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When is 80% not 80%?

The answer is simple – furlough pay, but the reason is definitely not simple! We’ve been running payroll services for years now, but the last 10 months really have been the most testing period ever. 20 years ago running an employer payroll was difficult, it was generally a very manual process of written ledgers & tax tables to calculate an employee’s wages, only large employers would have some sort of software to do this and it was still a very manual process of inputting data and printing...

The New Normal

April is usually a busy month but this year it was just crazy, a day doesn’t go by without some mention of Covid-19 and new phrases such as social distancing are now normal. We really didn’t know what to expect at the end of March when the lockdown came in, many clients shut up shop and laid off workers and in many cases pinning hopes on the government paying at least some of the bills. Fast forward to the end of April and we started to see some clients finally getting the financial help the...

Q & A's regarding Business Insurance during this Covid-19 period

We've provided this information from the Association of British Insurers to assist in the understanding of business insurance cover during this difficult period, however in all cases you speak to your broker or insurer to clarify the terms of your business insurance policy.Business insurance The spread of Coronavirus is unprecedented in modern times and we understand this is an incredibly difficult time for families and businesses. Standard commercial insurance policies – the type the vast m...

Questions regarding SSP & Covid-19 Virus

We’ve received a few enquiries over the weekend regard sick pay and some general accounting queries related to the current Covid.19 Virus issues, obviously this is a changing situation but as at 9am on 9th March 2020 the answers are correct. What are the Statutory Sick Pay rules? These are here: https://www.gov.uk/statutory-sick-pay We automatically work out the correct rules regarding pay according to the legislation on the day the employee is notified as sick, currently the first day for SSP...

Important information regarding Sick Pay and Covid.19 Virus.

You may have heard that the Government has announced that as a result of the current Covid.19 virus situation, employees that are entitled to Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) will be paid from day 1 rather than day 4 of their absence. The general current rules are the employee must: be classed as an employee and have done some work for the employerhave been ill for at least 4 days in a row (including non-working days)earn an average of at least £118 per weektell your employer you’re sick before th...

Employ people? 4 changes that will affect you!

As part of the provisions of the Governments Good Work Plan, SMTs will become a day one right for both employees and workers from 6 April 2020. Previously, employers have had two months in which to provide this to their employees, meaning that they will need to have the document ready straight away going forward. SMTs will also need to contain additional details for the first time, which are outlined below: The terms and conditions relating to work will extend to cover terms relating to normal h...

Minimum Wage & Living Wage Increase

The government has confirmed that the new rate will start on 1 April 2020 and will result in an increase of £930 annually for the 2.8 million full-time workers on the National Living Wage (NLW) which will rise for those over 25  from £8.21 to £8.72 per hour. Younger workers who are paid the national minimum wage (NMW) will also see their pay increase by 6.5% from £7.70 to £8.20 for 21-24 year olds. For workers aged 18 and below, there will be a 4.6% increase from £4.35 to £4.55 an ho...

Banking on your business

Whether you’re starting a new business or it’s already up and running there is one thing that is guaranteed, you will need a bank account. But where exactly do you start and what should you consider? Before you even click that mouse on your search bar stop and consider what it is you need, every business is different, and the choice of financial products is as equally diverse. As a new start up business, many traditional ‘bricks and mortar’ (that’s High Street banks) offer free bankin...

HMRC Tax Accounts, what are they?

HMRC introduced Personal Tax Accounts back in 2015 and if you haven’t yet signed up for one, then perhaps now is the time to do so.  It is an easy process, you just need your National Insurance number, and either your most recent payslip, P60 or passport details to create an account. Once you are in, there is lots of useful personal information for you to access at the touch of a button.  You can apply for and see which tax credits are relevant for you.  You also can check if th...

Tax Return 2018/19 - What should I send?

You should have recently received our tax return checklist outlining the income and gains that could be relevant for inclusion in your 2018/19 self-assessment tax return. In this blog, we wanted to provide a bit more detail to help you understand exactly what information you need to send. Income You should have received any employment or pension P60s by 31 May for the previous tax year. If you left an employment during 2018/19, a P45 detailing year to date pay and any termination payments would...

Self Employed – How to get it right!

If you work for yourself, as a sole trader, you will need to register with HMRC as self-employed unless you earn less than £1,000 in a tax year.  Registering will set you up for both self-assessment tax returns and the relevant National Insurance Contributions (NICs). It is advisable to register with HMRC as self-employed as soon as possible but this must be done by 5 October following the end of the tax year in which your business started.  Failure to do so can leave you subject to p...

END OF YEAR TAX PLANNING

As the 5th April approaches it is important to ensure that you have considered any reliefs and exemptions which could assist in reducing your tax liability for 2018/19. BASIC RELIEFS 2018/19 Personal Allowance - £11,850 (reduced by £1 for every £2 over £100,000), increasing to £12,500 for 2019/20 Savings Allowance - Basic rate taxpayers £1,000, higher rate taxpayers £500 Dividend Allowance - £2,000 Capital Gains Tax (CGT) Allowance - £11,700, increasing to £12,000 in 2019/20 Trading a...

Dates for your diary this Christmas

As we approach Christmas, a tax return is probably one of the last things on your mind, but with the self-assessment filing deadline fast approaching, the sooner you get your paperwork in order, the sooner you can relax and enjoy the festivities worry-free! 31 January 2019 is the key date for your diary, for both the submission of your self-assessment tax return, and the settlement of any outstanding balance for 2017/18. Payments on Account You may also fall within the Payments on Account regim...

Let me Entertain You!

Subsistence, and client entertaining - both allowable business expenses surely?  There is a lot of confusion around this topic, and incorrect assumptions can give you a nasty surprise when calculating which expenses are allowable at the end of the year.  Subsistence Subsistence is food and drink when you are travelling away from home, or from your usual place of work, for business purposes. For an expense to be deductible for a self-employed trader, it must have been incurred “wholl...

Making tax digital, are you ready?

The overall aim of Making Tax Digital (MTD) is that eventually everyone will maintain and file their tax information in digital format.  Specifically for businesses, the plan is that business income and expenses will be filed to HMRC on a quarterly basis, with an annual end of year submission made containing final accounts and any other taxable income. In July 2017, the Government changed their original timings following considerable pressure from all those involved arguing that the timesca...

Gift vouchers, are they really such a gift?

Over the last few months there have been several big businesses which have hit the buffers in terms of financial problems leading us to ask; is it really a good idea to buy gift vouchers or cards? When you buy a Gift Card or Voucher (they are the same thing!) it is best to think of it as giving the retailer money upfront so your recipient can buy what they want, when they want it. Firstly, nearly all retailers now have a time limit on the use of such vouchers, generally 2 years although increasi...

Do I need an accountant?

We hear this question quite a lot these days, so in todays blog we’ll look at whether you really do need an accountant or bookkeeper. There are some businesses which legally need to have the services of an accountant or auditor, these would normally be turning over millions of pounds; there are also some charitable organisations who also need accountants to review their accounts, known as an Independent Examination so for this article we don’t include these. So, you’ve started your busines...

Reclaim tax schemes, storing up trouble?

A client approached us this week with an interesting proposal, a scheme which they had found which could reclaim thousands of pounds in VAT. The scheme is straightforward, their suppliers (who are not currently VAT registered) recharge all of their last 4 years’ worth of invoices with VAT after registering on the Flat Rate Scheme. The supplier (our customer) then must pay over that 20% difference on all of those supply invoices, although they then reclaim that from HMRC in their usual quarterl...

For all your creature comforts…. Drive electric?

Some of you will remember the 80’s adverts with the Plasticine animals telling us all how good using electricity would be for heating and cooking, some will also remember the ill-fated Sinclair C5 electric car which no one purchased; then as the years went on we never really considered electric vehicles, that is until now. As accountants we’re often asked whether it is more tax efficient for a vehicle to be purchased through a company or personally, truth is that it really isn’t that easy ...

Moving along.

When we first started it was pretty much a bunch of paperwork, a laptop and the kitchen table; over 10 years later we’ve made the move into larger offices and now employ 6 staff. Even though most of what we do is now cloud software based we still have a load of paperwork to haul over to the new place, along with all that stuff that we never realized we had!We know we haven’t given the best service in that last year or so and this move is part of the effort to bring things back up to speed, w...

Big fish, little fish.

It’s tempting to think right now that business is in dire straits, some big retailers have gone to the wall and as a smaller business its difficult not to worry about where things are going. We need to look closer at why these giants went under seemingly so quickly. Toys R Us, a large warehouse full of cheap toys and pretty much every child’s dream at Christmas appeared to fail so quickly; so where did it go so wrong? Whilst the easy option is to blame big internet retailers, they certainly ...

We miss you.

I’ve spent the last few days reading emails from people who are desperate to keep in touch with me, my personal inbox is overflowing with messages from companies struggling to keep me on their mailing list; funny enough I don’t recognise half of them! Alright, that’s a slight exaggeration but some I don’t ever remember signing up for any mailings; so now is a perfect time to use the opportunity and not reply. From 25th May a new law comes into force called GDPR, it basically means if you...

It's my money.

There are lots of ‘rules’ of business but something we frequently see is personal spend from business accounts; so why is it such a problem? After all it’s my money? Isn’t it?So, lets have some background to put some context into the problem. It’s very easy to see the money in your business as your own, for Sole Traders that is almost true but you should still keep in mind that business and personal income & expenditure have differing tax rules; unless you have very few business transa...

Banking on Disaster

After 10 days TSB Bank are still having problems with their computer systems, but what does this mean for those who rely on the bank to conduct their business? Even a look on TSB’s website is enough to know that things still aren’t right, phrases such as ‘some customers may still experience issues logging in’ are commonplace but if you’re a business trying to pay staff, your suppliers, or even just to check you are being paid it simply isn’t good enough. In the short term there is v...