Small businesses are often the casualties during an economic downturn. But there are measures you can take to protect your business during difficult times. It is important to continually monitor your business performance and implement such measures while trading is strong, before you get into difficulty. Cash flow Small and medium sized businesses are most…
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Regardless of which industry your business operates in, marketing and advertising will be essential to ensure that you continue to be successful. You may have managed until now by paying for marketing to be done in a hurry, when you have had a new product to promote, for example. However, the downside to this is…
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The Low Pay Commission – the independent advisory body to the Government – reviews the national minimum wage according to inflation on an annual basis. The rates that came into force from 1 October 2012 are: The adult rate for workers aged 21 and above will rise 11p from £6.08 to £6.19 per hour The…
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HMRC have launched their latest target industry campaign. It is the Direct Selling Campaign. Direct selling is where you sell directly to a customer, often door to door, in customers homes or their workplace. This can include selling to friends and families. Companies can use different terms for the people who sell their…
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It is not often I get one of those inspirational moments to write a blog on a topic; however, an enquiry yesterday made me want to talk about this topic. The enquiry: “I’ve been freelance for 20 years and usually make a reasonable gross profit. We’ve found a great mortgage deal. Perfect! *BUT* they won’t…
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As you can assume from the term Bribery Act it essentially is a piece of legislation that has been produced to counter bribery from taking place within an organisation. Moreover the act also includes businesses that you deal with. It is this aspect that will become a significant issue for many business owners. What the…
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It has long been the common conception of accountants that they are merely number crunchers and form fillers. But is this really what they do? It could easily be argued that the external accountant of a business is the most valuable adviser to that business. The numbers in the Financial Statements can tell a lot about a business and…
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Within the UK VAT system there are situations that can occur where businesses will have to pay VAT to HMRC before they have been paid by their customer. This can be an absolute nightmare for cash flow within a business. This is where bad debt relief can really help a business out. Where the business…
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HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) are on the lookout in 2011 for small business tax under payments and tax evasion with the HMRC’s introduction of making tax compliance spot checks on small United Kingdom businesses. These compliance spot checks are one of the last things that small UK businesses need as they try to…
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