small business

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.

As anticipated, Rishi Sunak’s budget on 3 March 2021 was focused on protecting jobs and livelihoods, with a focus on extending and opening further access to COVID-19 support measures. This was a required move by the Government, particularly with lockdown restrictions prevailing until 21 June at the earliest.

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.

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.

Many small companies, including those providing professional services to clients, perform a lot of work from home. One of the most frequently asked questions by directors is what expenses can you legitimately claim back against your company? Here is a breakdown of claiming home office expenses.
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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.

Responding to the coronavirus lockdown protocols, many businesses have embraced remote working as a safer, sometimes more convenient, alternative to being in the office. This has been widespread and will, in the long-term, likely normalise the practice of remote working. Yet, as a less than desirable short-term side-effect, many organisations are overlooking basic compliance with tax regulations and data protection laws.

Hiring the right people for your team is both a science and an art. You might have a very clear idea about the qualifications and experience you require for a role, but how do you find the right person among the many candidates with similar credentials? It requires rigorous enquiry, intuition, experimentation and knowledge of the key areas to consider.

Once you’ve started up a new venture, you’ll need to ensure that you have banking facilities in place before you can start trading. So, do you need to set up a small business bank account for your business, or can you use your own personal bank account?

Value Added Tax is charged on almost all products and services provided in the UK. The current standard rate is 20%. If your business becomes VAT-registered, you will charge VAT on all invoices you submit to your clients.
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