Posts Tagged ‘ Business ’

Save your business thousands of pounds of National Insurance

Duncan Mitchell

Duncan Mitchell

Today we have a guest post from Duncan Mitchell, a director at CED Accountancy Services, based in Towcester. I wanted to get an expert in to make sure I share the correct and appropriate information with my readers, so here’s Duncan’s explanation of the government’s new reduced national insurance contributions scheme, giving relief to employers on Employers’ National Insurance Contributions. Read on to find out more …

In June 2012, according to the Office for National Statistics, growth in the UK economy slowed, partly because of the extra bank holiday in April that year. The Federation of Small Businesses called for a reduction in National Insurance contributions and company owners indicated to the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) that they would take on more staff if National Insurance contributions were cut. Boris Johnson also applied his extensive economic knowledge to the problem and urged the government to “look at” lowering the cost of National Insurance in an effort to stimulate the economy.

And so, in the March 2013 budget, the Chancellor introduced relief for the first £2,000 of Employer’s National Insurance Contributions for ALL employers from April 2014. This means that the smallest businesses may not have to pay any Employers’ NIC at all.

We must not forget that in 2010 the Coalition government introduced a geographically targeted scheme to help new businesses in the UK. The dividing line as to whether a new business qualifies is very near here. For example, Towcester, Northampton and Brackley qualify for the scheme, while Stony Stratford and Banbury do not.  Under this scheme, for a limited period and subject to meeting certain conditions, new businesses may qualify for a deduction of up to £5,000 from the Employer’s NICs that would normally be due – for each of the first ten employees they take on. This scheme is still in operation and will be until September 2013.

So far, though, the scheme has proved to be a flop. Fewer than 20,000 businesses have applied for the relief, even though the Chancellor had targeted 400,000 over 3 years.

Possibly a reason that take up has been poor is because the reliefs have not been communicated adequately to business owners. At CEDAS we feel we feel it is very important that new businesses are aware of the tax breaks available to them, as for some early-stage businesses the availability and use of these reliefs could be ‘make or break issues’.

The views given in this blog are personal to the author, if you would like to discuss the contents of this post with CEDAS please contact them on 01327 358 866 or take a look at their website.

2013
04/18
CATEGORY
General
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Making Networking Work

I am a keen networker, and have been for three years. It serves more than one purpose for me. Apart from the obvious advantage of finding new business leads, I have met and got to know other excellent local business people, I have made good  friends, and it gets me out of the office and gives me the social element that running your own business often lacks. In fact, most of our new customers over the last three years can be traced directly back to someone I originally got to know through a networking meeting.

Once you have met someone through networking, the best way to get to know them better is to have a follow-up meeting or a one-to-one, where you find out about each other’s business. I tend to meet people in a local coffee shop or for lunch. It is quite often a revelation how much you have in common, or how business ideas or possible partnerships can come from these meetings, even when you thought your business was nothing to do with the business of the person you are meeting. I also find it useful to meet people who are in the same business as myself, as we can often refer business to each other, or have extra niches of expertise that can prove very useful.

I find I am regularly asked at these one-to-one meetings which other networking meetings I go to – and what I get out of them – this gave me the idea for a couple of blog posts about the local networking meetings I do attend – to save me copying and pasting the information into countless emails!

Networking in Northampton

Synergy Networking Group – Meet at Yeoman of England, Wootton Village, Northampton 9.30am to 11.30 – usually on a Monday once a month – contact Mandy (mandy@forever-yourfuture.co.uk) for details of the next meeting.

This is a low-cost  meeting (£6 including drinks) which varies in size for 3-4 people up to 15 in the most popular months. It is an excellent first networking meeting for nervous new networkers. We sit around a table in the pub and chat and catch up – and even when the meetings are small they are excellent for getting to know other local business people.Synergy

WIBN Northampton – Women only networking – Meet at The Old White Hart, Far Cotton on the 3rd Thursday of the month – this is a ‘lock out’ group, so you can only attend if your type of business is not already represented – take a look at the website for members and contact details to book.

WIBN Northampton was my first ‘serious’ networking group – and by that I mean the first one I joined for which you need to pay an annual membership fee, although visitors are welcome.  It is more formal in format and members get to present a 1-minute talk about their business to the room, pass business cards and flyers round, and also give testimonials about work done by other members. It is a great place to take a prospective client, as if you are established in the group other members will most likely say great things about you!  You need to commit to attending every month if you join, but it is well worth it, as the connections you make can go far.WIBN

Northampton Business Breakfast (FSB) – Meet at Westone Manor Hotel, Weston Favell on the  2nd Friday of the Month from 7.15am to 9am. Visitors are welcome and pay a little more than members. email jo@office-octopus.co.uk who is the branch secretary.

There are many breakfast networking meetings in the area, but as a busy Mum with school runs to do I cannot often free my time to go. I visited this group first, though, and really enjoyed the format, the people and the food – so I have now joined the FSB and make the effort to go every month.  While breakfast is being served you have the opportunity to present your business in 1 minute to everyone on your table – so selecting where you sit is important if you want to make new connections. Business cards and flyers can be displayed and handed out round your table too.  There is a talk each month which usually proves interesting and informative. If you wish to visit as a guest, please let me know, as we both get a discount compared to if you just book for yourself! FSB - ogo

I hope my small insight into these three different meetings proves useful. I will follow up this post with a similar Networking in Milton Keynes post soon, as we live directly between the two towns, so I am ideally placed to network in both places.

2013
02/27
CATEGORY
General
Networking
15 comments

Sage 50 Add-On – Invoice CSV Import

This is the fourth in my series of blog posts highlighting add-on products which tackle regularly requested extra functionality to improve your Sage 50 experience.

When companies start to use Sage 50 for their accounting, they quite often already have well established routines and systems for creating customer invoices, and it is not always appropriate to change their system in order to utilise Sage’s invoice-raising tools and templates.  If this is the case, you still need to move your invoices into Sage in order to keep a complete financial record, so a direct import of these invoices is often the best option, removing the need to re-key in large quantities of data, and also reducing the chance of user error.

The Sage 50 Invoice CSV Import tool allows you to import invoices into the Sage 50 invoice module from a CSV file.  This is different from the import options that comes as standard in Sage, as these just allow transactions to be imported into the ledgers, by-passing the invoice module totally.

The column headings in the CSV file are used to define the fields into which the data can be imported,  and multi line data can be imported into the Service Text field if required.  The CSV file contents are displayed before the import takes place, along with any error messages, to help with error checking and to ensure that you end up with a clean import.  New template CSV files can be created by selecting fields from a list of available field names, to help ease the set-up process.

The program works with Sage 50 versions 8 to 18 (2012) and costs £99 + VAT for a company-wide licence. If you want to take a look for yourself, request a free trial of the software.

To see the other posts in my Sage 50 Add On series, take a look at the posts tagged with Sage Add-On.

2012
07/24
CATEGORY
Sage
Sage 50
Sage Add-Ons
2 comments

Sage 50 Add-On – Back to Back Ordering

This is the second in my series of blog posts highlighting add-on products which tackle regularly requested extra functionality to improve your Sage 50 experience.

Many companies don’t keep stock of the items they sell, but take orders but then arrange for the goods to be shipped direct to the customer when an order is received.  I had a request to allow a sales order to be taken in Sage, but then to create a purchase order from it to send to the supplier, with pertinent information transferred from the sales order to the purchase order.  Creating these purchase orders manually can cause room for errors and feels like duplication.

The Adept Back to Back Ordering program allows you to select from a list of sales orders or sales invoices and create the purchase orders needed to satisfy the customer’s requirements.  The customer’s delivery address is carried over seamlessly and then the sales order or invoice is marked as ‘processed’, to prevent attempts to process the same order twice.

This prevents the need for manual duplication and keying in errors, and if a product is always purchased from the same supplier you can indicate this, with the preferred suppliers being listed on product codes.

The program works with Sage 50 Pro and Financial Controller versions 8 to 18 (2012) and costs £199 + VAT for a company-wide license. To take a look for yourself then request a free trial of the software.

2012
05/14
CATEGORY
Sage
Sage 50
Sage Add-Ons
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Good Advice – You must give to receive

I am a regular contributor to UK Business Forums, and quite often respond to queries, mostly to people who are having problems with their Sage software or bookkeeping, and then move on and forget about it.

I was really surprised and pleased this weekend to get a thank you message for a post I wrote in 2009, answering a query about the difference between using Sage batch invoicing options or creating order,  invoices and purchase orders in Sage.  The reply I made came up in a Google search 3 years later, in May 2012, and my advice has now helped another Sage user.

I have had direct queries for work as a result of the contributions I have made to the forums on this site before, the answers given seem to rank high in Google searches, meaning you get noticed, and with good contact details in your signature line you can benefit from the advice directly.

So, is there a subject you know a lot about?  Find a suitable forum and see if you can help people too – you never know when you may benefit in the future.  And remember, if you have a question too, you might just find the help you need.

You can see the thread and the advice given by looking at the forum thread.

2012
05/09
CATEGORY
General
Sage
Sage 50
Sage Instant Accounts
1 comment

Small Business Partnerships

We small business owners need to stick together and support each other. We are very good at what we do, but the very nature of a small business means we can’t always solve our clients’ issues alone, or we don’t have all the skills required to promote, manage and grow our own business.

I think many of us are guilty of feeling we have to do everything ourselves, and we can’t afford to outsource work. I know this is something I am guilty of.

Shaking Hands

This is where we can help each other, stick to our strengths and set up strategic partnerships with like-minded business contacts with complementary skills. If there is a job you don’t enjoy or don’t have the skills for, when you pass that to another small business you can then concentrate on your core skill set, which hopefully you do enjoy; otherwise why did you set your business up?

I find the best scenario is when you can swap skills directly with another company. I have managed to do this a few times myself. A very apt example is to do with this blog. Liz Broomfield of Libro Proof-Reading and Copy-Editing Services proof-reads all my posts to correct my terrible spelling, mistypes and grammar, and in return I can offer bookkeeping advice.

Also recently I approached an IT company and offered to be a consultant Sage expert for them. They were then able to visit a prospective client to review their IT systems, and as it turned out they were the only ones who offered Sage support and advice as part of the service. This gave them a unique selling point which made them stand out from the IT crowd. We can now both benefit from this sharing of skills.

So think about where your strengths lie, and where alliances could be made – then we can all support each other and grow.

Photo: Aidan Jones on Flickr

2011
12/09
CATEGORY
General
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