Image: Just2shutter / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Another busy week on the blog in terms of comments and traffic. Thank you to everyone who has taken time out to read and/or comment on any of the blogs. Below are the most popular posts from the last 7 days:

• 7 Tips To Balance Your Personal And Professional Life (this is a re-blog of someone else’s post)
• You Are What You Tweet - a fun post looking at infographics
• 3 Blogs You Should Be Reading – 3 blogs that I am enjoying reading, you should do the same

See you all next week

If you have a skill or can provide a service that other people would buy, you should consider working for yourself as self-employed/sole trader. With the current economic climate as it is substantial pay rises from your employer are not likely. Becoming self-employed alongside your main job is suddenly an appealing idea; the extra income will be very welcome as the cost of living continues to soar.

But how do you register as self employed? It’s unbelievably easy. All the information about registering for Self Assessment can be found here. The direct link for registering your self as a sole trader can be found here. Once you’ve done this HMRC will have you listed as a sole trader and will inform you that they expect you to complete a tax return at the end of the financial year.

Remember that when you do work for yourself you need to keep accurate business records in order to complete you year end tax return.

If you need any help or advice with this please contact me sooner rather than later and allow me to compile your business’ accounts and complete your tax return, whilst you focus on running your business.

Image: Danilo Rizzuti / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

After a lot of hard work you have finally won a big contract and are looking forward to reaping the rewards and receiving payment. Most companies will make a payment run once a week or once a month, if your invoice is missed off you will receive payment late. Cash is king and keeping cash flowing into your business is key to staying in business.

The majority of companies now pay via electronic transfer and will only realise that they do not have your bank details when the time comes to produce their payment run. They will probably give you one call that week for your details, if you miss the call then you’re going to be paid late.

How can you avoid this situation? Simple, make sure your bank details are included on all of your invoices. Your customer then has no excuse not to pay on time, assuming that your invoice is valid and no disputes have arisen. It will take you a few minutes to add the bank details to your invoice template but could save you lots of time chasing payments.

In the last couple of years I’ve visited more first time clients and new businesses than ever before, all of  which say ‘I’ve left it too late’. They are of course referring to their business’ accounts.

Whether you are a sole trader, ltd company or massive conglomerate you have to file your accounts and/or tax return by the due date or face the financial penalties for late filing, which could be up to £1,600.

From a sole trader’s standpoint it’s quite easy; the tax year ends on the 5th April and you have until the 31st January the following year to file the return and pay any tax due.

The easiest way to solve this problem is to get your tax return filed ASAP. It doesn’t matter if the return is filed on the 6th April, any tax due doesn’t need to be paid until the 31st January and if you are due a refund you’ll get it back a lot sooner than if you left it until January.

It’s not always as easy as this because small businesses, as the name suggests, are small; quite often being run by only 1 person. If you fall into this category and leave your accounts to the very last minute you could save yourself a lot of time, effort, stress and money by employing a professional to take care of your financial affairs for you.

Outsourcing your accounts/bookkeeping work brings lots of benefits for the business owner:

• 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.

One of the main drawbacks is that you will have to put your trust in someone else to complete the task and give them knowledge of how your business works, which is why it is essential that you make sure that you are comfortable working with the person/business. This post gives you some tips on how to make that selection

 

We’ve all forgotten someone’s birthday or to call someone back, but recently I’ve found this great little application for Firefox which means that I will never forget an important date again.

The app is called ‘Reminder Fox‘ and, quite simply, it reminds you of important dates. The app sits in your browser and a message pop’s up at a set time before the event occurs.

You can insert reminders and to-dos into the in-built calendar and categorise them all – the important ones will show up in red when you view the list. For annual events, such as birthdays, you can set the reminder to go off every year to save you from entering all the info again the next year.

You will need to have the Firefox browser installed on your PC for this to work and you’ll also need to remember to enter the info into it, if you do that you should never forget an important date again.

Blogging is fun, a great way to increase your search engine rankings and also a direct line of communication between you and your visitors. In recent years I’ve seen more and more small businesses turn to blogging to help get across the services they sell and expertise which they want to share. But how can you keep people who stumble across your blog coming back time after time?

• Blog consistently. It doesn’t have to be every day but don’t blog every day for a week and then nothing for 2 months. Set a target for when you are going to write a blog post and stick to it. If you have more than one idea at the same time write the posts and then schedule when they are uploaded onto your website.
• Relevant content: If it’s not relevant to your website/business does it have a place on your blog? There will always be exceptions to the rule, but if you’re a builder people won’t come to you for advice on flower arranging! I work with and for small businesses, which means nearly all of my content is geared towards that field.
• Comment. Take time to read other people’s blogs, comment on posts and share those posts with your readers. Engaging with other people will help promote you and your blog.
• Analyse. If you are using a WordPress blog install the Jetpack plugin; this lets you see which posts people are viewing. Another tool to install is Google Analytics which is also useful. By analysing your blog posts you are able to see which topics people view most. This helps keep your blog content good.
• Promote it! When you publish a post don’t just do it on your blog, shout about it to the world on Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In and any other social networking sites you are a member of. Also make sure to include an RSS feed built into your blog to allow people to subscribe to it and be alerted to a new post. Subscribe to mine at the top of this post.

If you have any great ways to keep people coming back to your blog, post them below and include a link to your blog

Most small businesses will be looking to gain a web presence to make themselves know and aim to attract new customers. The cost of having someone create a website for you can be quite expensive in the early stages of your business’ life. If you are able to create your own website it will save you money but will it do what you want it to? There are arguments for and against keeping work like this ‘in-house’ (see this blog post), if you do decide to create your own website this infographic showing what makes someone leave a website will give you some vital pointers to keep visitors on your site longer.

Source: KISSmetrics

I’ve not done one of these for a while, but here are last week’s most viewed blog posts:

• Company Vans: Avoiding a Benefit in Kind (Guest post by Nick Goddard)
• Hootsuite or Tweetdeck?
• Top Tips for Keeping Your Business Records Organised

Are there any business topics that you would like me to blog about? If so please add a comment and I’ll see what I can do

You’ve got the idea, you’ve got the skills and most importantly you’ve got the motivation to become self-employed. But do you know how to register as self-employed with HMRC?

Thankfully it is not as difficult as you may think – you can either fill in one form which can be found here – Form CWF1 , or you can fill in the same form online at the HMRC Website. Both are very easy to do and I recommend using the online version as there is always the chance that the paper form could go missing in the postal system.

It’s as simple as that!

If you are considering outsourcing your book-keeping/accounting to a 3rd party (Why Should I Outsource?) it will be beneficial if you send form 64-8 to HMRC once you have chosen who you would like to act upon your behalf. The form authorises HMRC to communicate with an accountant, tax agent or adviser acting on your behalf.

2 simple forms and you’re all set for self employment.

Click image to open interactive version (via Simply Business).