the goose

Moving country is not something that happens easily.  It has taken us the guts of three months to get our act in order and I’m still yet to arrive.  There is a lot to think about – especially as we will be carrying out most of our business in Ireland while living in Buenos Aires.  Here are our thoughts on what is easy and what is not:

1. Bookkeeping: Tax in general will screw you up good time if you don’t sweat the small stuff.  This is especially true where there are large numbers of small transactions and triply true if you are trying to do it from abroad.  With all that in mind – getting a good bookkeeper is essential.  What I’ve learnt about bookkeeping is that accountants, by and large, don’t like doing it.  Accountants account and boookkeepers keep your books.   They  not only work at a better rate but generally do care about the small stuff and keep everything ticking along so you can focus on growing business.  It has taken me a long time to learn this lesson and a lot of unnecessary pain.  To that end I’ve been using C&W Bookkeeping.  While the website might not look that slick – Sue and Liz have been excellent in helping us make the move.  It is a BIG relief to have these guys on board.  In particular we have:
   1. Redirected bank statements
   2. Had a copies of revenue documents sent to them
   3. Given them access to our online invoicing system as well as our sales tracking sheets (which we maintain in Google Speadsheets).
2. Virtual Assistant:  I’m not sure about the term virtual assistant, but for now lets pretend that is what we have.  Back in Dublin a good friend is helping with things on the ground.  Everything from sending out brochures to receiving and lodging the odd cheque all needs to be done.  For a reasonable monthly fee we buy a block of time to cover off anything that requires a little manual effort.  In our case this also includes on the ground marketing effort for Piehole.  In our case we worked out a reasonable hourly rate and block booked 10 hours a month.
3. Power of Attorney:  There are of course some things which won’t be possible without your own personal signature.  Setting up bank accounts, accepting grants, signing death warrants etc.  For this we have set up a power of attorney with someone we trust in Dublin.
4. Redirect Post: This is a pretty straightforward one.  An Post will allow you to redirect your mail for €110 a year.   In our case we redirect it to our VA.

Of course there are probably points 5 and 6 we wish we had set up before leaving but I’ll find out about them in time.