My Bookkeeping Online Blog

Running your own business is challenging enough, without the bookkeeping getting in the way. Believe it or not, bookkeeping does not need to be the stressful; challenging nightmare that it is often perceived to be. Here are my 5 top tips:

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Categories:Bookkeeping, Financial, My Bookkeeping Online, Running a Business from Home, Small Business Help, Start ups, Working From Home

If you have a VAT registered businesses with an annual sales of more than £100,000 (net of VAT), or you registered your business for VAT after 1 April 2010, new legislation now requires that the business files its VAT returns online, and pays its VAT electronically.

Such VAT registered businesses must now file their VAT returns online by 7^th day of the second month after the end of the period, or face fines

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Categories:Financial, Running a Business from Home, Small Business Help, Start ups

Conventional thinking is to use a Limited Company, and it will suit the vast majority of circumstances well.

The benefit of an LLP is that it allows much more flexibility in the allocation of profits. If you are in business with others, or you imagine offering a profit share to staff, it might suit your circumstances better, because adjusting the profits share in an LLP is far simpler than adjusting the share capital percentages in a Limited Company.

This is a brief introduction of how the two legal entities work.

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Categories:Financial, Running a Business from Home, Start ups

It is important to have good control over your tills. Here are a few ideas:

1. Always have enough change, particularly at your busiest times. Running out of change is a nightmare – it wastes time while you fix it, annoys your customers and ultimately costs money. When I owned a pub, we were always busiest at weekends, so we organised the week’s change order each Friday (always ordering 25% more than we thought we needed) and then we topped up after the weekend if we needed to.

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Categories:Bookkeeping, Small Business Help, Start ups

There is a slightly worrying article in today’s Weekend FT about identity thieves turning their attentions to companies, and cloning the identities of entire businesses.

The way they are doing this is by submitting paper documents to Companies House changing the name of the registered office and company director details. Companies House does not verify the validity of every paper item it receives.

There is a very simple way of dealing with this risk.

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Categories:Financial, Industry News, Running a Business from Home, Small Business Help, Start ups

Last week, Sian Williams said she would read the breakfast news naked because HMRC would not allow her to claim her clothing costs as a business expense.

As there seems to be much misunderstanding about what constitutes a business expense, I have set out below the general rules that apply to the vast majority of circumstances. Hopefully this will help Sian, and other frustrated tax payers /naturalists, avoid future accountancy and legal costs!

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Categories:Accountants, Bookkeeping, Expenses, Financial, Running a Business from Home, Small Business Help, Start ups, Working From Home
Tags:HMRC

My first blog post on setting up a business at home proved popular - I thought I would follow it up with some tips on the regulatory side to working from home. Firstly, decide whether to trade as a sole trader or to set up a Limited Company...

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Categories:Small Business Help, Start ups, Working From Home
Tags:business, home, regulatory

1. Think of a business name. If you need them, make sure that a suitable domain name is available (for emails and website). If you are struggling to find a name, think about using your own name – credibility is essential and your willingness to use your name will reassure potential customers. Alternatively, stick with the simplest explanation of your business that you can find. “My Bookkeeping Online” is a good example of this.

2. ...

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Categories:Bookkeeping, Employees, Expenses, Financial, Marketing, Running a Business from Home, Small Business Help, Start ups, Working From Home
Tags:business, home, commercial

As a business owner you’ll know how important keeping and rewarded key employees is. I have found share options a great route to incentivising mine. Here’s how...

Share options are such a good, well intentioned idea. They reward and incentivise key staff by passing on shares or share options in the business. On the face of it, as a small business owner, it can be the perfect solution.

Unfortunately, the Government has made it a problematic from a legal and a tax perspective.

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Categories:Employees, Financial, Running a Business from Home, Small Business Help, Start ups
Tags:shares, options, tax, government, LLP, staff, employees

Start-ups are you looking into angel investment as a finance option? You need to ensure you’re EIS compliant...

If you are raising capital for a start-up business and you plan to use angel investment, the investors will probably want to know whether the business will be EIS compliant. The EIS is a government backed scheme that gives tax breaks to investors. The benefits of investing in an EIS compliant business are principally two-fold...

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Categories:Financial, Running a Business from Home, Small Business Help, Start ups
Tags:angel, investment, HMRC, EIS

Fortunately there are some very good employers out there – people who thrive on building teams and getting the most out of their staff.

For me – I know I am not the best employer. It is not that I am rude or offensive – very much the opposite I would hope. It is that I, like many entrepreneurs, am very absorbed in what I am doing – thus for me the business comes first, and that means everything else second.

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Categories:Employees, Financial, Running a Business from Home, Small Business Help, Start ups
Tags:Staff, employees, employers

In a recent FT article, there was a discussion about how some business owners have taken a holiday this summer for the first time in years.

Are they mad?

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Categories:Employees, Running a Business from Home, Small Business Help, Start ups
Tags:holiday

So you’ve got your idea and your determination sorted. What next? God bless the internet and all the technology around it. It has completely changed the research landscape. Nowadays, there is no excuse for bad research and good research is essential if you are going to justify to yourself the validity of your business idea. Here are some ideas for what you ought to be doing:

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Categories:Marketing, Start ups
Tags:Business, ideas, research

Believe it or not, and all entrepreneurs will agree with me on this, having the good idea is the easy bit.

Think of the number of pub conversations where you have had the ‘wouldn’t it be great if...’ and you think you have conquered the world with a great new idea? Everyone’s done it.

Sadly, the journey is only just beginning, and even more painful to admit is it is highly possible that the idea isn’t that good anyway.

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Categories:Small Business Help, Start ups

Working from home is becoming increasingly popular amongst certain groups:

• Early stage start ups
• Mothers that want to get back to work
• People that run a business to supplement their salaries
• Businesses that don’t need a physical presence
• Businesses that don’t have staff

What are the benefits?

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Categories:Running a Business from Home, Start ups, Working From Home

If you are starting out in business and trying to plan the cost of a refurbishment, whether it be a shop, restaurant, bar or hotel - plan the extent of any refurbishment very carefully. I’m talking about every last detail and once that’s done, add in a healthy excess in terms of time and cash to cover any unforeseen events or delays.

I am sitting here working on getting My Bookkeeping Online live. Despite 3 months planning including a detailed prototype, we are late launching the site and we will definitely spend more than we originally planned. Whilst it is frustrating (I can assure you, everyone wants to get going), it is not a major concern.

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Categories:My Bookkeeping Online, Start ups
Tags:business, ideas, budget