Frequently Asked Questions

Evolve was born from the need for business owners to have more accurate information at their fingertips. Evolve is the brainchild of Jodie Thompson and Wayne Patten, two highly experienced accountants and business advisors who were continually frustrated with the poor quality books they’d receive each year from clients. Clients were also telling them they wanted an easier more direct way to get up to date information on their business performance instead of waiting for quarterly books to be updated. Thus Evolve was born! Bringing together fast turnaround, quality data, and making the most use of automation tools, to give cost efficient services and better quality information to both business owners and their accountants!

Evolve can provide all aspects of bookkeeping, Xero Setup, Payroll Setup, Conversions from MYOB / Reckon / Quickbooks, Creditor and Payroll Processing, BAS preparation and lodgements, annual payroll summaries, reconciliations, journals, and even tidy up the last 12 months of your books. We also offer training on Xero. The services can be tailored to what you need, so call us to have a chat about what we can offer.

You can select the services you want with Evolve, so whether you want just basic services, or full management of your account, payroll and creditors – we have the service to help you and can tailor something to suit your needs. Just ask us!

Evolve can work with your existing accountant and provide up to date real time information to them.  We like to build a good relationship with your accountant so that the reports are in a format that is meaningful to yourself and your accountant.  Our services are well loved by accountants and we aim to have our reports at the high quality an accountant needs.  If you don’t have an accountant we can recommend one to you.

We are a Xero Online Bookkeeping service, so you must either be an existing Xero user, or be willing to convert over from your existing software.. We also use add-ons and integrated software such as Dropbox, Receipt bank, Deputy, Tanda, Cin7, Paypal, Stripe, and many more.

All Evolve Bookkeepers are also accountants, and every month a review of your file is done by a senior accountant. This gives fresh eyes to your books and ensures the accuracy of your data and the monthly reports we send to you.

Evolve Online Bookkeeping has its head office on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, and we have a support office in the Philippines to undertake clients’ data entry and reconciliation work cost effectively. Our team members are highly trained, working in a locked high security environment. Clients data is secure and encrypted, and employees go through security clearances and rigorous training before working with our clients. Our software access is secured through single-sign-on authentication, which means our staff can access the programs securely and have their usage tracked and authenticated with a full audit trail. As an extra security measure, any data accessed by our team can only be accessed from within our Philippines office’s fixed IP addresses. Our Australian management and administration teams assist with onboarding and setup, and any payroll or confidential matters which need addressing.

We try to make it easy to sign up and get in touch – you can call us on 07 5413 9393, email us , chat with us now, or contact us here and we’ll get back in touch.

To ensure we can update your books, we do need a minimum of information from you. If done regularly it doesn’t take long, and the more frequently you do this the more up to date your books are.   We are a big advocate for being efficient and minimising administration time.  

Therefore, to save you having someone email or scan in receipts and send them to us, we recommend the following:

• Have all of your suppliers email your invoices to you. You can then setup email rules to have them auto forwarded to us.  Better yet, is that we can get in touch with your suppliers to have invoices emailed direct to us.
• Use apps such as Receipt Bank to take a photo of receipts and bills when you are out and about
• Use Dropbox to share files and information
• Provide us with log ins of suppliers and other service providers so that we can obtain the information ourselves and not bother you!

There is a basic level of skill required to interact with Evolve as we do operate remotely from your offices.  We recommend that you at least become familiar with using email and internet banking.  If you’re keen to learn we can certainly show you how.  Once you’re set up and familiar with the process it will become easy!

The idea of using Evolve is to give you up to date information on your business.  This means sending data to us on a regular basis, and automating the process as much as possible.  If you’re still a bit old school and shoebox your files for update once a year – then maybe Evolve isn’t the service for you.  We want to reduce the time spend on administration, as well as reduce costs such as rent by eliminating the need for you have a desk and/or computer for a bookkeeper on site.  To do this, we take advantage of available technology.

Yes.  Bookkeepers and accountants are part of a process to look after your financial affairs.  You could say that bookkeepers look after the first stage and accountants look after the second stage.   Bookkeepers do not require formal education in business or accounting.  Accountants at minimum require a university degree and must meet annual training requirements and are monitored by their professional standards board.

Bookkeepers are responsible for the processing of business transactions.  This includes:

• Data entry of bills and invoices
• Reconciliation of the bank accounts
• Payroll processing (not HR advice)
• Reconciling Accounts Payable/Accounts Receivable and may pay bills and chase up outstanding customer invoices.
• Good bookkeepers will provide a management report for the business owners and managers to enable them to see how the business is performing.

Accountants build on the work a bookkeeper has done and takes it further.  Accountants may provide the following services:

• Review the work of the bookkeeper to ensure accuracy.
• Apply their taxation knowledge to ensure financial statements apply with tax law.
• Produce year end financial statements and tax returns
• Review the accounts to provide tax minimisation advice.
• Provide a wide variety of business advice.