Calculating your profit correctly depends on a multitude of factors, such as making sure your records of income and expense are complete, making sure you don’t forget to include items you’ve bought out of your own personal funds, etc. Another key area to consider when preparing your accounts, and your taxable profit, is the accruals [...]
Why should I forecast Cashflow and how should I do it?
February 27, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Cashflow forecasting is essential to any business to make sure you have the funds when you need them, work out when you might require temporary finance, and sort out how much you can take out of the business. Follow my steps below to work out how you can accurately forecast your businesses finances to give you [...]
What you need to know about bank accounts and reconciliations
February 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Although not mandatory for sole traders, it is certainly advisable to have a separate bank account for your business transactions as this allows you much greater control over your finances. By maintaining a separate bank account, you will be able to introduce financial controls, such as bank reconciliations, and be better able to monitor your [...]
Mumpreneurs – expenses we should be careful of claiming for tax
February 26, 2013 by 6 Comments
As cost conscious Mumpreneurs, we want to make sure we are claiming all the expenses we possibly can against our income to bring our tax bills down. However, it’s important not to claim the wrong expenses or you could pay the wrong amount of tax and there could be trouble with HMRC further down the [...]
How to get started – business structures and registering with HMRC
February 26, 2013 by 2 Comments
The first thing you need to do is decide on the type of business structure you would like to operate as. The main choices of business structure are: Sole trader Partnership Limited Liability Partnership Limited Company It is usually advisable to set up as a sole trader in the first instance, unless your customer base [...]
Child benefit changes – and how to keep yours
February 22, 2013 by Leave a Comment
From 7th January 2013, child benefit is being reduced in households where there one person earns over £50,000. Those earning between £42,475 and £60,000 will be able to keep some or all of their child benefit depending on their earning levels. If the higher earner in the family earns up to £50k, then no child benefit [...]
Mums in Business : 10 Practical ways to save you, your business and your family money
February 13, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Careful tax planning and profitability reviews are some of the key ways in which you can save money. Please read my top tips to help you save some cash before the end of the next tax year. Are you a sole trader but think you are heading for profits over £25k? By incorporating sooner rather [...]
Payments on account – double whammy
February 10, 2013 by Leave a Comment
If you are a sole trader, you may well have already come across payments on account. But if you are a fairly new sole trader, please read on to make sure you are prepared for what many see as a double whammy of tax on their profits. Payments on account arise when you have an [...]
Universal tax credits – impact on the self-employed
October 9, 2012 by Leave a Comment
The tax credits system is to be replaced with the Universal Credit which will be introduced from 2013. This new system is likely to be less favourable for the self-employed than the current Working Tax Credits and Child Tax Credits system for the following reasons: The proposed new system will assume a level of income [...]
