Updates

With a new tax year come the new tax rates and allowances. Although there has not been a great significant change in the rates and allowances for 2021/22 compared to 2020/21, the government has announced that a lot of the tax rates will be frozen till 2026. This is due to the pandemic and the current state of the economy because of it.

Instagram is a powerful platform for businesses to connect with customers and influencers to create empires. Over the past five years, this platform has evolved to add more features, variability, and complexity. 

Readers questions: What happens to the bank account when a private limited company owner dies?

Whether you’re starting your business from scratch, or your established company is experiencing rapid growth, maintaining control of your finances and your business expenses isn’t easy. It’s a difficult balance that requires careful consideration and a regular cull or overhaul of your biggest costs. It’s also important that any cuts you do make, don’t have a detrimental impact on your services.

There are no limitations on how anyone can become a great entrepreneur. To start something that might become the next big success, you don’t need a college degree, a lot of money in the bank, or even business experience. Europe is a context of enormous potential. There are so many reasons why starting up a business in Europe is a good step, from the opportunity to extend your business to new areas of the world to low corporate tax ties. Thanks to new entrepreneurial ideas, profits can be made in Europe.

As a limited company director, if you’re at the crossroads of determining the future of your business and wish to settle on a suitable exit route, there are multiple factors to take into consideration. If you wish to facilitate a time-sensitive exit, the estimated length of the process will influence your decision. If you would like to generate maximum returns from your investment, you may spend longer on the process to achieve this.

A new survey of the UK’s SME workforce shows just what employees want from their employers.

There are numerous reasons you may wish to close your limited company, from approaching retirement, switching operating structures due to IR35 reform or as your business has reached its natural end. Driving factors behind operating through a limited company may be the financial set-up and the associated credibility, however, as legislative measures change and employment opportunities vary, limited company contractors may switch structures.

During the natural lifecycle of your business, the financial health of your company may fluctuate to reflect seasons of high trade and low trade, industry trends and consumer demand. Your business may also encounter financial challenges due to changing tax legislation, such as IR35 reform. Trading uncertainty is also a major factor that has the power to decimate income streams, as demonstrated by the coronavirus pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused uncertainty for many large and small businesses alike. While that may discourage some people from starting a new business during this unsteady time, those who embrace this moment as a unique opportunity for innovation and change may find incredible success.

February is Random Acts of Kindness Month and top UK reward and incentives experts Appreciate, home of Love2shop, have developed a business tool for success that’s generated by goodwill.

After the hardest year for businesses, the optimism for 2021 is falling short. Small businesses are yet to face even more difficult challenges that may even lead to their closure. A report carried out by Take Payments looked at the challenges small businesses will face in 2021 by looking at 1,000 SMEs in the UK across 19 different sectors. Some of the main challenges expected are the Coronavirus restrictions (35%) and the new Brexit regulations (19%).

In the modern economy, there is no shortage of candidates for any positions in a company. It appears as if the employers are successful in finding the most suitable candidate for a post within no time. But, this is not as easy as it looks. There is always a chance that you will end up hiring the wrong person for the job and this may trigger a series of negative consequences. This incorrect person may turn out to be unmotivated, lazy, or unqualified and he or she may influence the working atmosphere in your company adversely. When you spend a lot of time training the prospect and end up looking for another one, it costs a lot of time and money.

Most small companies go bust before they reach the two-year mark (no matter how good their business idea is). Costs are almost always the cause of this demise and the reason for this is that it’s incredibly difficult for businesses to manage their finances at the startup stage.

A strong direct marketing strategy can often be found at the forefront of business-to-business marketing campaigns, helping companies to advertise their services toward their predefined audience and get ahead of their competitors through the use of popular mediums like email and telemarketing. However, with marketing techniques developing and becoming more advanced over the years, is direct marketing still the best way for B2B companies to advertise their services to their customer base?

The current VAT threshold in the UK stands at £85,000. Any business that has an annual turnover of that value must register for VAT with HMRC, and when they do this they will receive a VAT number. Before you work with another business, you normally want to find out all you can about them and you can easily do this through a Google search. However, something you might not consider looking at is their VAT number, and this is actually something that you should definitely be verifying.

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Small and medium-sized businesses, popularly known as SMEs, are the backbone of any economy. Their owners have mastered the art of creating and selling for a quick profit.  However, one of the biggest challenges that small business owners face in their daily operations is money management. Unlike big enterprises that have employed financial professionals and accountants, small business operation is usually a ‘one-man show’.  As a result, the owner may become too engrossed with creating and selling without taking time to look at the cash flow within the business.

Over 672,890 start-up businesses were launched in the UK in the tax year 2018/19 – that’s equivalent to 1,844 new businesses per day. However it is a sad, but the inevitable, fact that not all of these will succeed in the long term. So what can you do to try and tip the scales in your favour? One of the most important things is making sure that you get off to a good start, so here are some tips for starting a small business, given by Jeff Barber, Partner at Selling My Business.
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With the pandemic creating thousands of job losses across the country, the government has launched the ‘Kickstart’ scheme to create jobs for young people. There is a risk, especially for young people who may face a long time of unemployment. This scheme looks to help young people gain skills and training in their field.