Blog

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Do you feel embarrassed chasing unpaid bills? 

If somebody left a shop without paying for the goods you would probably chase them down the street and rugby tackle them to the ground (or at least consider it) so why is it so hard to chase payment for our services? 

There may be an embarrassment in having to discuss money with clients. Or you may not want to risk upsetting them when we have been told, so many times, that the customer is always right. 

But … Are they clients if they don’t pay?   

We set invoice reminders on Xero which act as a polite reminder from the moment that the invoice is overdue.  

I then try one phone call, one 7 day letter, and then legal action. 

No embarrassment. They haven’t forgotten. They are intentionally withholding payment.  

If you want to improve your own cashflow and financial position you have to toughen up and chase. Feel free to blame me as your accountant/business coach. I’ve raised two teens, I’m used to being the bad guy ? 

Reply to this message when you’ve done it. 

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Are you running a profitable business?

Are you sure?

What if you had to replace your own time with a suitable qualified/experienced alternate salary? Would you still be making a profit then?

Whilst I’d like to think that the answer is ‘yes’ there are a few reasons why it might not be the case.

  • You might be prepared to accept a lower ‘salary’ (perhaps a mix of salary and dividends) in exchange for more flexibility or being your own boss. Make sure that you don’t lose more income than you are intending.
  • You might be in a start up or growth phase of your business when you are working longer hours than expected. Make sure that this doesn’t go on too long or you may burn out. If you’ve been in business for over three years and aren’t happy with your profitability per hour then it may be time for some business advice.

I see far too many business owners (including accountants!) earning less than minimum wage. You may be doing something you love but you also deserve to earn a living from your work.

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How do you deal with staff who are damaging your business?

You take great care in recruiting for your business but somehow you still end up with somebody who is not suitable. They may be actively damaging your business or just not up to scratch. Either way there are some difficult decisions to be made.

Hopefully you have already given them an employment contract and a disciplinary procedure that you can follow. If not then ACAS have useful procedures that are best practice.

If the employee is still in their probationary period then the process is much simpler. If they have completed less than two years (including any periods recognised under TUPE Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment) the employee has limited employment rights but they still have some and you should do things legally and as kindly as you can.

The actual actions that you take will depend on the severity of the damage done to the business and it is useful to document all your conversations as well as to retain other evidence such as performance appraisals. This assumes, of course, that you carry out regular appraisals for your team but even if not they can be introduced if an employee’s work is slipping. You’re not just looking at the employee’s behaviour but at what you can do to help them to improve things.

Sometimes there doesn’t seem to be any reasonable route to recovery. As a small business owner you have put blood, sweat, tears, and probably a fair amount of cash into your business over the years and it may be hard to keep emotions out of the process. It is worth involving an independent HR professional to conduct any disciplinary meetings in order to ensure that the correct process is followed. They will also ensure that things remain calm and professional.

These could save you a lot of pain in the future:

  • employment contracts
  • disciplinary procedure
  • grievance procedure
  • regular performance appraisals

If you’re a member of the FSB then you can use their templates and limited advice free of charge.

Hopefully you will never need them but better safe than sorry.

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How to get your new starters up to speed faster

You’ve spent a great deal of time and energy in recruiting your perfect (you hope) employee but it will still take a while before they’re ‘up to speed’. Well, there are a few things that you can do to get them there faster. 

1.Onboarding. We use an onboarding checklist to make sure that new starters are welcomed on the first day with things like: 

  • Contract 
  • Confidentiality and ethics agreements 
  • Laptop and accessories 
  • Licences and log in details for all software 

If you’d like a copy of our full list just reply to this email 

2.Training. A lot of the software that we use, such as Xero and XeroTax, comes with training and certification so we have a list and links of what we need our new starter to complete in their first week/month 

3.Procedures manual. It’s a bit of a glorified word for our shared folder of procedures and checklists but everything is in one place to explain what and how we do things. Even qualified accountants from another firm don’t do things exactly the same way. 

4.Client information. Every client is different so we keep a few notes on each business so that a new client manager knows the basics. We update this each year as we complete the year end.  

Next week I’ll talk through how to handle toxic team members  

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Tax tip

Furnished holiday lets 

Back on 6 March the Conservative Spring Budget announced the FHL (Furnished Holiday Lettings) scheme but failed to included it in the Finance Act. 

On 29 July the new Labour government confirmed that they would proceed with this by publishing a policy paper and draft legislation. This is still not law but likely to become so. The key points are: 

  • Withdrawing capital gains tax relief on gains from trading assets 
  • Withdrawing corporation tax capital allowances  and allowing replacement of domestic items relief 
  • Restricting finance charges and interest to basic rate of income tax 
  • No longer including FHL income when calculating relevant earnings for pension relief 

There is anti-forestalling legislation to prevent advance action between 6 March 2024 and the effective date on 2025. This means that it is probably too late to take any action to mitigate the tax impact but please talk to us if you are affected. 

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How do you recruit the best team?

You may be expanding and creating a new role or it might be that somebody has left and you want to replace them.

  1. Start with the business needs. Even if you’re replacing an existing person it’s worth looking at what you will need in the future rather than what they were doing historically
  2. Write out the job description with essential and desirable skills.
  3. Look at your existing team. Is there anybody internally who can step up to that role? Internal promotions are a great motivator (but inviting new blood can keep the business fresh)
  4. How many hours do you need? There is a tendency to bundle everything into a full time role but, if you can be flexible, you will have a bigger candidate market. At Hudson Business Accountants and Advisers we had a very high calibre of staff which I put down to offering part time work which suited many parents, experienced semi-retired people, or those starting their own business.
  5. Where will they be based? The more flexibility you can give the more choice you will have. At Minerva Accountants we operate 100% remotely so we attract good people.
  6. Do you want to use a recruitment agency? A good recruiter can save you a lot of time but there are many that don’t seem to add any value in the process and you may be better off putting an advert in the local paper and/or Indeed.com or similar.
  7. Have a clear application process and a deadline.
  8. I like to sort CVs into interview, unsuitable, and maybe. How well do they match your job description? As we are a small team it is important to have people who fit in well but I also want diversity of thought rather than people who will always agree with me even when I’m wrong.
  9. I like to hold all my interviews on the same day as it is easier to remember candidates and to compare them. Prepare a list of questions in advance but start with some simple things to break the ice.
  10. I make notes immediately after the interview.
  11. When we had premises I would always ask my receptionist what she thought as it gave me a second opinion and a better idea of how the applicant would interact with team mates as well as with ‘the boss’.
  12. I try to make an offer on the same day as the interviews so that we can move the process on quickly
  13. Once they fortunate applicant has accepted the role I notify all those who haven’t been successful. It might take your time but it’s only good manners.
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How does your price compare?

Compare to what?

How would you compare the price of a dress from Primark to one from Prada? How would you compare the cost of a smart phone to an old flip phone?

Business owners might try to compare accountants’ fees because they don’t understand that there are very different types of accountants with different expertise offering a variety of services in their ‘standard’ package.

So how can you differentiate yourself from your competitors?


• Testimonials from satisfied clients allow you to demonstrate your quality. Encourage your clients to leave Linked In testimonials or ask them if you can use the lovely thing they just said/wrote about you in your marketing.


• Case studies allow prospective clients to picture themselves working with you. We don’t just fill in those pesky forms known as tax returns. Think about how you help your clients and then ask them to help with a case study. We use Angela at PR the Write Way – Getting you the recognition you deserve to write these for us.


• Awards. This one is tricky for me as I can’t enter the awards that, as an established accountant, I’m often invited to judge.


• Net promoter score. What percentage of your existing clients would recommend you to others? When did you last ask them? (Whoops, we need to get this up to date)


• Niche. If you have a niche you should share content specific for this audience to demonstrate your expertise eg I coach all sorts of business owners but about half of them are accountants so I my content (and 2 of my 3 books) at them.

What other ways can you differentiate yourself from your competitors?

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Forget your carbon footprint

Okay, that’s a bit of a ‘clickbaity’ title so I’d better elaborate.

Hopefully you’re already trying to minimise the carbon footprint of your business and your home life but, once you’ve made the main changes, there are diminishing returns.

This is where we’re at now with a paperless, remote business minimising travel and using public transport or waking/cycling where appropriate. Yes, there’s more to be done but it is getting harder so we’re offsetting the rest while we work on it and switching our attention to our digital footprint.

The downside of being a paperless business is that we do everything digitally so here are some quick wins that we recommend to reduce your digital footprint.

  1. Internally, share files rather than creating separate copies. We us Onedrive and Sharepoint.
  2. Externally, use a secure portal or send links to online files rather than attaching copies to your emails
  3. Paper books are potentially better than digital ones as they tend to be shared multiple times whereas it is hard to do this with e-books. Great news for those who still love the touch and feel of ‘real’ books rather than a Kindle.

I’d love to hear from anybody else who is working on their digital footprint.

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Don’t call it ZERO! 

One of my pet hates is people who call XERO Zero. 

I can understand it when business owners make the mistake but accountants and bookkeepers who claim to be expert enough to assist clients do it too. 

And too many of these accountants don’t understand Xero’s full functionality and use it like any ordinary desktop (some even ask their clients to print out the reports at year end rather than logging in themselves). For these people Xero is just a big cost whereas, for us, it can really help a small business to punch above their weight in terms of both management information and business efficiency. 

I’ve been using it since a random client came to me using Xero for their bookkeeping back in 2012. And I liked it so much that we became Xero partners in 2013. 

Being a Xero partner means that we get full Xero training FREE of charge. Xero pay the cost for us to get the most of their software. In turn we can pass that on to our clients which we do through online videos as well as advice on how they can use their Xero better and/or take advantage of many of the add ons to save them time. 

So, in our experience, Xero is worth a whole lot more than zero. 

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No more Google! 

Why are you googling when you have a dedicated accountant on tap? Someone who can give you good quality personalised advice. 

Whether it’s ‘my mate at the pub’ or ‘my colleague on the golf course’ there’s nothing more annoying to accountants than their clients taking tax ‘advice’ from unregulated sources. 

As a qualified accountant I have to stay up to date with the latest legislation every year, to spend time understanding my client’s circumstances, and to refuse or refer work that I’m not personally qualified and experienced to carry out. But that doesn’t stop ‘Dave at the pub’ from offering his personal insights. 

Depending on the advice my usual response is that it’s not applicable to my client’s particular circumstances, not viable, or it may even be illegal. It may even refer to US tax legislation rather than UK! Even HMRC’s own website is so heavily dumbed down to be accessible to lay people that it can not always be relied upon. And it certainly isn’t personalised. 

I’m often asked to do live budget commentaries but I always refuse these as I prefer to listen, make notes about the clients each aspect will affect, and then read the full supporting documentation. Only then will I start to offer advice.  

I’m very much in favour of HMRC clamping down on unregulated tax advisers. Let’s make sure that accountants offer the best service possible by staying technically up to date and taking time to understand our clients and their financial circumstances. 

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