Blog

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Tax Tip 

When we complete annual accounts here at Minerva we carry out a simple tax review for all our business clients. We can then contact them if we think they’re not taking advantage of all the obvious reliefs: 

  1. Would they be better off (financially) as a limited company or a sole trader/partnership? 
  1. Do they need to register for VAT? Would there be any benefit to registering voluntarily? 
  1. Does their spouse or child work in the business or could they be a shareholder? 
  1. Salary, dividend, pension? Are they taking £ out of their business in the most tax efficient way possible? 
  1. Are they approaching the £50-60k band for repaying child benefit? 
  1. Do they need to be saving for a pension? (Our All In Place review goes into this in more detail) 
  1. Should they receive interest on money that they have loaned to the business? 
  1. Are they claiming for use of their own home for business purposes? 
  1. Are research and development tax credits applicable? 
  1. Could they register for EIS/SEIS to encourage investors? 
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How to tell if your prices are too low 

If you’re crazy busy all of the time, not just at peak periods, then it is probably because your prices are too low. You can either increase prices to make fewer but more profitable sales or you can raise your prices enough to increase your workforce. 

The other way to know that your prices are too low is if nobody ever says “no”. If everybody you quote says yes, or if nobody bounces when they see your prices on your website, then you probably have scope to increase them. 

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Tax Tip

EIS/SEIS refer to the (Small) Enterprise Investment Scheme. This can be a tax efficient way to invest in a small business or for other people to invest in your business. The idea is to help early stage start ups to raise capital. 

Individuals can invest up to £100k per year in qualifying companies and receive up to 50% back in tax relief. There are also benefits for capital gains and inheritance tax relief. 

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The difference between spending and investing 

Oscar Wilde once said that “The cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing” and this is often true of accountants who are associated with cost cutting. 

Here at Minerva we prefer to see spending as investing. What do we get in return for the cash? 

As a small business ourselves working for small business clients it is important that every pound we spent generates future value. It’s why we invest in things such as marketing, training and business coaching (yes, as well as being a qualified business coach I also see the value of using a coach myself). These are things that many business owners see as overheads but, spent wisely, that can help to generate future profits through growing your business or operating more efficiently. 

What is your wisest investment in yourself or your business? 

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Making flexible working work

One way to recruit and retain good staff is to offer flexible working. Flexible in terms of hours and location.

Many people are uncertain how to make the change to remote working and struggling to recruit high calibre people. At Hudson Accountants we offered flexibility over hours and, to a lesser extent, location but Minerva Accountants is fully remote. So how do we do it?

Cloud software is a necessity but the less obvious key is to have good communication.

1. We use a shared inbox. As long as you use the hello@minervaaccountants.co.uk email address anybody can pick up the query or task even if the regular CAM (client account manager) is off. If it will wait until their return we use coloured flags to allocate the emails to a particular person. As well as ensuring that the best person can help with your enquiry it also reduces our digital footprint.

2. Emails are also logged by Accountancy Manager so that they are available to the whole team. We can each follow conversations. For this reason we prefer emails but notes are added of any telephone conversations.

3. We use a central receptionist to answer and allocate all telephone calls. We use VOIP (voice over internet protocol) and Webex phones to enable remote working.

4. We have a brief online call at 9am each morning to discuss what everybody is working on and if they need somebody else to do something to help them.

5. We meet up (in person if possible) once a quarter to review the results of the last quarter, plan our next three months’ targets, and spend a little time chatting.

Do you offer flexible working?

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Tax Tip 

Don’t forget to claim the VAT on business mileage.

You can’t claim VAT on the full 45p but you can claim on the fuel element. You can find out the current fuel element Advisory fuel rates – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

For instance my care has a fuel rate of 14p. This means that, for every mile, I can claim 14p *20/120 = 2.33p in VAT. There is no VAT on the remaining 31p as that is deemed to be for insurance, maintenance, wear and tear etc.

All you need to do is to keep a VAT invoice* (not a credit card receipt please!) for fuel around the date of the journey ie when you you fill up before or after the trip.

*If you’re interested then it’s because the 45p is an allowance and EU/UK law states that you can’t claim VAT on allowances. The EU did one of their usual accommodating moves and agreed that, as long as there was a valid VAT invoice for fuel around the same date (eg filling up before or after the mileage) then the company could claim VAT on the fuel element of the 45p.

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Who can you delegate to? 

Last week we looked at what you could delegate. This week I want to consider who you can delegate to.

-An employee. But what if you are a solopreneur?

-A subcontractor. Lots of people have left employment and are happy providing their services for lots of smaller clients

-An expert. As a technophile I consider myself pretty good on the IT front but it is still often more efficient to use a local IT firm when nothing is immediately obvious (we use PCDial.com) as they come across these problems all the time and usually know exactly where to look straight away. It’s the same reason we encourage our clients to delegate their bookkeeping to us; we’re faster and better than them.

-Automation. We use a lot of software in our business. Whilst it doesn’t replace people it does save our time on the mundane chores. Accountancy Manager handles all our deadline and client reminders, Stripe collects card payments for clients that don’t already pay us by direct debit through Go Cardless. Dext and hubdoc allow clients to submit their bookkeeping to us electronically without having to print out every single invoice. We can usually find software to help clients improve their business efficiency too.

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Tax Tip

We’ve been busy doing Clarity Business Reviews for new clients. But what is a Clarity review?

Clarity is software that will connect directly to Xero or Quickbooks (or we can enter figures manually from other software). We can then look at 7 key indicators that reflect the profitability, value, and efficiency of your business. And how we can improve those 7 figures and your business as a whole.

Over zoom we discuss your business and identify actions within 5 areas so that you go away with an action plan.

The whole thing takes about an hour.

Then there are three options:

-Work through the actions on your own

-Join our Minerva Mastermind group on Facebook and a monthly Zoom call to check in on how you’re doing and maybe book an annual Clarity review

-Book monthly or quarterly coaching to help you to work through your action plan (Della is a qualified business coach and mentor as well as a chartered accountant)

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Should you be delegating more? 

The answer is almost certainly yes.

There are certain things that only you can do in your business but there is probably a lot of admin or other work that can be delegated to somebody ‘cheaper’ than you.

When coaching busy clients I recommend that they keep a timesheet for a couple of weeks. This can be on paper or using one of the free apps such as Toggl.

At the end of the fortnight look at all the work that isn’t profitable.

-If it is for a client should you be charging more or perhaps somebody else can do the work instead?

-If it isn’t customer work then is it the sort of thing that somebody else can do instead (next week I’ll talk about who you might delegate to)

-If it is work that you don’t enjoy then it might make sense to delegate it anyway. This is the main reason we encourage clients to delegate their bookkeeping to us as we can do it faster, and better, and we have people who actually enjoy the work.

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