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Archives for Cloud Accounting

Going self-employed? 5 things you need to do

Setting up a new business can be daunting and the To Do list endless.  Here are 5 things that you need to do to get the financial side of your business up and running:

  1. Register with HMRC

    You need to tell HMRC that you have become self employed.  You can do this online here.  You will receive your Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR) in the post within about 2 weeks from HMRC.  This is a 10 digit number which you need to keep safe, as you need this to be able to file your tax return.

    You should register with HMRC as soon as possible after you start trading, and by 5 October following the end of the tax year in which you started self-employment at the latest.

  2. Set up a Separate Bank account

    It is always a good idea to have a separate bank account that you just use for your business.  Not only does it make preparing your year end accounts easier, it makes sure that you account for all your business expenses, gives you a clearer idea of how your business is doing, and if HMRC were ever to enquire into your affairs, gives them less scope to start asking other questions!

    As a sole trader, you don’t need to set up a “business” bank account.  You just need to have an account in your name that you use solely for business purposes.  If you have any business related DD’s (mobile phone/subscriptions) move them over to this account.

  3. Set your prices

    Presumably you want to make money out of your business, so you do need to think about what you are going to charge people for your services.  I’m not going to cover various pricing strategies here, but it is important to have think about all the different types of costs that are going to be involved with running your business, and to make sure that your prices will generate enough income to cover them.

    You also need to consider the amount of “admin” time that is involved in running a business.  Running that “hour workshop” won’t just take an hour of your time, you need to plan it, advertise it, deal with the finances of it, follow up etc so you need to build all this time into your pricing strategy.

  4. Keep your records

    You need to get this organised from the start.  Unless you are going to be raising only a handful of invoices and have very few expenses, I would definitely consider using a cloud based accounting package.  These are subscription based, so you need to take this cost into account, but packages start at under £10 a month, so are well worth the cost. At Wilkins & Co, we use Xero with our clients, but there are many others to take a look at as well.

    Make sure you are aware of the types of expenses that you can claim against your business and keep records of all these, as you will need them to prepare your accounts for HMRC, or to pass to your accountant.

  5. Put Money Aside for Tax

    Being self employed as opposed to employed, no-one pays your tax for you!

    It is your responsibility to pay HMRC your tax and NIC.  You will do this by preparing a set of accounts for your business and sending HMRC a tax return. Your accounts will generally be prepared to the end of the tax year (5 April), and then you have until the following 31 January to submit your tax return and pay your tax and NI.

    It is therefore a good idea to put money aside as you go along to pay your tax bill.  It is very easy to see money in your business bank account, and take it out and spend it – and then realise you have a tax bill to pay at 31 January that you have not budgeted for. How much you should put aside does depend on your personal situation, and what other income you may have in a tax year, but 20-30% of your profits put aside should cover your tax bill for the year.  Do check with an accountant though for personal advice on this.

  6. Did I say 5 things – oh well!

    No 6 could be the most important – talk to an accountant!!!  You can contact me at rosie@wilkinsco.co.uk.

 

 

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How to Budget for your personal tax bill

Was your tax bill in January a shock?  Were you scrabbling around to find the money to pay it – or not able to pay it all in one go?  This blog sets out how to budget for your personal tax bill so you are prepared next January.

The best way to budget is to pretend that you are employed. One of the big advantages of employment is that your income tax is taken out of your pay via PAYE before you receive it. You don’t have to worry about putting money aside, as it is done for you.

Putting a chunk of money aside each month from your self employment income is important to save for your tax bill.

The big questions is how much do you need to put aside? This will depend on your personal circumstances but there are some general steps to follow to work out how much to save:

 

1: Allocate your Personal Allowance

We all have a Personal Allowance – this is the amount we can earn before we pay income tax.  In 18/19, this amount is £11,850 and for 19/20 it will be £12,500.  If you are employed as well as being self-employed, your personal allowance is used against this income first, and anything left is used against your self-employment.  So, if you have employed income of £8,000 per year, you won’t pay tax on this, as you have used £8,000 of your personal allowance against it, leaving £3,850 this year to set against your self-employment.

If you are only self-employed, then you have the whole personal allowance to use against business profit.

 

2: Estimate your profit

You pay tax on your business profit – not your sales.  So you need to have an idea what your profit is, to be able to estimate your tax bill.  This is one of the reasons cloud-based accounting packages are useful, as you can see at any time the profitability of your business in real time.

If you not using an accounting package, then you need to estimate your profit by taking into account the costs of the business.  It doesn’t need to be 100% accurate at this stage, as you are only using it for guidance.

 

3: How much to put aside?

You have 2 amounts to pay on your profit.

  1. Income tax – currently at 20%
  2. National insurance. Being self employed you pay a flat rate of £146 for this year (class 2 NIC), but then you also pay class 4 NIC of 9% of your profit over £8060.  This often gets forgotten and can be a reason why your tax bill is higher than expected at the year end.

So in broad terms, you pay 29% in tax and NI of your business profit, after fully utilising your personal allowance.  For some, putting aside 30% of estimated profit is a good way of ensuring their tax bill is covered.

 

If this is your first year of self-employment, or you have earned more profit this year than last,  then you do need to think about payments on account of tax.

I have explained these in more detail in another blog (https://wilkinsco.co.uk/payments-account-tax) but in basic terms, self-assessment works on a system where we pay tax during the tax year on account of the current tax year.  We make payments in January and July on account of the tax year we are in.  If your first year of self-employment is coming to an end at 5 April 2019, you will calculate your profit and pay the tax due on that profit at 31 Jan 2020.

BUT at that time, you will also pay your first payment on account of your 19/20 tax bill, and that is calculated as half your tax bill for 18/19.  So at 31 Jan 2020, you have a double whammy and pay 150% of the tax you thought you were going to pay.   This is where you can be caught out if you haven’t budgeted as you go along!

 

Top Tips for Budgeting for your tax bill

  1. Get into the mind set that even though it’s in your bank account, it’s not all your money.
  2. Have a separate bank account for your every day business transactions (a good idea for SO many reasons!)
  3. Have a separate bank account where you save for your tax bill (any bank account will do)
  4. Put something aside each month – putting 25-30% aside is generally sufficient,but think about payments on account in your first year of business. Remember- putting anything aside is better than nothing!
  5. Once you have put it aside – forget about it. Don’t dip into just because it’s there – you won’t thank yourself in January!
  6. Use cloud accounting – not only will this help you estimate your tax bill, it makes your bookkeeping during the year so much easier
  7. Get your tax return done early. Doing it as soon as you can after the end of the tax year (5 April) will mean you know what you are going to owe the following January.  And your accountant will love you!

For more information, or for help with your sole trader accounts and your tax return, contact Rosie Forsyth at Wilkins & Co.

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Making Tax Digital – less than 6 months to go – are you ready?

MTD goes live in less than 6 months, but research shows that 40% of small businesses that will be affected by MTD, are not yet aware of it, and have certainly not begun to prepare for its impact.

So are you affected and what do you need to do?

HMRC are about to launch their publicity campaign to increase awareness, but here are some frequently asked questions from small businesses:

Does MTD apply to me?

If you run a VAT-registered business (limited company OR sole trader) with a taxable turnover above the VAT registration threshold (currently £85,000) then YES it applies to you from April 19.

I have registered for VAT voluntarily, so I am VAT registered – but my turnover is less than £85K. Does MTD apply?

No it will not apply from April 19.  MTD is planned for all businesses over time, but you not caught in this first batch of people!

What does MTD mean anyway?

MTD means that you will have to keep digital VAT records and send VAT returns using “MTD-compatible” software from April 19.  The deadlines or frequency of returns are not changing, it is just how the information gets to HMRC.

If you are already using commercial accounting software, it is likely that the provider is working hard to make it MTD compatible, and you should be OK, though you will need to upgrade to the latest version that is compliant.

HMRC have provided a list of suppliers it is working with to provide MTD compliant software so you can check:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/software-suppliers-supporting-making-tax-digital-for-vat/software-suppliers-supporting-making-tax-digital-for-vat

I keep my accounts on a spreadsheet – is that still OK?

Technically yes, but I would be thinking about switching to a digital package!

If you use a spreadsheet, then that spreadsheet must be able to submit the required data to HMRC digitally and to do this you will need to add “bridging software”.  This is a piece of software that will extract the data from your spreadsheet and send it to HMRC in the correct format.

What you will no longer be able to do is physically retype in figures from one piece of software to another.

We have no examples yet of what this “bridging software” might look like – all we do know, is HMRC aren’t providing a free version for you to use!

My accountant does my VAT return from the info I send them so won’t they just deal with it?

Sadly no!

The portal that accountants use to submit vat returns will be closing, as this requires someone to type the information into it – and this will no longer be allowed.  Nor can your accountant take your spreadsheets, correct a few errors, and then retype the information into a vat return and submit it, as the information flow has not been digital.  HMRC have said that “cutting and pasting” information will be acceptable for the first year only, to give people time to update systems.

So what do I need to do if I am affected?

You need to look at how you keep your accounts, and if you have not yet moved onto a digital package, now really is the time to do it!  The start of your new financial year is the perfect time, so if that falls between now (or even a couple of months ago) and 31 March, then I would switch your accounts over now, so you are up and running smoothly when the changes come in.

Digital accounting packages are not expensive – prices can be as low as £9 per month, with add ons that allow you to submit receipts electronically.  Switching to digital will save your business time, and give you more accurate data about your business in real time, so be brave – bite the bullet and go digital!!

HMRC are still wanting to bring in MTD for everyone, so although the timetable has been pushed back to at least 2020, even if you don’t have to make the switch before April 2019, it is worth assessing how you keep your accounts and if it could be more efficient!

For more information please contact Rosie Forsyth at Wilkins Co.

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Making Tax Digital – All Change Again!

The government has announced major changes to the Making Tax Digital proposals- again!

Put on hold while we had the election, the changes now announced mean that MTD will affect far fewer people in the next couple of years than the initial plans.

MTD will initially now only apply for VAT.

Self-employed individuals who are VAT registered will have to file under MTD from 2019 – so they will need to file quarterly returns from MTD compatible software.

Other self-employed individuals and landlords will now not have to keep digital records, or update HMRC quarterly until at least 2020.

There is no news on the timetable for companies, but it will be at least 2020 before they need to comply.

This delay will give small business more time to make the transition to digital and is welcome news to many.

Having said that 2020 is not that far off, and clients who are switching to cloud accounting are benefiting from the real time information it brings them about their business – and the time savings made from being able to scan receipts on the go, and no longer living in dread of “accounts day!”

For more information please contact Rosie Forsyth.

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Getting your Bookkeeping in Shape

We are now well into the new tax year and if you have a new business, or your bookkeeping system leaves a little to be required – it’s time to get it into shape!  Leave it too long and the mountain of receipts just keeps growing!

If you have set up a new sole trader business this tax year – there are couple of things you must do straight away:

  1. Register with HMRC – you can click here to do so.  This tells HMRC you are self-employed and means they will ask you to complete a tax return.  You need to do this within 3 months of starting your business.
  2. Set up a separate bank account.  This can just be another current account but it’s really important to keep your business income and costs separate from your personal money.  You might want to set up another account as well where you can put money aside for your tax bill.
  3. Buy a couple of folders (and keep the receipt!)

What Records do I need to keep?

You need to keep records of your sales and costs.  You won’t need to send these to HMRC but you need to keep them so you can work out your profit or loss for your tax return, and show them to HMRC if asked.

There are many ways you can keep your records, ranging from pen and paper to accounting software and the key is to choose one that suits you.  If you don’t get it – you aren’t going to keep it up to date!  The way we report our figures to HMRC will be changing – Making Tax Digital is on hold for now, but it is expected to be back on the agenda when the Government has sorted itself out, so before long we will need to be keeping digital records.

There are some great Apps out there now for scanning receipts and recording your data for you, so if you are just starting up your business, I would go straight for the digital option.  Take a photo of your receipt when you get it, upload it, put it into the relevant category, and then bin it – job done! You will save far more than the monthly subscription fee in regained time.

Even if you just go for an App to record your expenses (Receiptbank is the one I use) then the rest of your record keeping is pretty straightforward.

For your Sales:

Keep a copy of every invoice that you send out (paper or electronic).

Keep a record on a spreadsheet of all invoices raised – noting the date it was issued, the number (keep these sequential), who it was to and the amount.  Have a final column where you note the date the invoice is paid – perhaps in a different colour so it stands out!  You can then easily see who owes you money and how long the invoice has been outstanding – so you can get chasing!

Expenses:

It’s really important to keep track of what you are spending.  Try to pay for everything related to your business directly from your business bank account – this will make recording expenses so much easier.  Some things you will have to pay in cash (parking etc) but wherever possible use your business account debit card.  Even in Tesco if you are buying bits of stationery, pay for this separately to your weekly shop, or you will probably forget you bought it and you won’t claim it against the business.

If you haven’t gone for the App then keep a spreadsheet of your expenses.  It’s a good idea to have one spreadsheet or tab for all costs that you have paid for from the business account and another one for cash payments.  Your spreadsheet should note the date, the supplier name and the total.  It should then break down the amount into categories so you can keep track of what you are spending – the categories can be whatever you like and what will be useful for you – but might include post, stationery, travel, parking, website, networking, subscriptions etc. Don’t forget to include a category for money that you have taken out of the business for yourself, as you will need to “pay” yourself at some point!

Keep the actual receipts for your expenditure in a folder if you haven’t zapped them on your phone – filing them by month is a good idea and for the super organised, number them and cross reference them to your expenses summary spreadsheet, so when your accountant queries something you can find the receipt quickly!

Other Costs

If you use your car for business then the simplest way to charge the business for this is to recharge the mileage.  The business can pay you 45p per business mile – so you need to keep a record of the business mileage that you do.  You might chose to keep a notebook/diary in the car to keep a log, or to keep a spreadsheet but somewhere you need to keep a record of the business miles you have done.  Every month, or quarter, total this up and repay the amount due to you from the business account – not forgetting to note it on your expenses summary!

Keep a record of your mobile phone bill and internet costs as you can also reclaim a percentage of these from your business.

Bank Accounts

Print out your statement when you get it and file it in your folder.  Check the items on your bank statement to the income and costs on your summary and make sure you have everything recorded.

When you are paid by a client, it’s a good idea to put a percentage of this aside into your “tax” bank account to save for you tax bill – the amount you need to put aside will vary depending on your personal circumstance, but between 20 and 30% as a guide.

If you follow these basic steps then you are well on the way to having a good bookkeeping system.  Try to keep this up to date – there is nothing worse than sitting down to catch up the last 6 months!

Using your phone to zap your receipts is strangely satisfying (and the kids love it!) so I would really recommend going down the digital route to keep your records – contact me for prices.

If you are happier sticking to spreadsheets for now then do contact me by email for a template that can be used.

 

 

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What is Cloud Accounting?

With Making Tax Digital being introduced in April 18, all small businesses will have to keep their records digitally – “in the cloud.”  But what is that exactly and should you be getting ahead of the game and moving over now?

Cloud accounting is the same concept as accessing your bank account online.  A few years ago, you wrote cheques and sent them in post; you would never have thought of accessing your bank account and doing your banking online.  With an online accounts package, you can access your data from anywhere and upload expenses and receipts to it as you get them in the shop.  You don’t need to install software on your desktop, keep it up to date, or back up your data.

If your computer dies, all is not lost as your data is still there in the cloud.

The real benefit of cloud accounting is that it is done in real time, so your accounts are always up to date and you can make business decisions based on actual information.

Giving your accounts to your accountant 8 months after your year end and getting them back a couple of weeks later may tell you what tax you have to pay, but it’s a bit late for your accountant to then point out that your advertising spend was out of control, or you have several invoices that haven’t yet been paid.

Cloud accounting gives you, and your accountant relevant information on which you can make informed decisions.

 

So how does it work? 

In most packages you raise your invoices in the software – and email it straight out.  It can automatically send out reminders to your customers that the invoice is due for payment, or overdue.  You can get your bank statement “fed” directly into your package, and simply set up rules, so that every time the software sees a payment to say “Shell” – it puts it in the “Motor expenses” category.  No need to produce a spreadsheet for your accountant to go through.

The popular “add-on” is an app called Receiptbank – which you have on your phone and you simply take a photo of your receipt and press a button.  It makes a lovely “whooshing” sound and that’s all you need to do.  You can bin the receipt, knowing that it is safely recorded in your accounts.

No more throwing all your receipts in a pile to deal with later, or losing them and not being able to claim for items because you can’t find the damn paperwork.

Cloud accounting is generally subscription based – so you will pay anywhere between £5 and £30 per month depending on which package and product you go for.  Most VAT registered small businesses will pay between £10 and £20 per month.  Popular options are Kashflow (my favourite), Quickbooks,  Xero and Sage – and most will offer a 14 day trial so you can try before you buy.  Receiptbank is usually about £10 a month on top of this.
There is a more basic version of Receiptbank called 1Tap – ideal for non-vat registered sole traders – at only £6 per month.

So it may sound expensive – but £25-£30 a month could completely transform the pain that is doing your accounts.  How many hours does it take you a month?  How many hours on top of that putting it off?  What’s that worth to you if you got that time back and could use it to either do more billable work – or spend more time with the family?  With these package you will definitely save time – and stress!

 

So is it for you? 

For all but the very small businesses, I would say yes.  Making Tax Digital is going to force it on you anyway, and I’m advising all my clients to make the switch from April 17 so are fully up and running when MTD comes in. Just image a world without the dread of accounts………..!

 

For more information please contact Rosie Forsyth.

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Cloud Accounting – Is it for me?

More and more business are starting to use cloud accounting software for their businesses.  But what is it and should you be using it too?

Cloud accounting is the same concept as accessing your bank account online.  You don’t need to install the software on your desktop, keep it up to date or back up your data. You can access your data from anywhere that has an internet connection and collaborate easily with your accountant who can access your real time data as well, if you let them!

Cloud accounting is generally subscription based – so you will pay anywhere between £5 and £30 per month depending on which package and product you go for.  Most VAT registered small businesses will pay between £10 and £20 per month.
Popular options are Kashflow (my favourite), Quickbooks, Freeagent, Xero and Sage – and most will offer a 14 day trial so you can try before you buy.

The main advantage is that all your information is in one place.  You can add logo’s etc so you can raise your invoice directly from the software, it will then show you who owes you what – and how old the debt is.  With “automated bank feeds” you can link your bank account to the software so you can download your bank statement directly into the package.  It will then match up receipts with outstanding invoices and payments with suppliers for you.  Other amounts paid from the bank can be allocated to a category such as “stationery” or “materials purchased” quickly and easily.

You can even get “add-ons” now such as “Receiptbank” (payable extra) where you literally take a photo of your receipt and an app whizzes it off to your accounts package for you.  No more losing receipts or sitting down once a month to put them all into a spreadsheet.

Another advantage is you can see how your business is doing during the year.  I have some clients who hand their books over once a year and have no idea what their sales figure has been for the year, or if they have made a profit or loss.  Cloud accounting produces real time key data for you – in reports or graphs for you “creatives” out there!

So is it for you?  If you have sufficient transactions to make your bookkeeping a chore, or if you hand your accountant a shoebox at the end of the year full of receipts that have probably been through the wash once or twice – then definitely!   The monthly cost is minimal given the time savings involved.

For very small businesses, then you may find your spreadsheet is adequate for now but with HMRC pushing for everyone to have “digital tax records” by 2020 or sooner, it may be that cloud accounting will soon be the way forward for everyone.

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