The potential for technology to improve business operations is immense, and at CBHC we like to be early adopters of any innovation which helps us to provide our clients with a better service. For example, it’s possible for us to arrange remote access into your Sage accounting records so that we can provide a management accounting service, therefore enabling us to act as an outsourced finance director. By keeping in such close contact with the figures, we’re able to offer so much more added value in terms of business advice.

In addition, our strong relationships with IT support providers mean that we can work with you to ensure that you’re making full use of the available technologies, with expert advice available whether you’re starting up, looking to grow, or build value ahead of a sale. For example, whether you have any regular homeworkers on your staff or not, there’s a lot of benefit to having remote access to your servers – perhaps if your employees get snowed in, their usual workplace suffers a power cut, or they simply they want to work a little over a weekend to make sure a busy week is less hectic, they can do so with ease.

Not only can the right hardware and software make sure that your staff can be connected to the office even when they’re not there, well-chosen tech can also help you be more connected with your customers. Aside from smartphones enabling you to keep on top of your social media strategy while you’re on the go (read more about this kind of marketing here), tablet PCs (or iPads) can be excellent tools in a meeting or presentation situation, especially if you purchase one with a SIM card, so you can access the internet anywhere, without having to connect into the local wireless network.

Imagine the benefits of having complete access to all your files and communications, as well as web applications, during a meeting with a client or potential customer – it can ensure a much more efficient and productive use of time.

With technical advances putting so much data and information at our fingertips wherever we are, the modern workplace can literally be anywhere – and work becomes purely an activity, rather than a location!

Because an Apprenticeship is a training programme, it’s important to take a long term view. After all, your investment in your Apprentice’s development will be reflected in their contribution to the company in the future. Make sure they have a structured path to follow, and that they are being managed, trained and mentored properly along the way. It can’t be stressed enough that the right training is critical, while the right qualifications will help to add more value to your business in the long term.

If you’ve not taken on an Apprentice before, it can seem like a bit of a gamble to employ someone who’s not got any experience in your industry – but there is plenty of advice and support on offer at the National Apprenticeship Service to help you resolve any worries you might have. One of their representatives can guide you through the process, discuss the candidates they have available, and consider the most appropriate training providers for your business needs. Remember, too, that Apprenticeships can be part-Government funded, which limits the cost liability involved.

National Apprenticeship Week is taking place from the 6^th – 11^th February, so it’s a great time to find out more. Visit www.apprenticeships.org.uk for further information.

1. Facilitate feedback. Regular appraisals should have an emphasis on the member of staff evaluating their own performance, and offer an opportunity for them to raise any niggles or queries with their line manager. This will ensure they are actively engaged with the process, and feel an element of control over their career’s progression.
2. Room with a review. Take a fresh look at your employees’ working environment. The spaces that are the most conducive to high productivity are well lit (preferably with daylight), at a comfortable temperature (consider heating and air conditioning), well presented (a coat of light-coloured paint can work wonders) and tidy (make sure there is sufficient storage capacity).
3. Health leads to wealth. Without being held back by worries about ailments and injuries, staff can fulfil their potential, helping your business to achieve its potential. Encourage healthy eating by supplying a fruit bowl rather than a junk food vending machine, while a water cooler will offer an alternative to caffeinated beverages. You might also want to consider linking up with a nearby gym that would offer preferential rates to your employees, or perhaps offer your staff free health checks or private medical insurance.
4. All together now. Far better business results can be achieved if your staff think of their colleagues as friends and team-mates rather than simply co-workers. Create a more friendly atmosphere, and encourage teamwork, by making sure that people have the opportunity to speak to each other about something other than the project in hand. Team-building days are a great way of strengthening relationships, or you could arrange a social event every so often (not simply at Christmas).
5. Remote control. The great strides made in technology over the last decade have meant that homeworking is now a realistic option. If you have staff who can successfully do their job from their home office, consider the positive impact that might be achieved by cutting out their stressful commute and reducing the number of interruptions caused by a busy office environment. Some managers might worry that their employees would be more easily distracted and therefore do less work, but what often happens is that employees feel more trusted, and more engaged with the company’s objectives, which motivates to them work harder.  

Of course, we always ensure that our clients’ Tax Returns are filed in a manner that should limit the possibility of an enquiry by HMRC, but as they select thousands of businesses and sole traders at random each year, it pays to be prepared. We have considerable expertise in defending clients whose cases are under review, and unsurprisingly we aim to settle the situation quickly, and mitigate the final tax liabilities.

But even with an experienced accountant dealing with the process, answering HMRC’s questions does take time, and an enquiry can take several months, so the defence costs involved can mount up. To help you avoid an unexpected bill, we offer a Tax Enquiry Fee Protection Service. Backed by an insurance policy, this Service offers clients peace of mind, since we are able to claim back the costs of defending them in tax enquiries. A whopping additional £12 billion was raised by HMRC investigations and compliance activities last year, and the Government has indicated that even more will be undertaken this year. Because of this additional activity, we have increased our cover to make sure our clients are protected against most types of enquiry.

Not long ago the HMRC announced that up to 50,000 business records will be investigated in the second half of 2011, and we have recently discovered that these checks have already started – our enhanced Tax Enquiry Fee Protection Service will protect you against this new campaign, should your company’s records be investigated. In addition, business clients who subscribe will also receive personal cover for their Directors and Partners, provided their affairs are being looked after by our team, and there are no additional businesses which require separate cover.

To find out more about how this cover can offer peace of mind against unexpected tax inspection bills, please get in touch with our tax team.

It’s important to consider the various channels available to you, and work out which ones will reach your target audience of potential customers:

LinkedIn – This online business networking tool is great for working your personal network. You can make connections with friends, colleagues and customers, find out who knows who, and request introductions to new people. Contacts can also write ‘recommendations’, which are basically testimonials that will be displayed on your profile. If yours is a B2B operation, you might want to consider joining a specialist group, and sharing your expertise on the forums.

Facebook – This network is best leveraged by the type of businesses that consumers are likely to chat about during their social interactions. For example, someone might recommend a restaurant or local independent shop, or they may want to find out more about a hobby or their favourite brand of clothing. Businesses can set up their own pages, upload pictures and information about their activities, then post ‘updates’. It’s best to make sure these encourage interaction from Facebook users who ‘like’ the page, rather than just churning out commercial messages. If social media users feel like you’re spamming them, they won’t want to engage with the brand.

Twitter – This 140-character micro-blogging channel is simple yet effective. It’s important to make sure your account name is as close as possible to your business name, even if you have to use an underscore – as spaces are not allowed, also think about how upper and lower cases can be used to clarify. As with updates on other platforms, it’s important to get the frequency and content right. Don’t bombard your followers with lots of tweets, and try to post something regularly. Again, constant commercial messages are a no-no, although there’s no harm in promoting the odd special offer. Asking questions about your industry or service is a good way of inviting feedback, while highlighting pertinent news stories will highlight your specialist awareness.

Blog – To boost your website up the organic search rankings, it’s best to have your blog integrated into your website, because the more relevant content you can put on your site the higher it will be ranked. But what should you write about? Think about the sort of questions that your customers ask you. What sort of advice are your employees always dishing out? Are there any current industry issues that you can offer a perspective upon? If you’re really stuck, have a sneaky peek at your competitors, to see what’s on their news agenda. However, don’t whatever you do copy their posts, since you’ll be breaking Copyright rules. Once you’ve posted a new blog entry, it’s well worth promoting it through the other social media channels, so your LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter contacts all know you’ve added new content.

Whichever channel – or combination of channels – that you choose, the key to success with all of them is to engage with your prospective and existing customers on the level that they wish to engage upon. By being open and friendly, welcoming and responding to both positive and negative comments, you will achieve more respect that if you use these platforms as advertising vehicles. It goes without saying that you also need to respond promptly, as social media users will expect this communication channel to be checked almost as often as you check your email or voicemail.

Social media is a great opportunity, but in order to achieve your business objectives, it should be wielded carefully.

As financial experts with over 2,000 clients in Essex and London, we have a good insight into how local businesses are faring, and what’s clear is that this year will continue to reward the best: those who offer the best service, the best value, and are structured and managed in the best way for the challenges and opportunities ahead.

So if you’re slightly in the doldrums after the festive high, take at look at some concrete reasons to feel better about the coming year, and then call us to make sure you’re in the best possible position to make sure your business achieves its full potential!

Going UP!

Clearly the economy is suffering, but the outlook for entrepreneurial small and medium sized businesses is encouraging. A key difference between this recession and the last is that business is far more fragmented – with SMEs accounting for 99% of all enterprise in the UK. Add to this the wealth of communications technology available to all, and we’re in a far better position to survive and prosper than in any previous downturn.

A snap-shot of recent good news:

• Last year alone 480,000 new businesses were created, creating jobs and investment opportunities throughout the UK.
• The Markit/CIPS Purchasing Managers’ Index showed an increase in the UK service sector, with better than expected performances for the manufacturing and construction sectors.
• British factories received a surge in orders from Germany, Eastern Europe and China in December in 2011.
• Christmas high street sales were much stronger than anticipated.
• House purchase loans have hit their highest level since December 2009.
• Four fifths of SMEs (up from 76 percent in 2010) believe that 2012 will be as prosperous or more prosperous than 2011.
• Advances in digital marketing and social media have made communicating with new and existing customers much easier for every business. With access to such a powerful and cost effective tool, more and more companies are finding themselves better able to compete.

Success in this context relies upon sustained investment in skills, innovation, service and organisation. We can help you with some of these areas – and probably more than you’d expect from a traditional accountant. In addition to being experts in all aspects of corporate finance, we also have sector-specific expertise and are well placed to help you develop, grow and even network.

So whether you need an injection of positivity, or we’re preaching to the converted and you want to find out more about how we can help you this year, please contact CBHC today.

Funding support
The chancellor took this opportunity to further outline his plans to help small businesses access much-needed funding with the ‘credit easing’ scheme, which will be facilitated by the launch of a new National Loan Guarantee Scheme.

Credit easing is a mechanism for the Treasury to pump credit directly into small businesses. The government will effectively use its preferential borrowing rates to lower the rates that small businesses pay for their business loans by up to 20%.

Under this scheme, businesses with a turnover below £50 million will be eligible to apply for new business loans and overdrafts. The government expects it will lower the interest rates charged to businesses by 1%.

The government has set a ceiling of £40 billion for the credit easing programme, with half of this available in the first two years. It will also make an initial £1 billion available through a Business Finance Partnership, which will invest in small and medium sized businesses in the UK through non-bank channels. The National Loan Guarantee Scheme should be up and running in January 2012.

Corporation Tax
Corporation tax is set to be cut from 26% to 25% in April 2012. This means the tax on business has fallen from 28% since the coalition formed, giving Britain one of the lowest rates of a G7 nation.

Investment incentives
Investors who lend to small firms were also handed a huge incentive by an income tax reduction.

The Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme allows people who lend up to £100,000 to a start-up or small firm (those with fewer than 25 staff, and assets worth less than £200,000) to receive a 50% reduction in the income tax paid on their investment – no matter what rate of tax they currently pay.

There will also be a Capital Gains Tax exemption on gains realised in 2012–13 and then invested through The Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme in the same year.

Planned changes to Employment Law
The government plans to complete a call for evidence on the impact of reducing the collective redundancy process for redundancies of 100 or more staff from the current 90 days to either 60, 45 or 30 days.

It would also like to begin a call for evidence on two proposals for radical reform of UK Employment Law. Initially the government will seek views on the introduction of compensated no-fault dismissal for micro-businesses with fewer than 10 employees. Stage two will be to look at moving to a simpler, quicker and clearer dismissal process.

Youth employment
The government will introduce a Youth Contract worth a total of £940 million over the Spending Review period. This will fund wage incentives for 160,000 young people to make it easier for private sector employers to take them on, and at least 40,000 incentive payments for small firms to take on young apprentices.

So while we’re not pretending everything’s rosy by any means, there are some positive developments that will make a genuine difference to our clients. George Osborne reiterated the pivotal role that small businesses will play in the recovery, and it’s good to see practical initiatives being introduced that will help make that happen.

To find out how the statement affects your business, please contact our Business Advisory Department.

1. Avoid having unnecessary associated companies – consider using LLPs where a separate legal entity is necessary. (Bear in mind this can impact on tax and timing of tax payment.)
2. If you have losses in one company and profits in another, use group relief. If companies aren’t grouped consider a tax free reorganisation.
3. Review the timing of capital expenditure on plant and machinery to ensure that your Annual Investment Allowance is fully utilised. This will reduce sharply from April 2012. Click here to find out more.
4. If losses are made remember to carry back where possible to get a tax repayment as this will impact on cash flow, and future profits aren’t always guaranteed.
5. Consider paying remuneration or bonuses earlier to accelerate tax.
6. Consider making pension contributions on behalf of directors and key employees.
7. Claim research and development expenditure relief where possible as there are enhanced allowances available.
8. Buy equipment and cars qualifying for 100% first year allowances where possible.
9. The window for Capital Allowance reviews on business property is likely to be closing as regulations are expected to change as from April 2012. This means that large Capital Allowance claims relating to fixtures and fittings are likely to be significantly reduced so act soon.
10. If you have purchased or are constructing a building have you ensured maximum capital allowances are claimed particularly on fittings and other integral features

If you’re not familiar with this section of our website, take a look at the Tools page. In the calculators section you’ll find:

• VAT due or paid.
• Payslips.
• Startup funding.
• Profit – gross profit and margin.
• Profit growth – how to generate more wealth.
• CIS tax deductions.
• Savings forecast.
• APR converter from nominal to annual percentage rate.
• Loan repayments and interest levels.
• Mortgage repayments.
• Stamp Duty on the purchase of property or shares.
• Company car and fuel benefit-in-kind.
• Inheritance tax liability calculator.
• Fuel cost analysis.

In addition to the online calculators, you’ll also be able to access:

• Downloadable Companies House forms, including every official document you could possibly need.
• Downloadable HMRC forms, making sure you have all the documentation you need to comply.
• Links to useful contacts for all aspects of business management.
• A Company Search facility, giving you access to detailed, financial and performance related data on over 7.3 million incorporated and unincorporated companies in the UK.

Of course there’s no substitute for expert advice tailored to your needs, so please feel free to contact us to discuss any aspect of your personal or financial wealth.

Kinga McLaughlin is based at our Romford office, and has worked for the firm for 10 years. She specialises in tax planning and works with the partners to support client accounts.

When asked how it feels to have passed with flying colours, she said, “It’s a great feeling! As an accountant you never stop learning – HMRC and Companies House are always coming up with something new and interesting to keep us busy. Plus I really enjoy working in the Tax Department and will continue to develop my skills in this area.”

Damien Barrett is based at our Chelmsford office, as part of the Business Advisory Team, and has similarly graduated with excellent results. Aside from the luxury of an exam-free Christmas, Damien is delighted to have passed and said it will make a big difference to his career:

“Taking on a challenge like this takes a lot of commitment and motivation, and I’m really pleased that the hard work has paid off. Having said that, I’m keen to study further and would also like to spend more time working with entrepreneurs to achieve their potential – an area of business I’m particularly interested in.”

Working and studying at the same time, especially for such a prestigious qualification as the ACCA, is no mean feat, and we at CBHC would all like to join in congratulating Kinga and Damien on their fantastic achievement!