fbpx

business support / 26 posts found

Don’t let the tail wag the dog.

by mike tombs
Comments are off for this post.
You need to be in control of your cash, otherwise your cash will end up being in control of you. A good cash flow is a great indicator of a healthy business. But do you know what your cash is doing? Obviously, you can see from your bank balance whether you have money or not, but that is a mere snapshot in time, a fleeting glance. Depending upon the circumstances that surrounds that moment, the picture may look utterly different the next day, or even a few hours later. But without access to good quality reports it can be hard [...]

Are you on the cloud?

by mike tombs
Comments are off for this post.
Making Tax Digital (MTD) comes into force on the 1st April 2019 (no – it’s not an April Fools!) If you are VAT registered and, your turnover exceeds £85000 you will need to follow the rules for MTD as laid out by HMRC. Essentially MTD means that you will need to keep and file your VAT records and returns electronically; you can no longer just use spreadsheets and manually upload the information. In practice this means you will have to be using some form of cloud accounting. Regardless of whether you want to or not, you will have to do [...]

How do we prepare for Brexit when so much is undecided?

by mike tombs
Comments are off for this post.
It is hardly surprising that Brexit is fast becoming as big a turnoff as tax. How on earth are we supposed to react or adapt to such far-reaching changes when the exact details of our exit are still undecided just a few weeks before the March 2019 deadline? Businesses that buy or sell goods to the EU must be pulling their corporate hair out – just how will their supply lines be affected? A new government website covering possible Brexit consequences The government has already published a bunch of documentation setting out the consequences of a no-deal outcome and they [...]

Travelling to the EU after Brexit

by mike tombs
Comments are off for this post.
The following guidance was published on the GOV.UK website 20 December 2018. Much of the guidance has been updated on the basis of a no-deal Brexit.   UK citizens planning a trip to the EU and EEA before 29 March 2019 are not affected by Brexit changes.   The following comments assume a no-deal Brexit and would apply from 29 March 2019   Flying to the EU from the UK Flights should continue as today. Both the UK and EU want flights to continue without any disruption. There will be no impact to direct flights to non-EU countries. Before you [...]

Proposals for consumer protections when companies collapse

by mike tombs
in news
Comments are off for this post.
The government is to consider new laws to protect consumers who have prepaid for products when a business becomes insolvent.   Government to consider new laws to protect consumers who have prepaid for products when a business becomes insolvent proposed measures will include guaranteeing consumer schemes like Christmas savings clubs can safeguard customers’ money reforms are part of the government’s modern Industrial Strategy to ensure markets work in the interests of consumers   New laws to protect consumers who have already paid for products but not received them when businesses go bust will be considered by the government, it was [...]

Brexit may be in limbo, but Making Tax Digital is not

by mike tombs
in VAT
Comments are off for this post.
As we have highlighted in many posts to this blog, from 1 April 2019, ALL VAT registered businesses with turnover above the £85,000 VAT registration threshold will have to submit their VAT returns from within software that can link with HMRC’s networks. In techno- speak, your data will need to be transferred using a designated API (HMRC’s application programming interface).   The fact that you have always prepared your VAT returns electronically, for example, by using a spreadsheet to record transactions and create the data for your VAT returns, will not be enough. Your spreadsheet will not have the functionality [...]

What are you basing your planning on?

by mike tombs
Comments are off for this post.
One of the difficult things about being a parent is the constant changing. Sometimes it seems as though no sooner have you got yourself sorted, than your child changes. So, the tricks that worked last year no longer seem to work, and the activities that were perfect and enjoyable 6 months ago are suddenly no longer relevant. Planning ahead includes factoring in how your child may change in the intervening period of time. You can’t work out how to entertain a 6-year-old through the holidays based on what you did with a 4-year-old; it simply won’t work. Businesses are similar [...]

Why do I need a management accountant?

by mike tombs
Comments are off for this post.
Firstly, it is important to understand what a management accountant is and how this differs from the more traditional financial accountant. A management accountant will provide on-going reports into the operation of your business, enabling you to make strategic decisions. A financial accountant provides you with end of year reporting, showing you what has happened over the previous year. A management accountant can generally produce the financial reporting as required by HMRC, but a financial accountant will not necessarily offer the services of a management accountant. While there are many great reasons to use a management accountant, we have picked [...]

Brexit – the outlook for business

by mike tombs
Comments are off for this post.
The political upheavals of the last week have done little to resolve the Brexit issue, the underlying political manoeuvrings or settle a growing list of issues for small businesses across the UK.   Leaving aside the political considerations we now seem to be at a point where there will be a no-deal, a compromise deal (the so-called Chequers’ plan) or a no-Brexit outcome; all are possible.   Those of us working hard to build a business in the UK will be hard put to take much more of this indecisiveness.   There is, however, something we can all do while [...]

Stress and how to combat it

by mike tombs
Comments are off for this post.
Stress is one of the problems of the modern world. Some stress is necessary for us to achieve anything. If everything is effortless and easy we learn nothing, and gain no satisfaction, so some element of stress is important to us to function. However, bad stress, is exactly that; bad. Stress is one of the perils of running your own business. Do you feel pulled in too many directions, spread too thin, unable to plan forward, always fire-fighting? These feelings all contribute towards stress. Running a business relies on you being able to plan ahead, to have vision, and implement [...]