Blog posts

After what has felt like the longest greyest Winter we had a week of sun, where it felt like we’d just jumped straight over Spring and into Summer. Although we’re now back to more normal Spring-like weather, the sun made a huge difference to my mood and it was so nice to not be completely drenched each day!

Although you wouldn’t think it to look at the weather, Spring has sprung. The majority of my clients have their year end as the end of March, so this time of year is generally pretty busy and filled with looking back at the previous year and planning what is to come.

Starting a business can be complicated. Not only do you need to provide your services or products to your clients, but you also suddenly have to deal with all the other sides of running a business such as the finances. VAT in particular seems to confuse a lot of people, so let’s bust some VAT myths.

February gets a bit of a kicking from a lot of people, but it’s one of my favourite months. It’s not as dreary and cold as January, and Spring is just around the corner. It might be the shortest month, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t packed full of great meetings and great people. I had lots of interesting conversations and I’m heading into March feeling really excited about the future.

Do you ever look at your business and wish that you could tell which areas were most profitable and which ones probably need a bit or work? Well with tracking categories in Xero you can do just that! Knowing exactly which areas of your business income is coming from, and just as importantly where you’re spending money, enables you to make proactive business decisions.

I can often be found reading blogs, whether for business purposes or in my never-ending pursuit of the perfect eyeliner. My favourites are those where you really get to know the person behind the words, as well as learning new things, with Lenka Koppova and Rachel Extance both doing this very well. In fact, I enjoy Lenka’s “What I learnt this week” series so much I’ve been inspired to do my own version, so join me as we go behind the calculator!

Did you know that there’s a special day just for us micro business owners? Celebrating and supporting the community, #MicroBusinessMatters Day is the only day dedicated to businesses with 0-9 employees. Whether you’re a freelancer, sole trader, or run a company with a tiny team, the 12 tips below will help you succeed with your accounts.

Hello there, how’s your month going? Sales going well? How are they compared to last month, or this time last year? If you’re like a lot of small business owners, it’s likely that you don’t know the answer to this.

Sadly, late or non-payment of invoices is a big problem within the small business community, and can quickly lead to major problems with cash flow. Ultimately this means that they can be the difference between a business being successful or not. A lot of business owners look to profit to gauge their success, but as I’ve said many times before, profit means absolutely nothing without good cash flow.

Last month I attended a conference run by the Bookkeepers Alliance, where one of the questions posed to us was about the term “bookkeeper” and whether it’s still relevant. A lot of the discussion focussed on the observation that it’s often used prefaced with “just a”. Bookkeepers just record all of your expenses. We justuse language that business owners can understand. We just provide accountants with high quality information in the format they need. We just tailor your information to help with any reporting you need. This prompted me to look at some other common bookkeeping myths.

Indulge me for a moment, and allow me to think that I have such influence that, after reading about when you should submit your self assessment, you immediately went off and submitted your tax return. Depending on the amount of tax you owe, you may have been told by HMRC to make payments on account (I almost wrote asked, but we all know it’s not really an invitation!) But what are they and why do you need to pay them?

I’m a big fan of cloud software and have a core set that I use to help make things as easy as possible for the businesses I work with, as well as freeing up my time to give them the attention they deserve. If you’re still using desktop accounts software, or no software at all (don’t worry, there’s no judgement here), join me as I take a look at the main benefits of moving to the cloud.