When you’re the director of a limited company and you’re getting ready to hire your first employee, one of the trickiest questions is: how much should I pay myself as salary and how much as dividends? Too little salary and you might put yourself in a position where you can’t build National Insurance credits or access state benefits; too much salary and you saddle the business with higher...
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I often see directors surprised by an unexpected tax bill because their dividend withdrawals weren’t planned to match...
When you split a property into a home part and a commercial part, VAT can quickly feel like a maze. I see this a lot...
Renegotiating payment terms with a major client can feel like walking a tightrope: you need to protect your cashflow...
Renegotiating payment terms with a major client can feel like walking a tightrope: you need to protect your cashflow without damaging a relationship you’ve built. I’ve done this several times for clients and for my own practice, and I find the best approach combines preparation, clear...
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Petty cash and loose receipts are a perennial headache for small businesses. They’re small amounts, but they create disproportionate admin and — if handled badly — a mess for your audit trail. Over the last decade I’ve helped many UK micro and small firms move from shoeboxes and random...
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I’ve seen the same problem in too many small businesses: staff buy something on their own card, hand over a crumpled receipt and the VAT gets lost. Weeks later the receipt has faded, the VAT portion is unclear, or the invoice is addressed to the employee rather than the business — and HMRC...
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When a major client accounts for a significant slice of your revenue, asking to change payment terms feels risky. I’ve been there: sleepless nights wondering whether asking for faster payments or staged milestones will offend the client or push them to a competitor. Over the years I’ve learned...
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Payroll day can feel like a pressure cooker, especially when pensions and auto-enrolment are involved. I’ve seen businesses miss something small — a mis-set contribution percentage, the wrong pay basis, a new starter not assessed — and find themselves facing a compliance headache or a fine....
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I often see small businesses overwhelmed by supplier invoices landing in their inboxes, many of them legitimate—but some duplicated, inflated, or outright fraudulent. Over the years I’ve helped clients build simple, automated checks inside their accounting systems to catch these problems early....
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I recently helped a client move from one cloud accounting provider to another, and it reminded me how many small business owners worry about losing historic invoices, bank feeds or months of neat reconciliations. The good news is that a migration doesn’t have to be disruptive — with the right...
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Seasonal retail is a rollercoaster — busy weeks that feel like gravy, followed by quiet periods where you wonder how you’ll cover rent. I’ve helped many small shops and online retailers smooth those swings and the most practical tool I use is a weekly rolling cashflow buffer. It’s simple,...
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Payroll is one of those areas where a small mistake can become an expensive problem very quickly. Over the years I’ve seen businesses discover hidden payroll liabilities at the worst possible time — the week before a quarterly PAYE filing, or when their bank balance is already stretched. In...
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When you run a small business in the UK and occupy premises that are used for both VATable activities and exempt activities, the question of reclaiming input VAT on shared premises is one I see a lot. It’s fiddly, but perfectly manageable if you follow the right steps and keep good records. Here...
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