Managing Legalities and Risk in Your Business
MANY LAWS GOVERN the running of small businesses. Nobody wants to pay more tax than they have to, and aspects such as the type of legal structure you choose for your business will have a direct bearing on this.
Structuring your Business
What kind of legal structure do you want to use? Will you be a company, partnership, trust or sole trader, for instance? Each comes with different legal ramifications and consequences.
Certain businesses are better suited to particular structures. The structure of a business affects a host of factors, such as your ability to borrow money — even the amount of tax you pay. Of course, each structure then has its own legal issues you need to comply with.
Knowing the legal aspects of setting up small business also ensures your business is protected. You’ll need to comply with workplace health and safety regulations and other duty of care; consumer regulations; taxation and insurance requirements; contractual obligations and the like. There may also be certain industry codes of practice you need to adhere to.
Compliance is a Measure of Success in Business and we’ll help you to:
- Choose the right business structure and save tax
- Set up a Pty Ltd business if you want to
- Register your business name
- Obtain an ABN and GST registration, if appropriate
- Select the most appropriate software for financial records and other legal documents.
- Implement a systematic approach to identifying, managing and meeting legal requirements
Commercial Leases
If you need to lease premises for your business there are many things to consider and they are mainly governed by how your business goes. Leases for commercial property are very different from residential leases and the landlord has much more power to evict you, lock it up to prevent you from accessing it and even selling your items within the premises if you default.
This section of the course will help you understand the risks and help you better negotiate with prospective lessors and agents.
Code of Conduct
Many industry groups have a code of conduct that their members need to abide by to be members. Membership to these groups may be required for you to operate your business and this is particularly so in the Telecommunications Industry.
This section of the course introduces you to how these codes help customers as well as you and your business.
Privacy Policies
Privacy polices are very important these days for the relevancy in Google’s search engine – it is one of the ingredients that Google looks for on a website when indexing it’s pages.
Privacy is also a very important concern by most government departments and in privacy legislation. Most people want to know how their confidential information will be used and this course will give you an understanding of this topic.
Work, Health and Safety
When it first appeared as Occupational Work Health and Safety many business owners or senior managers didn’t take it as seriously as they do today. WH&S legislation is state based but the federal government of Australia is introduced harmonisation laws to make them more uniform nationally.
As a business owner or senior manager you can be personally liable for injury or incidents that occur from work that has been completed at your request.
This course will take you through and help you understand some of the risks and how to manage them.
Professional Services Agreements
These agreements are very important for all business consultants but particularly those who are new to business and operating a home based business as it demonstrates that you are serious and structured and that there are expectations placed on both parties the supplier AND the customer.
This course will provide you with the information you should include in a professional services agreement for your customers.
Marketing and Advertising Claims
What you say on your website, in brochures and in advertisements is very important. If you make a claim you need to be certain that you can back it up and make sure that it is true.
Some new business owners get daunted with competition or want to appear bigger than they are and this can lead to exaggerated claims.
Several State and Federal Government Agencies exist to protect consumers from misleading or deceptive claims.
This course will show you the common examples of misleading claims and the penalties for making them. You’ll learn about the State and Federal government departments that manage these laws.
See our Training Scenario about The Career Academy and it’s Director Daniel Hunt
We would like to introduce you to our comprehensive Business StartUp Online Training Course by way of a series of FREE videos: take a look now.
What You’ll Learn in this Module of the Course
To recap, this module of the course teaches you:
- How to put all your legal requirements in place prior to start-up
- How to choose the right structure for your business
- whether it be sole trader
- partnership or company
- listing as a public company
- The benefits and disadvantages of each structure so that you can start your business under the ‘right’ umbrella
- Business names and ABNs and the validity of registering for GST
- Supplementary legal requirements for businesses in certain fields. E.g. hospitality, travel, real estate etc.
What’s Up Next?
Subject 4: Intellectual Property and General Law
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If you like what you see, bite the bullet and Enrol Now!
Better still, save yourself serious money by opting for our Complete Business Cloud Package, which includes:
- The entire contents of this course — the Business StartUp Online Training Course
- Our Business Partnerships Online Training Course and Template
- Sessions with your own dedicated Course Completion Coach
- The ENTIRE SUITE of Xero online training courses
- Our digital and social media marketing package AND Google online training course
- Maggie Richardson’s easy to read and enlightening book, Starting a Business in Australia.
