Coach Accountant

🇿🇦 Could live accounting become non-negotiable for VAT-registered SMEs?

⚠️ Not yet. SARS's Digital VAT Model is still a proposal — not the VAT rules today.

But if VAT moves closer to real time, there could be a much bigger change coming for SMEs than simply how we submit a VAT201.

It could change how we do our accounting every day.

Think about the way many businesses still work:

📄 Documents pile up.
💻 The books get updated later.
🧾 VAT time arrives.
🔍 We find the missing invoices and fix the coding.
✅ Then we submit the VAT201.

If SARS eventually receives VAT information much closer to when transactions happen, that routine may simply stop working.

Instead, businesses will increasingly need to:

📥 Capture it — get invoices and evidence into the accounting process as the business happens.

🎯 Get it right — deal with VAT treatment and coding earlier, rather than fixing it at VAT time.

🔄 Keep it current — keep the accounting records sufficiently up to date to be ready when the information is needed.

And here's the part I think really matters:

👉 Live accounting isn't just having accounting software.

It's making sure your financial information keeps pace with your business.

Because if you're doing that properly, you're not only preparing for where VAT may be heading.

You're giving yourself better information to manage your business today.

💰 Cash.
📈 Profit.
🎯 Control.
💎 Business Value.

That's exactly what we're building with TheControlPoint™.

SARS may eventually give SMEs another reason to operate closer to real time.

But your business already has one. 🧭

📅 These changes are still being proposed. SARS is consulting now, with consultation closing 16 October 2026.

Sometimes you only realise a message has really landed after you’ve left the room. 🎤🍑

On Wednesday evening, I had the privilege of sharing my Signature Keynote with young accountants at SAIPA:

Thinking Beyond the 9 to 5 — Finding Your Bearings in a Changing World.

One of the things I spoke about was the peach pip. 🍑

Life can bruise us a little.

Plans change.
Careers change.
People change.
We change.

But underneath all of that, there is still something we can return to.

Our values.
Our character.
Our integrity.
The parts of ourselves that really matter.

Our pip.

The following day, SAIPA contacted me to ask for a few key touchpoints and assessment questions for the delegates.

But it was the personal note at the end of the message that stopped me.

She said she had recently found herself needing to revisit her own “peach pip” and had realised that perhaps there is no set timeline for how often we need to do that throughout life.

I loved that. ❤️

Because finding our bearings is not something we do once and then tick off the list.

Sometimes we lose them.

Sometimes we need to pause.

Sometimes we need to return to what matters.

And sometimes we simply need to ask ourselves:

🧭 What happened?
🧭 What’s happening?
🧭 What happens next?

We don’t always need the whole map.

Sometimes we just need to know where we are.

And perhaps, every now and then, we need to go back and check that our peach pip is still pointing us in the right direction. 🍑🧭

🎯 Business value is built 90 days at a time.

You don’t need a perfect 2-year plan.

You need to know:

👉 What happened?
👉 What’s happening?
👉 What happens next?

Then focus on the next 90 days.

That might mean:

💰 Better cash flow
📊 Better margins
🧾 Better numbers
⚙️ Better systems
🛡️ Less risk
👤 Less owner dependency
🧭 Better decisions

Then review. Re-measure. Decide what matters next. 🔄

Because a more valuable business is not built in one big move.

It is built through better decisions, repeated over time.

Better decisions today.
A more valuable business tomorrow. 💚

Your business doesn’t need every financial capability at once. 🧭

It needs the right capability, in the right order.

📂 Evidence first.

🔍 Trusted numbers.

✅ Compliance handled.

📈 Know what drives profit.

💡 Decide what happens next.

That’s how accounting moves beyond keeping records and starts helping you build a stronger business. 🚀

Start where your business is. Build what it needs next.

💰 Cash. Profit. Control. → Business Value. 💎

Helping Business Owners Find Their Bearings. 🧭

📲 Want to find out what your business needs next? WhatsApp us on 082 412 4437.

Every accountant knows the words:

“I’ll send it to you.”

And then we wait... ⏳

Funny? Yes.

But there’s a serious business issue behind it.

🔴 WHAT HAPPENED?

A transaction happened.
Money moved.
Something was bought, sold, paid or received.

But the evidence didn’t arrive with it.

🟠 WHAT’S HAPPENING?

Without the evidence, the accounting process starts to slow down.
Reconciliations wait.
Questions accumulate.
Numbers become harder to verify.
Deadlines get closer.

And what began as one missing document can eventually become a business — and professional — risk.

Evidence isn’t paperwork for paperwork’s sake.

It is what allows us to turn transactions into trusted numbers.

🟢 WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

Good evidence routines change the journey:

📄 Evidence
→ 🔢 Trusted Numbers
→ 🧭 Better Decisions
→ 💎 Business Value

That’s why EvidenceIQ sits right at the beginning of how we work.

Because better decisions need trusted numbers.

And trusted numbers need evidence.

Something happened in your business?

Let’s find your bearings.

🌐www.coachaccountant.co.za⁠

TAX SEASON. One return.
A whole business behind it.
📄🏢

An Income Tax Return (ITR14) may look like one return submitted to SARS.

But behind that return sits an entire year of business.

🏦 The bank transactions.
🧾 The invoices.
💳 The expenses.
🚗 The assets.
👥 The payroll.
📑 The VAT.
🔄 The reconciliations.
📂 The supporting evidence.
📚 The accounting records.
📊 The financial statements.
🧮 The tax calculations.

And ultimately, the decisions that created those numbers in the first place.

That’s why I don't see an ITR14 as simply another compliance form that needs to be submitted.

📌 Tax is a Business Event.

It is one point in a much bigger financial operations journey — and an opportunity to ask whether the numbers behind the return are complete, supported and actually telling us something useful about the business.

Because compliance matters. ✅

But compliance isn't the destination.

The real opportunity is to use the work already being done in your business to create:

💵 better cash
📈 better profit
🛡️ better control

— and ultimately greater Business Value.

That is what sits behind:
One return.
A whole business behind it.

Coach Accountant
Helping Business Owners Find Their Bearings.

Create value, not complexity.

Happy Women’s Day 🌷❤️

Today we celebrate the women who build businesses, lead teams, raise families, solve problems, make decisions, create opportunities — and somehow keep showing up.

The women who are building something.

The women who are rebuilding.

And the women who are still figuring out what comes next.

You don’t have to have it all together to be remarkable.

Keep going.

Keep growing.

Keep creating value.

And remember to celebrate YOU along the way. ❤️

From Coach Accountant — we see you, we appreciate you and we’ve got your back.

🇿🇦

This week at BNI Chapter One, we’re looking forward to our feature presentation by Debbie-Ann Paterson from Coach Accountant.

If your business has grown, but your financial structure hasn’t kept up, this is one you don’t want to miss. Debbie-Ann will be unpacking the rules that change as your business evolves and what most business owners only realise too late.

Join us on 26 March for practical insight that could save you time, money and unnecessary stress.

Get Your Invitation by following this link: https://bni-capetown.co.za/en-ZA/howtojoin

2026 Budget Update