I was meeting some potential clients the other day and during these initial meetings I routinely ask if there is anything they would change about their relationship with their existing accountant. This husband and wife team exchanged knowing glances and then proceeded to unfold before me a tale of a relationship with their existing accountant that [...]
Fortunately, if your business is struggling and you haven’t ever undertaken any planning it’s not too late to start. The importance of planning in a business is well documented. Without a plan how can you know what you are trying to achieve and where your business is going. A plan can come in many forms from [...]
Imagine if you were a sports star and you had a great coach to help you with your game but you only had their attention once a year. You would be amazing for the one or two weeks after their input but you would probably pick up some bad habits the other 50 weeks. Now [...]
Businesses are meant to make you money, to support you and your family’s lifestyle. There are times in your businesses journey, especially when you are starting out, that you have to pay the business. It’s almost inevitable because you are making an investment in the future. However, this should only ever be a temporary position. [...]
A few nights ago I saw a documentary about small business owners who had been defrauded by their bookkeepers. This was a blatant abuse of their positions, where individuals stole hundreds of thousands of pounds. The methods used by these fraudsters were fairly simple and once you know what you are looking for they are easy [...]
In our opinion todays budget was for, in the most part, the employed, as opposed to the self-employed or small business owner. An increase in the personal allowance and the creation of the living wage will be welcomed but the changes we have seen with increased taxed on dividends along with the removal of employment allowance [...]
This seems like an absolute no brainer to me but you may be surprised by how many people go into business with someone without first agreeing what each other’s role will be in the new business and what would they would do if the worst should happen. At first, in the early stages of the [...]
I couldn’t resist quoting The Godfather when writing this post about keeping your personal expenditure separate from your Business expenditure. The rest of this post doesn't quite live up to the excitement of this epic film but whilst it's not exciting it is important. When you first started your business you probably started as a [...]
Most customers won’t tell you if you have done a bad job they just won’t use you again. If it reaches that point it’s too late for those customers but to secure more repeat business you need to make sure what you are delivering is meeting customer expectations. There are two keys ways you can [...]
I was asked this recently by a potential client of mine. At first, I was taken a back because he showed me the corporation tax return he had just completed and the accounts that he had just filed and you know what he had done a half decent job. Its true there is nothing to [...]
