Some businesses have always added a surcharge to cover the cost of the fees charged to them by the companies who process debit and credit card transactions but from 13th January 2018 they are no longer allowed to add a charge to payments they take by card. …
If you want to expand your business you need people to support you as there is no way you can do everything yourself. But it seems that business owners are reluctant to employ anyone and would rather use an associate or a consultant than commit to someone joining their business. Even if they need someone to do the day to day administration it has become more common to use someone who is self-employed. Why is this? …
Before you start your business you need to decide whether you will be a Sole Trader or a Limited Company. Or you may choose to be a Partnership rather than a Limited Company if there are two or more business owners. It can be confusing and many business owners opt for Limited Company status without really understanding what is involved. …
I have been providing bookkeeping services to individuals and businesses for more than 14 years now and one of the biggest surprises to me in the first few years was to be told that I was a good bookkeeper. I was surprised because shouldn't all bookkeepers be good? Keeping accurate records and understanding the financial aspects of a business is what bookkeepers do and whilst we learn different areas of bookkeeping for different businesses the foundations of our learning are still the same. …
Businesses should have a separate bank account for their business transactions as it will make preparing their accounts so much easier. Trying to extract business income and costs from a personal account takes a lot more time and if you needed to prove any business transactions when applying for a loan, for example, they would have access to your personal spending habits too. …
