POST CATEGORY : Finance

Payroll Doesn’t Have to Be a Chore

Business owners may find that some of the more routine tasks they are required to undertake are also some of the more tedious, and payroll and wage administration can be one of those selfsame tasks. Nonetheless, the administration of payroll, even if the business is a one person operation, is essential from both a regulatory and legal perspective. It also makes sense to streamline payroll from an efficiency point of view.

Payroll and tax forms

Contractor pay solutions can take the difficulties out of payroll for business owners. By outsourcing payroll administration, a business can remove the difficulties for itself of tracking different wage systems and associated costs.…

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7 Tips to Keep Your Books Out of the Red

It’s inevitable that at some point your business is going to run into financial trouble…

Even if you’re financially secure personally, and able to cover your businesses losses; that’s your money, not the business’s cashflow.

Your business is like a sinking ship? Stay out of the red!

If you have a bank or other type of financial backer who can take care of you when you fall short; the business didn’t generate that money, and it’ll still end up costing more when it comes time to pay the money back (i.e., interest or equity payments).

Take steps to make sure you stay out of the red to begin with. As martial arts legend turned IRS fraudster Wesley Snipes said in his very first box-office movie, Passenger 57: “Always bet on black!”…

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5 Ways Hiring a Chartered Accountant Can Improve Your Profit

Sometimes in the rush to get a small business up and running entrepreneurs overlook critical areas that vastly improve their chances of success. These oversights can be just down to focussing on the grand vision too much without considering the finer details, or it can be a desire to minimise expenditure because most small businesses aren’t flush with capital in the early days. One of the most common, and potentially damaging, is not hiring an accountant from the off.

Hiring a chartered accountant

With the amount of off-the-peg accounting software available it’s understandable that new business owners will consider running their books themselves, but very few entrepreneurs have the time to dedicate to doing a good job of the business accounting and even fewer are genuinely accounts literate.…

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5 Reasons Small Businesses Should Outsource Their Bookkeeping

Few small business owners relish the thought of going over their books on a regular basis. Of course most have good intentions, and may even make a good start by setting up a rudimentary bookkeeping process and keeping track of income and expenditure, but usually the day to day grind of running the business takes priority and everything starts to fall behind.

Often the best course of action is to outsource the work to a qualified professional. Here are five reasons you should consider working with a provider of bookkeeping services in London.

Outsource bookkeeping

  1. Expert Guidance. Anyone who runs a business, even as a freelance contractor working out of their spare room, will be faced with tax and accountancy scenarios that they need accurate answers too.
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Are You Still Accepting Online Card Payments?

PayPal has become a hugely popular method of accepting online payment for small to medium size merchants. It’s easy to see why – The setup requirements are minimal and PayPal’s history as an eBay partner means that it has a broad customer base. There are, however, sound reasons for either beginning or continuing to accept payment cards.

Using credit card payment for online purchases

Customer Choice

The more payment methods you support, the more chances there are that you will offer the customer’s preferred method. While PayPal has made its ease of use a major selling point, there are still compelling reasons for customers to prefer credit and debit cards.…

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8 Zero-Cost Invoicing Tools For SMB Startups

Every correspondence you send out has to look professional. Popular full service accounting solutions like Intuit and Freshbooks can cost well into the thousands, and when you’re bootstrapping or working with minimal outside capital, every dollar counts.

Free online invoicing tools

Every online invoicing tool listed on this page is completely free. You’ll find that most will offer “upgrade” options for value-added services like sending email reminders, tracking, and saving/downloading your invoices for future reference.

Generally the self-hosted tools like Simple Invoices, Fusion Invoice, and other open source freebies you can find on SourceForge, come with a very complete back-end, but they’re also less newbie friendly and any problems that arise may require extensive “Googling” to remedy.…

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3 Loan Alternatives for Small Businesses

Financial capital is an essential but often elusive aspect of running a business. Capital is beneficial on several levels. The obvious is to meet overhead, such as lease payments, utilities and payroll expenses.

However, cash is also leverage to grow your company in ways not otherwise possible. This may be in direct ways that increase revenues, or indirect means that cut costs or taxes.

Alternative business loans

Examples include:

  • Supplier discounts for bulk purchases
  • Seize growth opportunities
  • Increase productivity with upgrades to personnel and equipment
  • Reduce or eliminate interest expense

The challenges to obtaining a business loan can equal the benefits. In particular, startups and new companies often don’t meet the rigid criteria of banks.…

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5 Predictions for the Future of Small Business Taxation

The financial ramifications of taxation are at the forefront of any small business owners mind, with the issue seemingly never far from the headlines throughout the commercial world.

Indeed, tax policies are certain to have a huge impact on the decisions SMEs make in the future, as expansion on a global scale and rising regulatory control become increasingly obvious.

Small business taxation

From the government’s perspective, tax will continue to grab its attention as they look to fill the coffers and get a grip on the levels of tax for which they’re liable.

As a small firm, there are several factors you should be aware of in the coming weeks and months that will have a marked effect on how you do business.…

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Becoming a Financial Daredevil – Three Top Tips to Save Your Business Cash

Daredevils are terrifying, aren’t they?

Here’s the most recent example – this February, a group of French tightrope walkers made their way from one hot air balloon to another, suspended several thousand feet in the air. Although they were hooked up with parachutes should they fall, the risk inherent in being that high is enough to give you palpitations just thinking about it.

And yet, in the world of business, these same daredevils would probably suffer a panic attack looking at the financial risks that some SMEs take. Indeed, finances are a tightrope that even the most adept stunt-person would struggle to maintain their balance on.…

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How to Take Advantage of Business Finance to Grow Your Company

As we all know, cash flow is incredibly important for all businesses, without a positive cash flow companies are very often forced to cease trading.

The early years of a company are critical, many companies aren’t concerned with growing the business and just want to keep it afloat in these early stages. With a bit of extra finance it can smooth the progress from start-up to a steadily growing company.

Business growth funding

Finance options

When starting out business owners have a few options when it comes to raising finance, they can go through formal routes such as banks or finding investors, or they can raise money through personal finance using short terms products like a logbook loan or credit cards.…

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