Events

Elevate CA hosts regular events for business owners - including the monthly Business Owners Forum events which alternate between Auckland and Whangarei venues. A big part of the Elevate CA ethos is to share our knowledge and skills with the business community that allows us to thrive.

In line with this ethos, Elevate CA events are always free of charge - and have no strings or sales pitches attached.

Below is a full list of events hosted by Elevate CA, or events where we are involved as sponsors, supporters or presenters.

Motivating and rewarding your team

In July and August, the Business Owners Forum will discuss “Techniques and traps in motivating and rewarding your team”. We will be running this topic on 15 July in Whangarei – and again on 19 August in Auckland. On the agenda will be discussion around techniques to motivate and reward your team – and in particular ways to tie remuneration to performance, and some of the traps inherent in doing this. This will be a must attend session for any business owner who is more interested in fostering a high performance team than “managing staff”.

The Whangarei session will be at the Elevate CA offices on 15 July – and the Auckland session will be at a yet-to-be-confirmed venue on 19 August. Both sessions will run from 5:30pm sharp until 7:00pm. Here are the panelists:

David Grindle (Whangarei session only). David is a partner with Webb Ross Lawyers, who were awarded the New Zealand Legal Personnel Employer of Choice at the 2007 Law Awards. Webb Ross takes motivating and rewarding their team very seriously – and David has a wealth of great knowledge in this area gleaned through trial, error – and ultimately success.

Rebecca Brennan (Auckland and Whangarei sessions). Rebecca is a director of Elevate CA Limited – and is an experienced leader and motivator of high performing teams. Rebecca has a lead-from-the-front ethos – and a wealth of great coal-face experience including tips and potential pitfalls in tying remuneration to performance while maintaining a positive and energised culture.

Michael Masterson (Auckland and Whangarei sessions). Although today a director of The Bottom Line Expense Reduction Limited, Michael is a former serial CEO with a talent for building great teams and great cultures as a strategy for achieving competitive advantage in large organisations. Michael has a keep-it-simple ethos, and will share some enlightening and entertaining war stories from his journey.

Jim Huse (Auckland session only). Jim is a Business Psychologist and director of Huse Hill Associates, whose modus operandi is to help connect an organisation’s people to its business plan through a convergence of psychology, technology and business objectives. Sound technical? Well come along to the Auckland session on 19 August and hear Jim’s unique take on this topic.

As always for Business Owners Forum events, this session will be free of charge, free of “sales pitches” – and will be targeted to owners of businesses turning over $1 million or more per annum. And there will be pizza, beer and wine to lubricate quality discussion.

Invites will be circulated to the Business Owners Forum e-mail list in early July. If you’d like to be included on that list, just contact Fraser Hurrell >>>.

And for a sneak preview of the upcoming Business Owners Forum topics right up to February 2011, click here >>>.

Fraser Hurrell is one of three directors of Elevate CA Limited, Chartered Accountants & Business Advisors in Whangarei, New Zealand.

Valuing your business

The next Business Owners Forum topic is “A rough guide to valuing your business” on 20 May in Whangarei. On the agenda will be discussion around some of the basics of valuing your business – as well as the levers you can pull to potentially increase value. This will be an invaluable session for anyone interested in maximising the value of their business over time.

This event will be at the Elevate CA offices from 5:30pm sharp until 7:00pm on 20 May. Here is the panel:

Stuart Spicer. Stuart is a partner with Webb Ross Lawyers – and is regularly involved in both the due diligence process for clients investigating business purchases – and in managing the transaction for his clients. Stuart will discuss some of the legal issues which impact on a business’ value – and some of the techniques for planning ahead to ensure the value of your business isn’t unnecessarily compromised by these issues when it comes time to sell.

Geoff Grigg. Geoff is a Commercial Business Partner with the BNZ – and he spends a lot of his time helping his clients to fund their business acquisitions. Although the banks will always say they have no opinion on the value of a business, their willingness to lend for the purchase of your particular business will have a large bearing on the value you extract when it comes to a sale. Geoff will discuss some of the issues that may affect the bank’s willingness or otherwise to lend – and which as a result may ultimately impact value.

Fraser Hurrell. Fraser is a director of Elevate CA – and is an experienced business valuer having been involved in many valuations across a wide variety of industries and circumstances. Fraser will discuss some of the variables that will impact on the value of your business. Some will be outside your control – such as the particular indistry you operate in, but many can be incrementally improved over time to result in a significantly better outcome when the time comes to sell.

Invites for the May event will be circulated to the Business Owners Forum e-mail list on around 4 May. If you’d like to be included on that list, just contact Fraser Hurrell >>>.

For a schedule of all the upcoming Business Owners Forum topics right through to February 2011, click here >>>.

Fraser Hurrell is one of three directors of Elevate CA Limited, Chartered Accountants & Business Advisors in Whangarei, New Zealand.

Elevate CA – 1st Birthday Party

We opened our doors for the first time at Elevate CA on 20 April 2009 – almost a year ago. Our first year has surpassed our wildest expectations, and we’d like to celebrate our first birthday by saying “thank you” to the people who have been part of our journey. So here’s your invite!

Where: Elevate CA office, Level Four, 35 Robert Street, Whangarei.

When: Thursday 22 April 2010 – 5:30pm to 8:00pm.

Why: To say a big “thank you” to everyone who has been part of the Elevate CA journey.

RSVP: To party@elevateCA.co.nz by 17 April. Remember to give us the names of those who will be attending with you!

Bring: Just yourselves and a sense of humour. The hospitality is on us.

Parking: Right outside the door at that time of day.

Looking forward to hearing from you – and seeing you on 22 April!

Fraser Hurrell is one of three directors of Elevate CA Limited, Chartered Accountants & Business Advisors in Whangarei, New Zealand.

Shareholders’ Current Accounts

The topic for the 18 March Business Owners Forum will be “Shareholders’ Current Accounts”, featuring an informative (and entertaining!) panel discussion on issues and pitfalls around financing your company through the shareholders current account – and protecting that investment.

This event will be hosted at “The Conference Centre”, 585 Great South Road, Penrose on 18 March 2010 – from 5:30pm (sharp) to 7:00pm. A map and full directions are here >>>.
As always with BOF events, discussion will be driven by those who attend on the night – and the panelists will keep things moving along quickly. We have three great panelists, and here’s what you can expect to be covered over the hour and a half:

Fraser Hurrell – Director of Elevate CA Chartered Accountants. Fraser sees the results of a lack of forethought with regards shareholders current accounts every day, and has some useful and pragmatic insights into avoiding these issues up front. Issues often arise over time such as one shareholder having much more at stake in a company than others through their current accounts – or shareholders having significant personal borrowing that is not tax efficient where there may be an opportunity to refinance this into the company. There are often ways to prevent issues such as these from arising – or possibilities to fix them once they have arisen. More on Fraser Hurrell here >>>.

Damien Grant – Liquidator at Waterstone Insolvency. Damien is intimately involved with unravelling the affairs of companies in liquidation when things go wrong. Often this involves some unpleasant issues for shareholders who may find their advances to the company are unsecured – or that amounts repaid to shareholders may be recoverable by the liquidator. Damien has a wealth of knowledge and some sobering war stories, and plenty of useful techniques for keeping your investment in your company as secure as possible. More on Damien Grant here >>>.

Ben Langdon, a Solicitor and Partner with Claymore. Ben will discuss some of the practical strategies for protecting your investment in your company – and for maintaining equity between multiple shareholders. Simple tools such as General Security Agreements and proper shareholders’ agreements can pay dividends when the going gets rough, and these will be discussed from the point of view of shareholders. More on Ben Langdon here >>>.

This event will be chaired by Michael Masterson, director and founder of The Bottom Line Expense Reduction. More on Michael Masterson here >>>.

If you have advanced funds to your company – or if you have multiple shareholders with unequal current accounts – or if one shareholder has a current account and personal guarantees independent of the company, then this event is tailored for you.

Format is casual over pizza, beer and wine – and Business Owners Forums are always lively events! These events are targeted to owners of businesses with $1 million turnover and more.

This Business Owners Forum is supported by ElevateCA Limited and The Bottom Line Expense Reduction. The ethos of the Business Owners’ Forum supporters is to give back to the business communities which support us. In line with this ethos, Business Owners’ Forum events are always free of charge. Find out more here >>>.

If you would like to be invited to this event, please contact ElevateCA.

Fraser Hurrell is one of three directors of Elevate CA Limited, Chartered Accountants & Business Advisors in Whangarei, New Zealand.

Monitoring Business Performance

Last night’s Business Owners Forum was a success – thank you to all who came along to the new BNZ Partners Centre in Whangarei and contributed to the discussions. The topic was “monitoring your business performance”, and the three panelists did a great job of presenting different views of the subject.

Roger Taylor, an owner of Pacific Motor Group in Whangarei, discussed the strategies to monitor daily performance used by a large player in a volatile industry. Issues such as large inventory holdings, high fixed costs, slim margins and long lead times on inventory purchases mean that excellence in day to day performance measurement is a real competitive advantage in this industry. Roger shared with us some of the ways that Pacific Ford succeeds in this area – in particular his model for measuring “working days to break-even” each month – and the art and science he and his team apply when striving to improve this number.

Dean Subritzky, a director of Elevate CA Limited, illustrated that the key performance indicators for every business will be different – and where businesses in one industry may find it necessary to focus on issues such as stock turnover, others may be more interested in gross profit on each job – or debtors levels, or gross sales or perhaps retention of key skilled staff. Dean discussed the need to first identify which key performance indicators are critical for your business – and then to set about devising systems to measure those in real time, and to continue to review, improve and simplify the method of gathering and measuring this key information. One size definitely does not fit all when monitoring business performance.

Geoff Grigg, business partner at BNZ Whangarei, gave the group some valuable insights into how the banks measure the performance of their business customers. He explained which measures the bank finds most important, how they use the information they gather for making risk and pricing decisions – and how the banks benchmark their business customers’ performances against industry norms. As always, Geoff’s frank discussions around the decision making processes within the bank were useful to any business owner interested in reducing their risk profile with their bank – and in the process improving the pricing of their financing.

A great session – as usual in a casual format over pizza, beer and wine – and with a good varied selection of local business owners in attendance.

Business Owners Forums are targeted to owners of businesses turning over at least $1m per annum – they are hosted monthly alternating between Auckland and Whangarei on the third Thursday of the month.

If you would like an invite – or to be included on the regular email list, just contact Fraser Hurrell. And if you have ideas for future BOF topics, we’d really like to hear them – just click here and use the comments box at the bottom of the post >>>.

Fraser Hurrell is one of three directors of Elevate CA Limited, Chartered Accountants & Business Advisors in Whangarei, New Zealand.