Tag: business planning

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How much cash should I keep in my business?

Another question to which the accountants answer is … it depends.

It depends on your cashflow forecast and the likelihood of all the money coming in on time. Next week I’ll give some tips on what to include in your cash flow forecast if you’ve never done one before and also some software recommendations if you need to prepare regular cash flow forecasts.

The general guideline is to keep instant access to a minimum amount that is enough to cover 3 months of costs.

If you’re a pre-revenue startup dependent on funding (common in the tech sector) then you will also want to track your run rate. This is the number of days’ cash that you have in your business. Work out your average daily costs and divide your cash balance by this amount.

If you are holding over £50k on deposit then Allica Bank are currently offering some good deals (they’re not paying me any commission 😉)

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Why do we have an annual price increase?

Once a year we increase our prices across the board. This is in addition to increasing/decreasing prices as clients increase/decrease the services that they need from us. As most of our clients are on annual fixed price agreements that they pay monthly they aren’t affected immediately, others are increased from 1 April.

But why do we have an annual price increase?

We have a fabulous team and I want to make sure that they are rewarded accordingly so we pass on the same increase to them as a pay rise. Our software and other costs increase throughout the year so we need to ensure that we cover these in order to retain our margins and stay in business.

As business advisers we also advise our clients to review their own prices annually.

If costs are tight it can be tempting to cut corners on the necessary work or to take on too many clients in order to cover our fixed costs. The resulting reduction in service would not be in the best interests of our existing clients.

When was the last time you reviewed your prices?

If you’d like more information about how to go about reviewing your prices then have a look at our pricing course.

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How to scale your small business

Scaling a business can only go so far by selling more of the same. Once you have reached capacity you will probably need to look at a new, scalable business model that requires less of you, the business owner. For instance, offering service one to many instead of one to one.

Hudson Business Advice offers courses and group coaching as well as individual coaching so that I can optimise my time and make our services affordable for more people. My books aim to offer this too and we have a range of ‘products’ at different price point but, more importantly, different levels of my (limited) time

To free up more time you can look at using technology. Not just AI but other software too. At Minerva Accountants we use Apron or Hubdoc to speed up bookkeeping. These apps incorporate optical character recognition, machine learning, and other AI technologies to suggest coding, so our bookkeeper spends less time typing data and more time reviewing. With up to date bookkeeping, we can offer our client better advice.

You may also need to start delegating more. Not just to free up my time but I like to find people better than me at specific tasks/roles. You can use written procedures and reviews to ensure that work is carried out to the highest standards.

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How to improve your profit margins

If your profits are lower than you’d like and you’re not taking home enough money to cover your bills, let alone to make up for all the hassle of running your own business, then you probably need to look at your margins. (If you’re happy with your profitability then save 2 mins reading) 

  1. Look at your prices and increase those where possible. I’ve blogged on this several times before and it is a key component in many of our courses or you can purchase our mini-course on the topic
  1. Reduce your costs by simplifying and documenting processes so that you can use more junior staff 
  1. Reduce your costs by using more automation (dare I mention AI or are you sick of hearing about that too?) 
  1. Reduce your costs by negotiating better terms with suppliers 
  1. Improve your efficiency to lower your costs 
  1. Focus on selling more of your high-margin products 

Even doing just one of these things will help to improve your business 

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How to create a budget for your business

How to create a budget for your business

Businesses and individuals with plans are more likely to achieve those results. But how do you go about it?

  1. Personal objectives – the objectives of owner managed businesses are often a subset of the owner’s personal objectives.
  2. Business objectives – what do you need from the business to meet your personal goals?
  3. What products/services do you have to sell?
  4. Who is your ideal customer?
  5. What do you know about your competition and how you can differentiate yourself from them?
  6. Sales plan – what and how much do you need to sell? Is this realistic?
  7. Investment plan – What investment do you need to make in staff, training, marketing, equipment, and technology
  8. Will this achieve the desired results?
  9. What actions do you need to take (and when) in order to stay on track to meet your goals?

You can do this on your own but, if you’d like more help, then we have a budget workbook and accompanying videos.

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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 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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What do you value?

Struggling to write this today as I hide in a café in the village while a house clearance company dispose of 14 years of my life.

But I’m a natural optimist (and the future is looking very good once I’ve waved goodbye to the memories here) so it’s easy to see the silver linings.

I’ve always believed that people are more important than things and so it was a no-brainer that I would choose to run my first business on just 25 hours per week so that I could spend time around my kids as they were growing up. I also worked from home until the team grew beyond 5 people and we had to take on external offices in the next town.

Working on limited hours meant that I soon became an acknowledged expert on how to run my business as efficiently as possible and it’s something that I love to share with accounts and business clients through coaching and courses. Which is how my second business was born.

Seeing my possessions go out of the door (some to new homes via a charity, and some to the dump) is hard but they are just objects compared to the family, friends, staff, and clients who ate around my dining table or shared their dreams in my offices.

What are your most precious memories? Does your business allow you to do what you want to do?

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Doing business on Deep Space 9 

I’m a bit of a scifi geek and I love the Quark character who owns the bar in Deep Space 9. He has some great business traits. And some bad ones! 

The good news is that Quark tracks his KPIs (on an hourly basis which is probably overkill!).  

In Season 2 Episode 10* Quark has enlisted a musician to draw more visitors to the bar BUT the musician is so good that nobody is actually drinking or buying food. He talks about his indicators which feed into his projections which in turn lead to profits.  

In one of my businesses I track speaking events because the more I speak, the more enquiries I get for coaching and courses. In another I track networking and ‘coffee’ meetings as relationship building leads to more referrals. 

What lead indicators do you track in your business that you know will lead to more profits in time? 

*in case you want an excuse to watch it  

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How I manage to run three businesses (and still sleep 8 hours a night!)

People often ask me how I manage to run three businesses.

It started 15 years ago when I set up Hudson Business Accountants and Advisers to fit around my small children in just 25 hours per week. There was a lot of juggling parenting and business responsibilities to get the balance I wanted. I sold this business for 32% above average as it was set up to run efficiently without me.

Roll forward a few years and those small children have now left home for university and I run three new businesses

  1. Minerva Accountants does what you might expect: accounts, tax, bookkeeping and business (not just tax) advice
  2. Minerva Technology is a small fintech startup
  3. Hudson Business Advice is mainly me speaking, writing, and coaching other accountants and business owners how to run their own business more efficiently and profitably.

So how do I do it?
• I employ people better than me
• I am happy to delegate to these and other experts and subcontractors
• I invest in technology (hence why I had an idea for the tech business!)
• I choose clients that are a good fit for our services and don’t try to service unsuitable clients.

How could you manage your business more efficiently and profitably?

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