Financial advice for owners and managers of small and medium sized business SMEs in the UK All your tax, borrowing and administration advice
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 If the answer is yes then its time to get ready for next summer when the UK’s Cheque Guarantee Card Scheme is being withdrawn.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.
Coutts, the bank which boasts the Queen as a customer, has withdrawn free banking to customers with less than £250,000 in their accounts.
The role of the finance manager is fundamentally changing. During the recession, the emphasis has shifted from managing business growth to imposing tighter financial control. But organisations are still hamstrung by manual purchasing processes and a delegation of authority across the business which is making strong cost control hard to achieve.
“The closest real-world analogy to raising money, whether you are seeking it from venture capitalists, angel investors, or the three Fs (friends, fools, and family), is speed dating. That’s right: In five minutes, people decide if they are interested in you, just as in bars and nightclubs. This isn’t right, and it isn’t fair, but it’s reality.” —Guy Kawasaki, “Reality Check”
We highlight a few of the stand-out points of The Budget which affect you and your families pocket.
Getting paid is not always as easy as it should be and threatening to terminate the contract is usually a last resort. There are intermediate steps you can take as well as including some protective measures in your contract terms.
More than 4.5 million Britons (10 per cent) are planning to move in excess of £3.2 billion pounds between credit cards in the first three months of 2010, to take advantage of introductory balance transfer periods, new research from Santander Cards has revealed.
Motorcyclists can save up to 40% on the price of a bike following a quiet change to tax law, experts have said.
Buried in the recent Finance Act is a change which makes motorcycles used for work 100% tax deductable, according to leading accountants.
Cheques will be phased out by October 2018, as long as there are adequate alternatives developed by that time, the body that oversees payments strategy has said.
It is just a year since the Government rushed through, in a matter of days, a reduction in the VAT rate to 15%. We were told that this would stimulate the economy – whether it did or not is one for the political commentators – but the thirteen month temporary reduction is now almost at an end and we must prepare ourselves for a return to 17.5% VAT on 1 January 2010.
A recent study by the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development concluded that making job cuts should be the last resort in the current economic downturn, after revealing that the cost of laying off an employee could be more than £16,000. Against this another study revealed that 69% of Financial Directors feel under pressure from board colleagues to find more ways to cut costs.
New research reveals businesses could do much more to reduce their business expenditure as it isn’t just MPs and Cabinet Ministers that should have an eagle eye on their expenses. The same goes for businesses throughout the UK.
