Archives

If you work for yourself, there’s a good chance that you will be able to claim motor expenses for running your business.  You may visit customers, suppliers, trade fairs, exhibitions, the bank and a whole host of other places in the course of running your business.  There are a couple of different ways to claim …

When you own a property which is let out to tenants, this is known as a buy to let.  If you receive income from a buy to let, you need to register for self assessment, which will mean that you will have to complete tax returns each year. Your net property income is assessed for …

In conjunction with the article ‘limited company – common myths’, we thought it may be useful to highlight some of the myths of self employment, many originating from speaking to someone ‘down the pub’! If you’re self employed, you can claim for much more than an employee There is an element of this, which can …

Nobody starts a business with the intention of failing, but the facts indicate that quite a few new businesses fail within the first 2 years.  This is startling, why should this be? The following are some of the more common reasons. A Man With a Plan Every business should have a business plan, to show it …

If you are self employed, you will probably keep a cash book, which is a way of summarising the income and expenditure of your business.  The principal is the same regardless of whether it’s a physical book, or an Excel spreadsheet.  We’ve touched on the different ways of dealing with this here. So what’s a …

There has been a lot of activity in respect of workplace pensions recently, with plenty of media coverage.  We have many clients who are employers and are concerned about the implications for their business.  Therefore, we thought it would be useful to outline how workplace pensions will affect small business. What are Workplace Pensions? They …

Many small businesses trade as limited companies, and an efficient way of taking money from the company is to be paid part salary, part dividend.  The salary bit is pretty straight forward, so what about the dividend? A dividend is a reward paid to shareholders for investing in shares in a company.  It is the …

There are various business models out there, but one of the most intriguing is that used by the energy suppliers. We’ve all known for a long time that they make their money by apathy – the best rates are used as bait to attract new customers.  When the honeymoon period is over, rates increase and …

When you have a business, you face many risks.  In order to plan for the success, or even survival, of your business, you need to consider the risks and if appropriate plan for them. The following are some of the more common risks you may face in business.  Most are pretty obvious, but there may …

  There’s no argument, the Internet has significantly changed the way over the last 10-15 years that businesses do business, and how consumers buy their goods and services. Very often, the first point of call is a web search, which has resulted in Google becoming a verb.  It also helps to explain the growth of …