Welcome to the first edition of The Journal in a brand new format. We hope that you like it and find The Journal a useful way of keeping in touch with the latest news in accounting and finance, as well as the events and activities of Rochdale. If you have any feedback about the new style, we'd love to hear it.

Here at Rochdale we are embracing the new year along with some new innovations, some of which were mentioned in our last newsletter.

We are excited about the Cloud online applications now coming into the market and are working through the various offerings to determine which of those will best service our clients. Cheryl Bourne is planning a training seminar in April or May for clients interested in implementing Xero which has the potential to revolutionise the way you do business and allows for real time answers to some of your most pertinent financial questions. More on that in our few next editions.

We have also invested in some fantastic tools that will enhance our business advisory service offerings. I'll be sharing more with you about those over the coming months.

One of our new projects for 2012 is the Client Alignment Program where we work with you to review your personal and business goals and align the way we work together to make sure we're supporting you to achieve those goals. This program enables us to jointly highlight key areas of opportunity and risk that that may affect your plans. The program involves a 20-minute online self-evaluation. If a follow-up consultation is required, we then schedule a personal discussion with you. We will be in touch over the coming months with more information.

Now we are back in full swing, don't forget to keep an eye out for our blogs. Nick Rose and I will be blogging regularly on a topic of interest to our clients. As a valued client, you will receive an email with a link to our blogs when they are posted.

If you have a Self Managed Super Fund or are thinking of starting one, don't forget to register now for our upcoming seminar, What's New in SMSFs with our specialist advisors, Nick Rose and David Shume. We look forward to seeing you there.

Rochdale now has a full listing of the latest government, trust and foundation grants available throughout NSW and Australia. Many grants listed are open to not-for-profit or arts-based organisations. If you are interested in finding out about grants that may apply to you or your organisation, please speak with your Rochdale representative. We'll be including a list of upcoming application closing dates in The Journal from next month.

We look forward to better serving our Ballina-based clients via our new office at Level 1, 31 Cherry Street (part of the DAISI suite of offices). The office will be attended on an "on-demand" basis. Appointments with your Rochdale representative at our Ballina office can be made by phoning us on 6620 0300. The purpose of the office is purely for your convenience.

Thank you for your business and we look forward to working with you in 2012.

Best wishes

Troy