Minerva Accountants Bristol and Somerset
Fully digital Xero accountants for consultants & service businesses
I have a few friends and clients who are travelling with young children; either homeschooling or before they start school. If you are out of the country for 8 weeks you will need to reapply for Child Benefit (we used to have reciprocal arrangements with EU).
Recently HMRC have been automatically stopping payments after just a month so something to be aware of.
Professor Winston is a computer scientist and director of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory 1972-1997. Somebody renowned for the quality of his ideas, and yet he promotes communication over this.
And I have to say that I agree. We need good communication, whether on a stage or in a book, to demonstrate what we know. It isn’t much good if we can’t share our ideas in a way that others can understand and act on.
I’ve worked in companies, and with accountants who appeared to believe that ‘knowledge is power’ and kept everything to themselves. But that only gives power to one person. Let’s find ways to share our good ideas with those who need it. Not regurgitating unsolicited advice for our own ego but because we are genuinely able to help.
If you’d like to learn to speak then I recommend Toastmasters or I know several good speaking coaches such as Scott Johnston.
If you’re already comfortable and speaking regularly and want to do this professionally then I recommend joining the Professional Speaking Association
Writing is harder but AI can help to improve your writing.
Have fun experimenting with the right AI prompts for you.
The special tax regime for furnished holiday lets is being removed so, in future, they will be treated as any property income:
It’s a French saying that means that keeping good accounts makes for good friendships.
Usually this means that debts should be settled promptly. I’ve written before about how important this is in the business world whether you’re the one paying promptly or ensuring that your clients pay you on time.
But it could also be used to talk about the quality of your accounts and the importance of keeping them up to date. And this is why I’m (broadly) in favour of MTD (Making Tax Digital) which finally goes live in April with the requirement for maintaining digital records and making quarterly submissions to HMRC.
The benefits I see are:
And I believe, with such a tech savvy nation, this is the time for it. Most people have a smart phone on which to take photos of their children or their receipts to upload into bookkeeping software (the receipts, not the kids although we don’t mind seeing pics of the latter too) to be processed by the business owner or bookkeeper with the help of AI suggestions.
Up to date record keeping will allow accountants to provide much more proactive support to clients and, as somebody who likes to see my clients thriving, I’m looking forward to it. No more websites with the empty promise that ‘we’re PROACTIVE accountants’; it’s about to become reality.
Do check if you’ve completed your personal tax return for 2024-25. Missing the deadline could cost you in penalties and late planning.
If you’re a client then please pull your finger out and get the information over to us asap.
If you’re not already a client and you need a hand then we even have a DIY Tax return webinar to guide you through it. The next one is 7pm on Wednesday 12 November so reply to this email if you’d like more information.
We’ve also got a webinar on what you need to do to prepare for MTD if you are a sole trader or landlord with income (not profit) about £20,000pa
I saw this on a social media post yesterday and it got me really excited. (Okay, accountants clearly have a different tolerance for excitement compared to the rest of the world 😉) I love coming up with ideas to improve my own businesses and also clients’ businesses.
We even have quarterly meetings to discuss my ideas. Strictly they’re our 90-day planning meetings where the team get together, in person, if possible, to plan the next quarter.
Fortunately, I have a very pragmatic business manager (Kate) who restrains me and keeps me on track! Apparently, we don’t have time to do EVERYTHING I want to improve the businesses in the next 90-days, so we discuss everything and then prioritise.
Kate then creates an action plan and sends these out to each of us. And then she NAGS me to get these done. This accountability means that my ideas become reality instead of drifting away like dandelion seeds on a summer day.
We even package this as for our clients:
So, feel free to indulge me and my creativity by booking a group or individual coaching session this month.
The Cyber Resilience Centre for the South West has a Home Office funded course and other support for you to secure your business.
Marie Condo goes through homes clearing out anything that isn’t essential unless the client can honestly answer the question ‘Does this bring me joy?’
My suggestion is that we should do the same with our businesses. Weighing up profit and passion.
Some work we do because it is highly profitable but, if you’re like most business owners, there’s probably some work that barely breaks even. You can either stop doing it or find a way to do it more profitably, perhaps by automating it? This may be the nature of the work or the particular clients, so it is worth reviewing both each year.
Some work we do because we love it. Coaching is my passion, and I love seeing the result of my advice in clients reclaiming their work-life balance or taking holidays after making their businesses more profitable.
Ideally you would only do things that fall into both categories but sometimes they only manage one. Once you’re making enough money to cover your essentials I’d focus on your passion. If we do this, we will generally do a better job and be able to increase our fees.
If something is neither profitable nor enjoyable then you should stop providing that service or pass on that client. And you should carry out this review each year until you have a profitable business that you love.
HMRC have long held the power to seize money from your bank accounts to recover tax debts over £1,000. They paused this during covid but last month HMRC announced that they would be resuming collections.
We therefore recommend that, if you have tax debts outstanding, you contact HMRC to organise a Time to Pay option. There are further details of how to contact HMRC here
If you cannot pay your tax bill on time: Setting up a payment plan – GOV.UK
This must be done by the tax payer and not their accountant.
I read this somewhere last week and it is so true. Whilst there are great highs on the roller coaster of business there are also some real lows.
So what can you do?
When you identify a problem that is likely to recur in some form then it is worth spending time to make changes to prevent it. But sometimes the solution is not really obvious.
It may help to work through this with a coach, a colleague, or on your own by asking some simple questions
Here’s to using your Lego creatively instead of as an instrument of torture.
Business confidence monitor
The Q3 ICAEW Business Confidence Monitor is here and shows the increased tax burden are holding back business and economic growth