Business Support

Ever wondered how your stake in your business is represented in your accounts?

The answer can be found at the bottom of your balance sheet. Simply put it is the value of your physical business assets less any liabilities; usually described as net assets.

But this is not the full story as there is a further intangible asset that is generally omitted from your accounts. It’s called goodwill. It is the extra value a buyer is willing to pay, over and above the net assets value of your business, for the rights to your customer lists and other non-physical assets that are generally left out of your accounts.

Ultimately, what you can sell a business for will be limited to what a buyer is willing to pay. But there is value in making a consistent estimate of what your business may be worth, especially if this exercise is undertaken annually, when your financial accounts are prepared.

In this way you will be able to see if the valuation is increasing or decreasing, and if increasing, is the increase at a sufficient rate to meet your planned future exit from your business?

Hopefully, many of you will already be monitoring your business value in this way, if not, please get in touch so we can figure out the best way to add this important indicator to your final accounts each year.

The Chancellor has promised to take immediate action to fix the foundations of the economy, rebuild Britain and make every part of the country​ better off.

In her first speech as Chancellor, Rachel Reeves pledged to leaders of some of the UK’s pioneering industries to build growth on strong and secure foundations built on stability, investment and reform, and forged through a new partnership with the private sector.

Addressing the difficult economic inheritance this government faces, she committed to taking immediate action to drive sustained economic growth, the only route to improving the prosperity of our country and the living standards of working people.

Setting out her first steps to deliver on the government’s commitments in its manifesto that every action it takes will be based on sound money and economy stability, the Chancellor promised a new economic model that will grow the economy and keep taxes, inflation and mortgages as low as possible.

The Chancellor said had the UK economy grown at the average rate of OECD economies over the fourteen years from 2010, it would be £143.3 billion larger – worth £5,053 for every household in the country. This could have brought in an additional £58 billion in tax revenues in the last year alone to sustain our public services.

Taking decisive action, the government is today announcing a series of measures to lay the foundations for a dynamic, modern and growing economy, including taking urgent steps to build 1.5 million homes over the next five years and the immediate removal of the de facto ban on onshore wind in England, as part of its clean energy mission.

You can view the detail of the Chancellor’s statement at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/chancellor-unveils-a-new-era-for-economic-growth.

The new government will be judged by the actions flowing from these statements of intent, watch this space as we witness the progress of the “new brooms”.

The Information Commissioner’s Office has a simple guide that explains what you need to do in the 72 hours following a data breach.

The seven step approach advocated is set out below:

It’s understandable if you’re concerned about what happens next. But we’re here to help you understand what happened and to prevent it happening again.

By law, you've got to report a personal data breach to the ICO without undue delay (if it meets the threshold for reporting) and within 72 hours.

Pull the facts together as quickly as possible.

Your priority is to establish what has happened to the personal data affected. If you can recover the data, do so immediately. Also, you should do whatever you can to protect those who will be most impacted.

You should now assess what you feel the risk of harm is to those affected, whether that’s your customers, members or service users.

If possible, you should give specific and clear advice to people on the steps they can take to protect themselves, and what you’re willing to do to help them. If you don’t think there’s a high risk to the people involved, you don’t have to let them know about the incident.

If the breach is reportable, you can report it online.

The ICO have a help line you could call, 0303 123 1113, or view online advice at https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/advice-for-small-organisations/72-hours-how-to-respond-to-a-personal-data-breach/.

Exit can be seen as quitting, especially if the exit discussed is your business interests.

But actually, business exit planning is an essential part of general business planning. In some respects, it is the most important aspect of business development planning as it shines a light on the timing and value you can expect when you retire.

Without a formal exit strategy, you may rush into a sale or dissolution of your business that undervalues its worth when you decide to hang up your business boots.

Hopefully, when you do retire, it will be from choice. But don’t forget there are numerous factors, ill-health and economic uncertainties for example, that may force you hand, and as we all know, being required to quit is likely to result in your business being disposed of at an undervalue.

Much better to start the planning process now while you still have choices. For example:

• Do you have family members you can groom for takeover?
• Do you have a management team who might be interested in a buyout?
• If you sell to interested third parties, at what value do you set your price tag?

And should you be linking up with an agency to handle the sale for you?

And finally, what are the tax consequences. How much of your likely sales proceeds will you be able to keep?

If you have not yet considered these issues please call so we can consider your options.

If you receive documents from overseas customers or suppliers and you need to translate text into English, have you used Google Translate?

It’s a free, but incredibly powerful facility.

You can select to translate:

• Individual blocks of text that you add to view in alternate languages.
• Images with text.
• Documents.
• And really useful, websites. Use this to view overseas sites in English or an English site in a non-English language.

Especially useful if you need to translate contracts to ensure you fully understand terms and conditions.

And if you are courting an overseas customer use this facility to generate your website into a local language and then send the translated link to your customer. Alternatively, add links to your website so casual overseas visitors can see your site in a local language.

But beware, before taking commercial decisions based on Google Translate translations, best to have the translated copy proof-read by a local advisor to make sure there are no ambiguities. Similarly, have a translated websites read by a fluent person to reveal any errors in translation.

Google’s own reply to the question – ‘Is Google Translate reliable?’ is:

Since its inception in 2006, it has become one of the top-rated machine translation (MT) tools, currently supporting 133 languages, having added 24 in 2022. Accuracy varies depending on language pair and content type, though some reports show Google Translate reaching 94% accuracy.

It is pretty much universally accepted that shareholders (usually directors) of small companies take out their remuneration as a small salary – a salary pitched high enough to secure NIC benefits but not high enough to that employee NIC contributions are payable – and any balance as dividends.

Unless directors have the need for remuneration in excess of the current basic rate Income Tax band (set at £50,270 for 2024-25) then salary plus dividends should be set at a level that does not exceed this limit.

But there are other ways that director/shareholders can extract profits from their company. For example, interest can be paid to directors if they have credit balances on loans made to their companies. In some cases, this interest will be covered by the Personal Savings Allowance.

Directors can also choose to leave accumulated profits and cash balances inside their companies and build up these reserves as rainy day funds. Dividends can be taken from accumulated reserves (after corporation tax has been paid) even if the company has ceased trading.

If you would like to revisit your present strategy for extracting profits, or your longer term exit planning from your business, please call so we can consider your options.

If you are self-employed it is important to know if an expense is tax allowable. Any allowable costs can be used to reduce your taxable profit.

As a general rule you can claim for items that you would normally use for less than 2 years as allowable expenses such as stationery and other office sundries as well as rent, rates, power and insurance costs.

HMRC lists the following office expenses as being allowable:

• office costs, for example stationery or phone bills
• travel costs, for example fuel, parking, train or bus fares
• clothing expenses, for example uniforms
• staff costs, for example salaries or subcontractor costs
• things you buy to sell on, for example stock or raw materials
• financial costs, for example insurance or bank charges
• costs of your business premises, for example heating, lighting, business rates
• advertising or marketing, for example website costs
• training courses related to your business, for example refresher courses

Regarding training costs, you can claim training costs that help you:

• improve skills and knowledge you currently use for your business;
• keep up-to-date with technology used in your industry; 
• develop new skills and knowledge related to changes in your industry; or
• develop new skills and knowledge to support your business – this includes administrative skills.

You cannot claim for training courses that help you:

• start a new business; or
• expand into new areas of business that are not related to your current business activities.

Setting up in business as a sole trader is arguably the simplest way of starting and running a business. The advantages of being a sole trader include independence, ease of set up and running your business, and the fact that all the profits go to you.

The disadvantages include a lack of support, unlimited liability, the prospect of paying more tax on high profits and that you are personally responsible for any debts run up by your business.

HMRC publishes some simple guidance for those looking to set up as a sole trader. The list can be found at https://www.gov.uk/set-up-as-sole-trader

The main steps listed are as follows:

• Step 1: Check if being a sole trader is right for you
• Step 2: Choose your business name
• Step 3: Check what records you need to keep
• Step 4: Register as a sole trader
• Step 5: Check if you need to register for VAT
• Step 6: Plan for your tax bill
• Step 7: Get help and support

If you are looking at setting up as a sole trader we can also advise you of the many pitfalls you should avoid and if a sole trader status is the best structure for your proposed business.

Convictions of hundreds of postmasters have been quashed following Royal Assent of the Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Act 2024.

Many postmasters endured financial ruin, the loss of homes, livelihoods, reputation and some even lost their lives as a result of the Horizon IT Scandal which is one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our history.

Following Royal Assent on 24 May, all convictions in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will now be quashed providing they meet the following criteria: 

• Prosecutions were brought about by the Post Office or CPS (or in Northern Ireland, the state prosecutor or the police).
• Offences were carried out in connection with Post Office business between 1996 and 2018.
• Were for relevant offences such as theft, fraud and false accounting.
• Were against sub-postmasters, their employees, officers, family members or direct employees of the Post Office working in a Post Office that used the Horizon system software.
• The conviction has not been considered by the Court of Appeal

This clears their names, delivers justice, and ensures swifter access to the financial redress they deserve.

Postmasters will be written to in the coming weeks as the process for notifying them of their overturned convictions commences. An open letter to postmasters to set out next steps has also been published today.

The Department for Business and Trade continue to work on the new Horizon Convictions Redress Scheme for those who have had their convictions quashed by today’s legislation. This will be fully operational by the summer.