Category: Finance

Few SMEs would dispute that managing and administering payroll is one of those necessary headaches that smaller enterprises have to endure; only the big beasts – large corporations –can afford to pay for large-scale payroll outsourcing contacts, after all. But if assumptions like this are organising the affairs of the UK’s small to medium sized enterprises, they’re mistaken.

Through boom and bust, it’s a well-known saying that “cash is king,” and in times of macroeconomic uncertainty the emphasis on this only grows. Even more important than cash in the bank is the need to ensure consistent flow of cash from your customers.

A UK personal finance survey of over a 1,000 workers with expense accounts has revealed that two out of three aren’t claiming everything owed to them, creating a black hole in personal budgets.

It was a case of seizing the moment for Alex Brown, a Business Partner at Clydesdale Bank, as he paid for his lunch at La Lanterna, the Italian restaurant near his home in Tower Bridge, London.

The new car registration has just come into force – so if you see a car with “11” as the second pair of characters on its number plate, it’s brand new, but what does that mean for small business owners? We speak to Emily Coltman, a qualified chartered accountant and Chief Accountant at FreeAgent, who gives us advice on how to best manage a car used for business.

If HMRC come knocking have you been keeping the right records? Do you know which records the law says you need to keep?

As tax reforms sweep the nation, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is keen to get its house in order and is clamping down on small businesses evading or paying their taxes late.

Not filed your 2009/10 self-assessment tax return online yet? Well you’re in good company. As of 17th January 2011, over three million people who’d been issued with tax returns to fill in hadn’t filed them yet. Here is, qualified Chartered Accountant, Emily Coltman with a few answers to some of those burning questions you may have, to help you meet that Jan 31st deadline.

With just under half of UK SMEs reporting that they have been turned down for a loan in the past 12 months the question over how businesses can balance their cash-flow and indeed grow is one that continues to trouble business owners.

On January 4th 2011 the government will increase VAT from 17.5 per cent to 20 per cent. This latest adjustment marks the third change in the last three years and puts further pressure on small and medium sized businesses who are left tasked with yet more paperwork to do.

In today’s more risk-averse business environment, finance departments need to understand how the risk of non payment can affect the stability of their company. For many companies, their biggest asset is outstanding invoices, yet late payment and customer defaults are an unfortunate fact of life

In the last twelve months we have seen a changing economy and how currencies can fluctuate within a short period. These fluctuations can impact payments of UK companies exporting or importing goods or services internationally – ultimately impacting cash flow and the bottom line.

Does your business accept cheques guaranteed with a plastic card? If the answer is yes then its time to get ready for next summer when the UK’s Cheque Guarantee Card Scheme is being withdrawn. Here is our guide on what you could start to be doing so that the changes don’t affect your business

With banks still not lending to many businesses, business owners are being forced to look at alternative ways of raising short-term finance and one option is to look back in history to the era of pawn brokering.

Businesses are being urged to plan how they release “recession era” accounts due by August 31st in order to avoid unnecessary credit rating downgrades.