporting obligations to establish a minimum standard. We then take these basic requirements and add to them useful management data. This assists us both - you as the business owner and us as your external advisor - to make informed decisions throughout a typical financial year.

    This management reporting includes profitability, cash flow, health ratios, labour cost, and overhead level. These valuable reporting items are then incorporated into your bookkeeping and accounting software through careful chart of account design, segregation of assets, reporting levels and so on.

    The idea here is that you are recording the transaction anyway, so why not achieve a level of useful reporting at the same time? This key step is achieved in line with your business objectives and the choice of accounting software you make.

    The next step is to take these obligatory requirements, along with those key management requirements identified, and then design a process which achieves these at the lowest possible cost. Coming up with the ideal process utilises our extensive experience with payroll, withholding, contractors, managing leave and termination, and state-based payroll taxes. The end result is often a combination of you or your staff doing the key data entry, the use of a qualified bookkeeper (who we can put you in touch with to assist with more technical transaction recording and reconciliation requirements), and our services as an external advisor to oversee the whole process and advise wherever value can be added.

    Our experience is that such an approach allows for quick telephone and in person meetings at short notice to support decision-making and assess performance with data that has been recorded in line with those objectives. Examples of such decisions include

    • Acquisition of new assets
    • Tax minimisation and forward planning
    • Salary packaging
    • Fringe benefit tax cost/benefits
    • Effective use of loans to and from your business entity
    • Taking on a new employee, or
    • Committing to a marketing budget.
    • Corporate reporting and secretarial are performed seamlessly and cost effectively at DBC advisory. This includes all ASIC requirements, maintenance of registers, legal structure establishment and variation, State revenue reporting, and so forth.
  • Business Advisory

    Advisory is the basis of all of our services - and forms part of our name for that reason. We believe that good business and executive advisory need a combination of quality, relevant and timely data, in conjunction with experience and care.

    Quality data is achieved through our unique approach to Accounting and Tax. This includes recording data in a way that satisfies both your minimum reporting obligations, and your management information requirements - which we identify when setting you up. Without such a unique approach, most advice often results in wasted time assessing and collating data, which was initially recorded in a misdirected manner.

    Care is an essential quality that is embedded in the fabric of this firm and has been since our inception in 1999. It is what clients have constantly identified as the main reason they continue their custom to DBC Advisory. Our approach is quite simply “to put ourselves in your shoes” in every practical way. This includes looking at your asset holdings, liability levels, family situation, and risk profile. We give attention to what you have communicated to us previously by reviewing our past work, discussions and meetings with you, in order to understand you better. When we combine useful data with sincere care and years of experience dealing with struggling and successful businesses like yours - great results appear! We can help you:

    • Grow your business
    • Protect your assets into the future
    • Increase your profitability
    • Provide corporate recovery to find a way out of difficult situations
    • Improve your cash flow
    • Work with the end in mind. In other words, plan in advance for your future retirement needs (in concert with your financial planner) and/or the sale of your business. This covers all the aspects of succession planning, including family situations.
    • Assessing risk within your organisation and structuring to manage it to a level you are comfortable with.
    • Minimise and defer your taxation obligations legally
    • Structural Advice for your specific profession and business model
    • Business Check Up and Health Check at regular intervals to make sure you are on track
    • Strategic Planning including development, implementation and ongoing monitoring
    • Business Planning, Forecasting and Budgeting
    • Benchmarking and Key Driver Analysis
    • Buy, Sell and Merge Strategies - we can show you some of our clever success stories in this space including separation of subsidiaries, strategic reviews, advising on buying in and buyout terms, private equity raising structure, debt refinancing, divestments, roll up strategies, and complex financial modelling.
    • Business Coaching and Mentoring
  • High Net Worth Families

    Significant wealth families, high-income earners and expatriates, specialist medical practitioners, partners in top tier law and accounting practices, and those with success with innovative start-ups are a strong service point with our practice. We have a suite of services customized for this category of client from tax structuring, foreign asset holding support, asset protection, wealth succession, estate planning, legal protection, gifting strategies, banking support, and specialist wealth services. You get direct same day access to the partner for all your needs and confidentiality is secured to the highest degree possible. We work closely with managing family wealth across generations in line with your vision for legacy transition, ensuring adequate measures are in place to protect the assets.

  • Cloud Accounting

    Cloud accounting is simply bookkeeping and financial reporting over the internet. The benefits include instant access from anywhere using a browser, being able to share information with the professionals around you (accountants, financial controllers et cetera) and automatic backups and updates without you having to worry about them.

    We have extensive experience with all the major accounting software offerings including Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks, NetSuite, Reckon and so on. In addition, we have experience with specific add-ons for the building industry, medical speciality industry, workflow management, CRM, payroll, etc, so we can match you with an effective accounting software package that meets your accounting, tax, and (most importantly) management information needs.

  • Financial Planning and Wealth Creation

    Financial planning is a specialty profession requiring expertise, integrity and trust. In the past, client experiences have been mixed especially when the focus was product driven. Such an approach to financial planning led to a commission driven approach which sometimes lead to results not in the best interests of the clients’ long-term wealth objectives.

    We believe that an effective financial planner needs to be a dedicated professional, based in an office committed to this role. For this reason, the approach at DBC Advisory since inception in 1999, was not to incorporate these services within our practice internally, but rather to partner with professionals that we have identified as ‘best of breed’. The key driver behind this decision goes back to the core of our firm, and that is if we can’t give our full attention to developing expertise in a particular service, then we’ll put you in touch with a competent professional who is.

    It is this guiding belief that has led to the establishment of a wonderful network of partners that we refer you to depending upon your specific needs. Our firm has negotiated special rates for its clients with these partners, so you benefit not only from a premium dedicated service, but also a more competitive rate.

    The advantage of these unique partnerships is that we combine the investment placement advice with our asset protection expertise something which is very crucial in maintaining your wealth. We provide a wide range of asset protection structures to protect your valuable wealth against creditors, family disputes, business risk, and so forth.

    Rest assured that we will be present at many of their meetings with you, and we have direct and free contact with those professionals so that information is shared seamlessly about your financial affairs (with your permission) to ensure that quality data underpins every decision made on your behalf. Another benefit of such communication is that it alleviates you from being the middle person in facilitating the flow of data relevant to advising you.

  • Self Managed Super Fund

    Your decision to go into a self-managed super fund (SMSF) to take control of your family retirement assets, is one we always advise you make with a qualified and sensible financial planner. We have a network of professionals we work closely with to assist you in making the right choice for your family’s future. Once you have decided to do this, we provide a complete and cost-effective solution.

    With our expert guidance and support we work with you to make the process of managing your own fund and can assist with the following core services in relation to your SMSF:

    • Establishment of Self-Managed Superannuation Funds upon your instructions or that of your financial planner
    • Advice on compliance and taxation matters
    • Advice on taxation benefits
    • Superannuation Audits and Annual reporting obligations
    • Administration and Management of your fund
  • External Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

    Most medium and larger size organisations have a role dedicated to an in-house financial expert who assists with day-to-day decisions and overseeing the accounting function. There are different names for such a role including Financial Controller, Management accountant, Internal accountant and CFO.

    Businesses that utilise such a role have the size, budget, and support structure within the accounting function to make it happen. For most of our small and medium business clients however, this just is not possible. We believe that you should not miss out on such guidance if your business needs it. Our service provides you a unique part-time CFO without the full-time financial commitment.

    We structure this depending upon your needs. For example, a small business may need as little as 90 minutes a month to provide management reporting and high level strategic and business advice when you need it.

    We offer this valuable service to the entrepreneur, by applying our extensive knowledge and experience to increase business value. We focus on key financial, operational and personnel strategies.

    Coming on board as a DBC Advisory client is on a no commitment basis. You take it on a month-to-month and continue to do so whilst you get a return on investment. It is tailored to your business and is designed to assist you, as the business owner to reach key strategic goals, and includes (where applicable to your business):

    • Strategic Planning including development, implementation and ongoing review
    • Become part of the strategic team within your business
    • Keeping you on top of Profit, Cash flow and ultimately a healthy balance sheet
    • Human resources including staff retention, remuneration, employment contracts and staff procedures, bonus structure, equity share, incentive design and policies documents
    • Management of all taxation obligations
    • Provide a true upside to the value of your business both internally and externally
    • Develop strong business systems and processes
    • Assist with development and implementation of financial and management information systems
  • Forensic Accounting & Technology

    This is the specialty practice area of our practice, broadly covering the collection and examination of data from the past to establish the facts. DBC Advisory offers a range of Forensic accounting services including:

    • Investigating and analysing financial evidence
    • Quantification of loss reports
    • Family law matters and settlements
    • Developing expert account reports and various other applications to assist in the analysis and presentation of financial evidence 
    • Communicating our findings in the form or exhibits, reports and collection of documents
    • Business valuations
    • Assisting in legal proceedings

    Our experience has led us to the application of this knowledge to the internal risk concerns within small to medium enterprise. Specifically, we assist in investigating employee fraud, theft and embezzlement for the purposes of cost recovery and reporting to authorities. This expertise has led to a unique practical service offering in minimising the opportunities for fraud in the preventative sense for your firm. We do this by modifying accounting software access limitations, separation of duties, record keeping, banking processes, and generally identifying the weak points specifically for your business and how to focus on strengthening them.

    Forensic technology is the skill required to seize, identify, analyse, and present electronic evidence in a forensically sound manner to support litigation and corporate investigations. We have a unique long-standing partnership with an excellent provider of these services at a fraction of the cost offered by the big four. This includes extraction of data from PC, Mac, iOS/iPhone, Android mobile phones etc. We can engage this specialist skill externally as part of our Forensic accounting service.

  • Corporate Recovery & Reconstruction

    No matter how your business ends up distressed, DBC Advisory can help make the best of the situation at hand. This may mean restructuring the business to sell, help it trade out of difficulty, or winding it up as quickly as possible in order to minimise further losses. It is our job to ensure that the right approach is adopted, and the best outcomes achieved for the benefit of secured and unsecured creditors and stakeholders.

    By acting on underperformance early, we help businesses develop a plan for financial recovery to get their business back on track.

    We understand the complexities of insolvency law and have the professional skills and experience to advise on the implications and alternative solutions to financial problems and capital constraints.

    We can help in co-ordinating.

    • Voluntary administrations
    • Liquidating
    • Receivership
    • Bankruptcy
    • Winding up of companies/ trusts etc.
    • Debt agreements

    Our philosophy is to avoid falling into such difficulties through regular management reporting and contact to identify problems before they increase in size. Our asset protection analytical structuring expertise ensures that you can separate your business risks from your private wealth.

    Nevertheless, difficulties sourced outside your control do arise, and despite it being an uncomfortable place to be - the best thing you can do is act early and get the correct advice.

  • Business Coaching

    Our experience is that coaching is associated with high performers, rather than a remedial intervention. 

    The unique features of our coaching program are as follows:

    • Not rigid/structured, but rather flexible and unstructured. This requires a discovery session by the partner to assess the present state, areas of improvement in order of priority, your time availability and the approach that works best for you (regular meeting/telephone, as needs basis, written plans/direction or in person working sessions, etc).
    • No Fixed commitment. If you feel that you cease getting value, then you can stop at any time. Our success rate has given us the confidence to offer such flexibility.
    • It is a ‘bespoke’ look into you as a person and your business – not a process driven box ticking exercise. You get partner level, 20 plus years of business advisory experience looking into the depth of what makes your business tick, what challenges you are facing, what opportunities you are missing, and how we can work together in achieving your objectives. The focus is not just business performance and wealth, but more importantly your personal goals of work-life balance, family time and personal development.
    • Congruence. We will never advise you to do anything that we are not practicing ourselves. Our belief in everything we teach is evident from our own practices.
    • Typical program objectives include goal setting, Short/Medium/Long term plans, allowing you to step back and delegate, regaining focus of why you went into business originally, lifestyle and work balance, and so on.
  • Single Matter / One-off Engagement

    We regularly take work on a one-off basis, allowing you to maintain the long-standing relationship you have with your current accountant. These existing relationships based on loyalty and trust we have no intention of disrupting. We are comfortable to work with your current accountant, lawyer, and advisers in using our expertise to help you with a special task - that is outside the current services being offered by your existing relationships. 

    We are happy to provide this as a single one-off engagement for the special task as required. We often provide these services in conjunction with tax lawyers that we have long-term partnerships with. Examples of these one-off engagements include:

    • Asset protection review and restructure or tweak
    • Business process review and re-engineering
    • Business due diligence
    • Major transaction structure and design (eg business merge, divestment, property subdivision etc)
    • Tax specialist advice and tax minimisation review
    • Corporate and tax restructure for asset protection, tax efficiency, estate planning, etc
    • Structuring employment engagements with a key individual (C-suite and other senior roles). This can cover key roles and responsibilities, deliverables, KPIs and performance measurement along with several other considerations to ensure your hire is a long-term success. 
    • Small to large property development tax and structure advice
    • Designing employee share schemes and shadow equity arrangements with current and future employees to ensure congruence with the goals of the key stakeholders
    • Planning for business sale – strategic advice to business vendors 
    • Debt restructure to ensure tax efficiency across all group lending
    • Managing small to major ATO tax audits strategically on your behalf including voluntary disclosure submission, negotiation with tax office regarding tax result and long-term payment arrangements. We usually conduct these engagements with the support/co-operation of your current accountant.

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