This weekend Jordan, Matt and myself will be participating in w. Rails Rumble is an international geekfest where you have 48 hours to develop a Ruby on Rails application. We are at a bit of a disadvantage because of the timezone issues mean that we really only have 36 hours (We have to do some real work on Monday you know!).
We will be building a top secret social network, so watch this space as we post updates of our progress!
Whilst we are on the topic of memes, I’ve just posted my “This is me, I work on the Web” meme post on Flickr. If you work on the web, I would do the same – just remember to tag it with I work on the web.
Miles Burke decided that we all need to prove that we were at Web Directions last year by finding photos of us on Flickr. Mo problem! Here are pictures of me looking rather disheveled.
Ok, to pass on the meme: I wanna see photos from Tim Lucas and Lachlan Hardy.
Well more correctly, across the Nullibor Plane – We just received confirmation for the PodCamp Australia guys that Perth has won the right to host the first PodCamp! Not only did we win, we won pretty convincingly, with 152 votes. Syndey came second place with only got 82!
The event in October should feed all of the locals’ hunger for local events. Check out http://www.podcamp.info for more details as they come to hand.
After over 8 months of organsing and meetings, the WA Web Awards for 2007 have been and gone – and once again, the WA web industry hasn’t disappointed. 154 entries, whittled down to 36 finalists over 12 categories – 182 attendees at a black tie event, and as I’m sure you can imagine, the wine and food flowed through out the night. As did the crazy dancing at the Amplifier afterwards. As such, I’m sure there was more than a few sore heads on Saturday!
Congratulations to all the winners, the official announcement will be made on the WAWA website in the next few days, but for the impatient, you can go through the WAWA twitter feed to find out who got up on the night.
I would personally like to thank the rest of the committee – Kay Smoljak and Helen Burgess for their hard work, it might have been a smaller committee this year, but they worked just as hard to make the night as successful as it was. Thankyou to Jan and Rebecca at Red Horizon Events – it would have been absolutely impossible without their tireless work – there was a reason Kay, Helen and myself were so calm during the course of the day – Jan and Beck had everything well and truly under control. And thank you to Ken Drake for his brilliant work behind the camera – the photos should be up on Flickr soon.
Another big thank you to the judges – judging such an event is no mean feat, especially when you are volunteering your services. To Matt Voerman, Maxine Sherrin, Donna Maurer, Tim Lucas, Duncan Riley, James Bull and James Beaird – you did I brilliant job and I hope those of you that attended the night enjoyed yourselves. I will also thank Megyn Carpenter for the amazing job she did as the Judging Co-ordinator. Because the committee is still able to enter the awards night, we have always had a neutral chair that manages the judges on our behalf. Megyn is stepping down from the roll for 2008 and she will be sorely missed. Thank you Megs for you help!
And finally a big thank you to the sponsors – Fasthit.net, ECU, the Broth, Microsoft, Central TAFE, New Lease, Crumpler and PerthNow, for with out them we could not have put on such a huge night!
Well I think that is more than enough thank yous for one day – there are a few photos linked below (thanks Simone!), so you can have a brief look at how it all un-furled.
I’m still a little blurry-eyed from last night (as are most of the beachhouse) – but I can safely say, that WebJam Perth cranked. Estimates of the number of attendees are varied, but there was definitely between 80 and 100 people there was awesome. There was also 15 presenters, and the quality was top-notch!
After picking up the WebJam crew from the airport, and hanging out with them for the day, we prepped the Velvet Lounge and the crowd started flowing in. There was a lot of new faces there too, which is an indicator of how crazy the industry is going at the moment.
Gary Barber presented a rather tongue-in-cheek look at Web3.0 whilst managing to demonstrate some pretty cool drag-and-drop functionality. This got him third place. Nick Cowie launched a scathing attack on a number of locals for producing websites that don’t work on mobiles – which got him second prize. Richard and Simon did a kick-arse visualisation system for Scouta which can only be described, well, visually – luckily there is a video already online. Unsurprisingly, this got them first place and the grand prize of Adobe CS3.
Unfortunately, my presentation Canvas Text Replacement, which is a alternative to sIFR didn’t make the top three, but with the quality of the top three, I don’t mind one little bit.
All in all, it went off – big ups to the WebJam crew: Lachlan, Lisa and Tim, for flying over from Sydney – they have been fantastic.
So one half of WA Web Week is done, roll on the WAWAs tomorrow! For those of you that can’t attend, you can view the live twitter feed on the website.
As the more attentive of you out there knows, podcamp.info have been running a competition-turned-slinging match between the states of this fair country to see who should get the rights to host the first Australian PodCamp. Perhaps when they thought of this marketing plan, they were betting on Sydney and Melbourne (as usual) providing the bulk of the votes. Well unfortunately for them, they didn’t count of Perth’s very own BarCamp being but days before.
Ever since, a crack team of web commandos, accused of a crime they did not commit have been hawking Perth to anyone who would listen, and as a result, up until a few days ago we were in the lead. Now we only have to wait until the end of the week to find out where were stand – the create a further aire of suspense the organisers have removed the leaderboard so it will be a surprise on Friday. Just to make sure that we get PodCamp – we implore you to got to http://www.podcamp.info and vote #1 Perth.
Bronwen and I have even made a video begging for your support. See below.
Is it August already? Our crazy, self-proclaimed WA Web Week starts next week, which means there isn’t much time to sort our your WebJam presentation and to get your frocks ready for the WA Web Awards.
Even though you can just turn up to WebJam, which will be at the Velvet Lounge in Mt Lawley on Wednesday 15 August we would love to get an estimate of how many people we will see on the night. Head over to the WebJam website and register. Want to do a presentation? They are only 3 minutes, so it won’t take much prepare for it – you just need to tell us what you are up to and why it is cool.
And of course the biggest event in the WA Web Industry calendar – the WA Web Awards are on two days later at the Duxton hotel. The WA Web Industry is absolutely pumping at the moment, and the Web Awards are our chance to acknowledge the amazing work that our industry does. The last two have been brilliant nights, and this one is going to be even better!
So go and support your industry – the more you support us, they more cool stuff we can put on!
I’ve been freelancing under the moniker of MadPilot Productions on and off for nigh-on 7 years now and I’m the first to admit that making the books balance wasn’t always at the fore front of my mind. I’m a web developer – I need to develop! Unfortunately, running your own business means at some point you will have to deal with accounts and invoicing and the tax department. After all those years of battling my way through and making (expensive) mistakes, I have compiled a number of simple hints and tips that can help take the pain out of the financial side of things.
First my disclaimer: I’m not an accountant (ha!) and this might not be the most optimal way of doing things – but it does make it easier and is working for me. This is Australian specific, although I’m sure the general ideas will translate to other countries.
In Australia this is a really important step because you won’t be able to deal with Goods and Services Tax (GST) if your aren’t a registered business. You can register as a sole trader, which means you don’t need a company behind you. This is the easiest way, and usually isn’t going to cause to many headaches. I’m not going to cover the other types of business you can create (such as partnerships etc) as that can start getting complex, and you should really be taking advice from an accountant and/or a lawyer.
Once you have registered as a business you can apply for an Australian Business Number (ABN) and register for GST. Getting an ABN is optional, but I’d recommend doing it – it doesn’t cost you anything and if you don’t have one, other companies that you deal with are entitled to keep 46.5% of your invoices. So just get one.
Although you don’t need to register for GST if you are going to be making less than a threshold (it is currently $75,000) I would still do it. If you are small and you are good with you accounts it doesn’t take that much work, and it means you get to claim the GST back on any business related expenses!
All of this is explained in full at http://www.business.gov.au it also have links to the necessary forms to get you on your way.
I personally find this the easiest way to manage expenses for your business. Having a separate statement at the end of the month is much easier than trying to sift through one HUGE single statement. It also means you can partition business money and personal money. If you ever get paid by cheque, you will need one as more often than not the cheque will be made out to you business name, not you personally – you can’t cash it if the names don’t match. Basic business accounts are usually pretty cheap and they are well worth it. Most banks will allow you to link your personal and business accounts via their online interface so transferring money between the two is easy.
When you are starting out, getting a business credit card can be nigh on impossible, but in this age of the web having one makes life MUCH easier. The solution is get a personal one (you are the only person using it if you a freelancer anyway) and pay any business expenses back from your business account. Many banks also have Visa or Mastercard debit accounts so if you don’t trust yourself with credit, this is another option. Unfortunately, these cards are generally only available to individuals not businesses, so you will still need another business account.
This is something that most new freelancers don’t think about, because they aren’t free and it seems like an expense that is hard to justify. Hopefully this will justify it: The accounting packages will help you see hidden expenses that you have forgotten about, such as TAX! When you work for someone else, they take care of the tax you need to pay. Unfortunately, since you are now your own employer, you are responsible for paying it. How much do you need to pay? No idea – that is what the accounting package is for.
There are many options – in Australia, MYOB and Quicken are the most popular choices, but have interfaces that suck. Thankfully there are some other options, such as the online system: NetAccounts which is what I use. These have a myriad of options so can take a little work to get used to but it is worth it, especially at Business Activity Statement (BAS) time – you click a button and it tells you how to fill it in – well worth the couple of hundred bucks you need to lay down to get it.
You wouldn’t trust an accountant to do their own website, why should you do your own tax? They know the tax system better than you, so let them deal with it – if you follow my previous piece of advice and get an accounting package it should be a walk in the park for them. It’ll probably set you back a couple of hundred, but it could cost you a lot more if you did it wrong.
If you get injured and can’t work, you are pretty well screwed. This is where income insurance can be really helpful. If you are in low-risk industry such as IT, it can be pretty cheap (mine is about $13 a week) and if you get injured they will pay out 75% of your income until you are fit enough to go back to work. Have a chat with an insurance broker – they can point you in the right direction.
This is especially important if you change by the hour. It is all too easy to lose track of time and go over budget on a project. If you track your time well, you can warn a client if they are about to hit their budget limit BEFORE it happens and it also allows you to go back through your records when you are quoting in new jobs. If the job you did two months ago took 10 hours and is similar to the new job request you just got, you have a pretty accurate estimate.
Many people use spreadsheets for this, which I hated – so I wrote 88 Miles which is a simple time tracking system specifically for freelancers and small businesses. There I’ve plugged it!
Ok, this sounds weird, but hear me out. A good general rule of thumb is that 2/3 of the money you bring in is going to go straight back out as expenses and tax (sucks huh?) so if you work that out as your wage you are less likely to find yourself short when all the bills come around. At the end of each week (or fortnight or month – what ever is easiest based on your cash flow), transfer 1/3 of what you brought in to your personal account. This is your money, and you can do with it what you like. Paying rent and buying food is always good and hopefully you have some left over to have a bit of fun.
DON’T TAKE ANY MORE OUT OF YOUR BUSINESS ACCOUNT! The business account if for the business – I can’t stress this enough.
If you have regular enough income, you can even setup the payroll facility of your accounting package to allocate you your pay each pay period. The benefit of this is it will take into account tax and superannuation. If this is the case, you can work on paying yourself 2/3 – the extra 1/3 will most probably end up going to the tax department, so you won’t see it anyway.
Example:
You are charging $50 an hour. Let’s say you can manage 5 hours of billable work a day and that you want to take holidays at some point (the standard is to treat one year as 260 days) you will be bringing in $65,000 a year. 1/3 of that is about $21,000 a year. The tax on $65,000 is roughly $15,000 so our estimate is close. So you will have $400 per week in your pocket for living and about $400 a week for running your business.
The great thing about this method is that you should have money left over, which means you should be able to go on a little spending spree at the end of the financial year, but more importantly if you get sick or want to take holidays, or god forbid the work dries up for a period, you still have some money in the bank to cover your expenses (for a while).
Hopefully this can help you freelancers out there run a successful business. The industry is pumping at the moment, so there isn’t a better time to go out on your own – just make sure you are smart about it.