The government has announced that the minimum wage will increase to $23.15 from the 1st April 2024. Minimum Wage Increase 2024 A moderate 2% increase to the minimum wage is hoped to strike a delicate balance between support for the lowest paid workers and not placing added pressure on an economy struggling with low consumer spending and high interest rates. The increase from $22.70 to $23.15 will benefit at least 80,000 kiwi’s on the lowest pay rates. The increase see’s a corresponding increase to the training and starting out wages and narrows the gap slightly between the minimum wage and the ..read more

Progress beats perfection every day of the week. This is evident every day of the week with business planning. The number one thing that holds a lot of people back from making progress on their business plans is fine-tuning until they have the plan perfect. Overthinking leads to under-executing. Business Planning Doesn’t Have to be Hard Your business plan should be a short and powerful document. A lot of the free resources out there seem to have templates for business plans that are dozens of pages long. Not only does a plan that big take ages to write, there’s no way you’d ever be able to mem ..read more

Taking the time to plan out your business vision, purpose and values isn’t just a warm, fuzzy, feel-good topic, its the bedrock of your business culture. It’s important to have the right culture for your business to get the best possible results. “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” – Peter Drucker No matter how great your strategy is, if you don’t have the right culture in your workplace, you just won’t get the results you’re after. Your vision, your purpose and your core values are the three main drivers of your culture. We’ll work through these three cornerstones to demystify them and sh ..read more

MBP is proud to be partnering with the Taupo Parents Centre to support local families through their Moving & Munching Courses. As a family business with Community as one of our Core Values, this is a cause that the team at MBP didn’t hesitate to support. With limited funding available to support programs for children over three months, MBP has stepped in to help fill the gap and ensure a range of useful and empowering courses can go ahead. The Taupo Parents Centre holds many courses, one of these being the Moving and Munching course which we are very proud to support. What Our Support Will ..read more

Public holidays can be a bit of a minefield at times. With back to back weeks of public holidays, the Christmas and New Year period in particular can be a bit of a headache. To help you decode everything you need to know, we’ve summarised the 2022 Christmas public holiday essentials in this guide. Christmas and New Year Public Holiday Dates 2022-2023 Christmas Day Sunday, 25th December 2022 or Tuesday 27th December 2023 Boxing Day Monday, 26th December 2022 New Year’s Day Sunday, 1st January 2023 or Tuesday 3rd January 2023 New Year’s Holiday Monday, 2nd January 2023 Transfer of Public Holiday ..read more

The IRD has recently launched a widely publicised crack-down on Electronic Sales Suppression Software (ESS) tools. This has obviously prompted a lot of questions, mostly, what is electronic sales suppression software? As an honest business person and responsible taxpayer, you can be forgiven for not knowing what ESS is, how it works, or why the IRD may be cracking down on this. So to help, we’ll let you know some of these essentials. What are Electronic Sales Suppression Software Tools? Electronic sales suppression (ESS) tools are software products that work to alter your sales records to arti ..read more

If there is one rule for business success, its to keep it simple. That advice might sound simple but it can be a lot harder than it sounds to actually follow. As business owners, we tend to gravitate towards the complicated. We think it hides our insecurities, makes us look smarter and makes our business somehow more irreplacable. We seem to think that simplicity leaves us ‘naked’ and with nothing ‘special’ to distinguish us from our competitors or keep our customers with us. The hard truth is that we’re all replacable no matter what we do. Your customers don’t owe you any life-long loyalty. Y ..read more

3 in 3 at 3 is the quick summary of the three key things you need to know in three minutes or less, at 3 o’clock on a Friday. This week: An introduction to 3 in 3 at 3. Fair Pay Agreements getting closer. Holiday payroll ahead. An Introduction to 3 in 3 at 3 There’s always a lot of noise about a hundred different things every week, specially with the media looking to sensationalize things for a few extra clicks. So to make things simple for the small business owners of New Zealand, we’re cutting through the noise to deliver you the three key things you most need to be aware of today that wil ..read more

For many business owners, determining the success of a business comes down to how much profit the company makes. This is a bit of a vanity metric and it’s really important to look at wider business benchmarks. Of course, finances are an important measure of an company’s overall success. If you don’t bring in more than you spend you won’t be in business for long. Profit, however, isn’t the only important benchmark by which to measure your business. There are other important factors business owners can and should measure and manage to determine how well their company is doing now and to predict ..read more

On the 18th May 2023, Finance Minister Grant Roberston released the 2023 Budget for the New Zealand Government. To help cut through the noise and see what benefits, if any, the budget holds in store for small business, the team at MBP have reviewed the budget, commentary and analysis to highlight the key insights for kiwi business. Setting the Scene for Budget 2023 Finance Minister Grant Robertson has promised to focus on fiscal sustainability in Budget 2023, and beyond, but this doesn’t mean paying down debt. New Zealand’s net government debt is $72.8 billion heading into the budget, or 19.1 ..read more