2017 – It’s A Wrap

As 2017 comes to a close in only a few hours I want to wish you a safe and happy New Year and take this opportunity to wrap up our 2017.

It has been another amazing year for PTAM.

2017 has been my fourth year in business and just like the preceding years, it has delivered further growth as well as its share of challenges and opportunities. We have achieved plenty this year and surpassed many goals. Some of these we have even smashed! Overall, I think 2017 can go in the Win column.

For an office that divides itself by those that “Love The New England Patriots” NFL Team and those that are “Other People” the year couldn’t have got off to a better start. On 6 February we hosted our third Super Bowl event and were thrilled to see The Patriots come from behind to defeat the Atlanta Falcons 34-28 and win one of the best Super Bowls in history.

Our second Go Cart Day saw Team PTAM again take on the boys from RAD Constructions. Kelly was not going to be beaten and even though we were outnumbered again, she made sure we weren’t totally humiliated, putting up an impressive effort to take out some of our rivals. We won’t talk about Peter’s performance however. He may have to take early retirement.

Our Winter function sadly saw NSW go down to Queensland again. The misery of seeing NSW lose another series was offset by the great food and guests! I said this last year but I am sure we will get them next year!

A high point of the year came when Team #PTAandM were named as finalists in The Lake Macquarie Business Excellence Awards. To be finalists in this year’s awards was in itself a huge honour. Given that there are over 13,500 businesses in Lake Macquarie, to be nominated in 3 categories; Excellence in Branding and Marketing, Excellence in Business Practices and Excellence in Customer Service by an Individual – Kelly Eke, has truly been a high point of the year for PTAM and me personally. We didn’t come away with a win but when considering the competition and the pursuit of excellence shown by the businesses competing in our categories, it was always going to be tough.

There were plenty of winners at our Melbourne Cup function this year at Warners at The Bay (including the food) and everyone celebrated the day in style.

In September, we attended Xerocon Melbourne 2017. This year’s event was even bigger than last years with delegates from Australia, New Zealand, and Asia. This was the third Xerocon for Team #PTAandM and as was the case in the previous years, we were impressed with the inspiring content and the work of many of our industry leaders in the field of accounting and software development. Team #PTAandM love new and shiny things and there was plenty of this on show over the 3 days. We saw the latest developments for our software and were especially impressed with the teams from Practice Ignition, AccountKit and Spotlight Reporting.

This year we continued our sponsorship of The Business Growth Centre and Uniting Bookkeepers. In March we were invited to complete a presentation to the members of Uniting Bookkeepers on the implications of Unpaid Superannuation, a subject that we are very passionate about. We kept up the fight for the recovery of Katrina’s super and had some further victories despite the fight continuing into its 13th year. Professionally, a high point came when our Federal Member, The Hon Pat Conroy delivered a speech to Federal Parliament citing the submissions that Team #PTAandM made to the Senate enquiry into Superannuation Guarantee Non-Payment. You can see Pat’s speech here where he talks about the Non Payment of Superannuation Guarantee as Wage Theft.

We continued our proud sponsorship of Hamilton Olympic in 2017 and were thrilled to see the club crowned as NNSWF 2017 NPL Club Champions. We continued to watch with pride the rise of future Socceroo Kosta Tsiaousis! (We are not biased).

Community Support is very important to us. So is our relationship with the Defence Force. So when Kelly suggested that we support our Troops this Christmas by sending care packages to those on deployment it was met with great enthusiasm. This is one of the most personally gratifying things I have done in business. It is going to become an annual activity for Team #PTAandM.

 

Social Media has continued to be a key part of how we keep in touch with our clients and the world. Kelly has continued to do an amazing job with our Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn pages. This year we have introduced our Instagram and YouTube pages to our Social Media arsenal! Please note this is not an endorsement of Arsenal FC…Tottenham Hotspur is the team of choice thankyou very much.

2017 was also another big year of change. We watched the Turnbull Government’s second budget from PTAM HQ and provided live updates via Twitter during the night. We were excited to present Our Own Analysis of the major budget initiatives immediately following the Treasurer’s Speech. This budget delivered some significant changes for Property Owners including the removal of travel deductions and a modified Deprecation regime.

We had a big makeover this year as well. We believe that our new branding represents what we are all about. We haven’t changed, but we believe that our branding is a better fit for who we are. At PTAM we have always believed that there is no other way than “telling it like it is”. We don’t sugarcoat our advice and believe that one of our biggest strengths is engaging our clients in conversation. We have operated under this philosophy from the start so what better way to capture this in our new branding than with the tagline…”Join the Conversation…”.

The bubbles symbolise the modern communication of smartphones and tablets that we are all familiar with and our colours are more vibrant, showcasing our vibrant, direct communication style. You can read more about our re brand journey here:  New Financial Year, New Image…

This year we introduced some fantastic initiates including our support of the Seniors Card. In October, Kelly led us day by day through National Safe Work Month and the entire Team has embraced the concepts behind the Get Healthy at Work program. Our Tuesday Toolbox meetings are now led by Kelly and includes walking meetings by the lake, workplace stretches, and following her presentation on The Greatest Super Food: Water Water Water we are all making being healthy a key part of what we do each day.

We were able to achieve this while delivering our clients a whopping $497,420.30 in refunds from 1 July 2017 through to 15 December. For the same period we were able to claim a total of $661,546.00 in deductions for our clients. So we have indeed been busy.

As a business owner, I know very well that things don’t always go according to plan, and although the line-up has changed in 2017, with Carolyn being our latest addition, I am very proud of my employees as they continue to help make PTAM what it is.

I’ve been lucky enough to know Kelly Eke for almost 15 years and couldn’t be more proud of what she has achieved in the last 3.5 years at PTAM. She keeps the show on the road and remains the glue that keeps us together. Her article on ASANA in June is a great example of how she always looks for ways to move the Team forward and make things work better. Her implementation of new systems and software like Practice Protect help keep us safer too. Her dedication to PTAM even saw her testing the definition of Remote Workplace by spending a few weeks working in her poolside cabana in Bali. I guess someone has to do it. If people were recorded on a Balance Sheet then the PTAM Balance Sheet would be very Asset heavy! Thanks Kelly.

It has been another big year, and with only a few more hours until we welcome 2018, we are all taking advantage of some downtime. We will be back on Monday 15th January 2018 all set for what I am sure will be another great year.

2018 will kick off with the always exciting Xero Roadshow and our fourth Super Bowl event in early February, hopefully another win for our New England Patriots! We hope to have more growth, which will in turn lead to more staff and I look forward to the new stories, articles, and news we can bring you.

If you are feeling festive, we welcome you to write a review on Facebook or give us a recommendation on LinkedIn.

Happy Holidays from Team PTAM.