During January I spoke to a few people who were unaware that they had to file a tax return until they started getting letters from HMRC advising them that one was due.

This year HMRC have included a separate letter with the notice to complete a tax return with some simple yes/no answers to the question Do I Need To Complete A Tax Return?

• Were you self-employed or a partner in a business at any time in the year?
• Were you a company director?
• Did you receive income over £100,000?
• Did you receive more than £10,000 in savings and interest income?
• Did you receive more than £2,500 in untaxed income?
• Did you receive income from letting out property?
• Did you receive foreign income liable to UK tax?
• Are you an employee claiming expenses or professional subscriptions of £2,500 or more?

If you have answered ‘yes‘ to any of the above questions then you will be required to complete a Self Assessment Tax Return

If you have answered ‘no‘ to all of the questions then call HMRC on 0845 900 0444 to discuss you situation with an advisor who will decide if you still need to complete a tax return.

For further help and information go to this webpage

Outsourcing is defined as: the process of contracting a business function to someone else, and it can take on many different forms. But the main question is, should you outsource any of your business’ work or keep it all in house?

Pros

• Allows you more time to focus on your business.
• Peace of mind that a professional is performing the task.
• Long term it could save you money.
• You can outsource the work as and when needed.
• It can lead to more efficient processes within your business.

Cons

• Loss of control – you have to put your trust in someone else.
• There will be a cost implication – if you are a new start-up this will be the major drawback.
• You will be allowing an external person/company knowledge of how your company works/wants to work.
• Until it is complete you will not know if the work meets your standards.

Outsourcing doesn’t necessarily have to be between you company and another; it could be a director asking one of the staff to perform a task that they normally would do themselves. The final choice must be that of the business owner after taking several variables into consideration.

My own view on outsourcing is that you should stick to what you’re good at. I am not a graphic designer so would not attempt to design a new logo for myself; it would take far too long and be a total disaster. I would be far happier to contract someone in to do the job for me; it would save time and be a far more professional logo than my own design!

Have you ever outsourced any aspect of your business, and if so, was it a success?

In previous blog posts I’ve said that closing your door (if you work from home) is a great way to let people know that you are working and to leave you alone. I’ve found that this works, and I hope that you have too. What about when you are the only one in the house – do you still close the door?

Personally I do as it blocks me off from the outside world and makes it easier to get my head down and carry on working. If the house phone rings I’ll usually look up from my desk, see that the door is closed and that acts as a message to say ‘You’re working – ignore it’. If the phone rang whilst I was working in my day job I wouldn’t answer it because I’m not there.

Leaving the door closed is also helpful when people do come home; it helps block out any noise that is created by the TV, phone calls etc… You might come up against complaints of being anti-social but those will quickly subside when you can show that being left alone to work helps make the business more successful and brings more money into the household.

Do you find that keeping the door closed, even when you are the only one in the house, helps your productivity?

If you manufacture something from scratch this will be a vital piece of information for your business, but sometimes businesses don’t have a clue what a cost price is! In simple terms a cost price is the price it costs you to make your product. Sales may be going up and up, but if your cost price is high and also rising you may not actually be making much profit.

How can you work out a cost price? Let’s say that you make cakes: the cost price is the total cost of:

• Ingredients/Raw Materials (milk, eggs, flour, sugar etc…)
• Cost of baking the cake (electricity/gas for the oven)
• Packaging costs
• Your time – eaisly the most overlooked

All these things combine to give you the cost price of your cake. Don’t forget though that you need to apportion the ingredients accordingly. If you buy a 2kg bag of flour, only a fraction of that will go into the cake, the same for the other ingredients. If 2kg of flour costs you £5.00 but you only use 500g of flour in the cake, the cost price for the flour in the cake is £1.25 (£5/4).

The cost of the electricity/gas can be hard to work out, but if you are able to bake more than 1 cake at a time the costs will come down per cake.

Your time is easily the most overlooked aspect of a cost price. Work out how much you think that your time is work per hour, then work the cost out from how long are you physically working to make the cake. This includes making the mixture, decorating and packaging it.

Once you have calculated your cost price, you can then start to arrive at a selling price to enable to you make a profit for your product. But remember to reguarly re-evaluate your cost price as raw material prices increase and decrease regularly. When this happens you will need to make the decision to either absorb these costs yourself or pass them on to your customers.

As 2011 draws to a close it’s time to reflect on what has happened during the year. Each and every one of us will have faced some tough challenges, but along the way had some fantastic experiences that we will remember for a long time.

There have been 2 highlights for me this year. The first was spending the weekend in London for my first wedding anniversary and going to the Rugby League Challenge Cup Final whilst down there (just a shame that Leeds Rhinos lost). It was a fantastic few days and we hope to do it again in 2012.

But the experience that was head and shoulders above everything else was when I got the chance to drive 3 supercars around a race track – something that I have wanted to do for a long time. My wife bought me this as a wedding anniversary present. The whole afternoon was fantastic and one that I will never forget. The sound of the Ferrari engine behind my ears will stay with me forever! Below are the videos from the day.

 

What has been the highlight of your year, outside of your job/business?