Tips & Advice

HMRC have changed their instructions on whether bank interest should be included in VAT flat rate scheme turnover. Here’s how FreeAgent deals with the change.

If your business was affected by the riots in English cities last week, here’s a quick summary of the measures available to help you get through this difficult time.

When income and expenses will be listed on your VAT return.

It’s not always easy to know when income and expenses should go into your profit and loss account.

Some issues that often result in a bit of head scratching are:

1. Is income included
a. when the work is done,
b. when the invoice is raised, or
c.

If you pay income tax, you may have a payment on account to make at the end of the month. Here’s some more information on how much you might have to pay.

If you employ and pay staff, or give them anything other than their salary and/or dividends, you must complete a form P11D for each employee (including limited company directors) showing what they’ve received, by 6th July after the end of the tax year.

Does putting something on P11D mean you ha

When you can claim tax relief on the cost of your food and drink when you’re travelling on business.

If you’re an HSBC personal account holder (and I am) you’ve maybe been frustrated at the limited options when it comes to downloading older statement data. Basically you can’t. Which can be a problem if you want to upload those old transactions into FreeAgent.

A quick summary of the invoice and cash accounting schemes for UK VAT.

How FreeAgent can help company directors fill in their own personal self-assessment tax returns.

If you’re a sole trader, here’s how to transfer your figures from FreeAgent to HM Revenue’s online filing software.

Quick ways to enter your self-assessment information in FreeAgent to help you beat the 31st January deadline.

How FreeAgent will help get your business through the change to the standard VAT rate on 4th January 2011.

If you drive your own car to travel on business, can you claim any of the costs of that, to reduce the amount of tax you pay for your business?

The answer is yes. But how you do that is a bit complicated!

Note that different rules apply for directors and employees of limited companies.

A few points to consider if you’re a sole trader thinking of starting a limited company.

Some thoughts about writing a business plan for a very small business.

An outline of what a cashflow projection is and why it’s useful.

B/S is short for Balance Sheet! Here’s a bit more information about what a balance sheet is and how it can help you make business decisions.

If your business is a limited company, what is its “registered office address” and where can that be?

You’re likely to buy equipment for use in your business. Here’s a brief summary of how that goes into your accounts and how it’s treated for tax.

Some of the tax issues faced by a limited company operating from a director’s home.

An introduction to the profit and loss account, or P&L for short, and how it can help you run your business.

We pushed another one of our “sneak releases” live last week. It didn’t contain any new features in the app but we have now enabled Single Sign-on and Universal Navigation to FreeAgent from your Google Apps account.

The Emergency Budget is out in the open… Here’s an outline of what it means for you if you own a small service-based business.

Working from home is growing more and more popular.

After all, when you’re just starting up in business, why take on the cost of having an office?

And it makes it much easier to fit round family commitments.

But are there any tax reliefs available when you work all, or part of your time, at home?

How to pay your output VAT to HM Revenue, and reclaim your input VAT.

How to charge your customers VAT and claim back the VAT you’ve paid to your suppliers.

A guide to the different VAT rates applicable in the UK and which sales attract which rate.

VAT – short for Value Added Tax (and also known as Very Awkward Tax because it’s so complicated) – is a tax surrounded by myths!

All businesses have to register for VAT? – No they don’t.

All limited companies have to register for VAT? – No they don’t!

OK, so what sort of a tax is VAT, and how does it

Can you claim tax relief on the cost of clothing?

A quick look at some of the issues relating to out-of-pocket expenses for anyone who’s self-employed (sole trader / partner in a partnership) rather than an employee.

Travel is quite a tickly area for expenses, so here’s a whole article just about that.

It’s now less than a month to the end of the tax year (5th April).

There are always a few things you can do to save a bit of tax*, and perhaps that’s more important than ever this year.

Read on to find out more!

What happens when, as an employee, you pay for business expenses out of your own pocket, and then ask your employer to pay you back just for those expenses.

More on expense allowances which don’t exactly match what you’ve spent, in a future article.

If you’re paying staff, you’ll need to register as an employer with HM Revenue, and there’s quite a lot of forms to fill in. Read on for some guidance on how to do this.

If you regularly sell items on eBay, you might end up having to pay tax on those sales. Read on to find out more…

If you haven’t filed your 2008/09 tax return yet then it’s time to get your skates on.

They’ve got to be filed by Sunday 31st January (yes, this Sunday) or you’ll get an automatic fine of £100.

If you’re in partnership, you’ve also got to file the partnership’s
tax return by the same date, or each partn

Just when you thought the snow was thawing… there’s more lying now here in Cumbria and we’re forecast more. Argh!

What can you do as a business to cope in this weather, and what are the tax consequences?

Do you let a room in your main home out to a lodger?

If the lodger pays you rent (which they’re almost certainly doing, otherwise why let the room out), then it’s possible you may have some tax to pay on that extra income.

The standard rate of VAT changes from 15% back to 17.5% on 1st January 2010. Here’s what that’ll mean for you and your business.

Tax implications of the annual Christmas do? Surely not… sadly yes! Read this article to find out more.

Some useful tips to help you put some of the more common types of figures on to your tax return.

What are payments on account? When, how and why do you have to pay them? Find out more here.

Not sure if you need to file a tax return? Or what dates it should cover, or figures it should include? Or how to register with HM Revenue online? Read on to find out more.

Some of you will already have seen this, but others have asked if we could post the video of the talk I gave at the Future of Web Apps Roadshow in Edinbugh, so here it is.

Tax tips and advice for freelancers and professional contractors.

Choosing a bank account for your small business is an important stage in the startup process.

There is little doubt that contracting or freelancing has advantages over being employed. Firstly you have flexibility, a choice of contracts to undertake, control over what periods you do and don’t work and the decision of how much you earn.

If you have a child that is cared for by a nursery, crèche, after school club or registered child minder,
you may be able to save tax by issuing Childcare Vouchers.

The announcement by the Chancellor Alistair Darling about the changes to the personal allowance and the basic rate tax band for 2008/09 took HMRC by surprise as much as everyone else. It has taken a few months to work out how to tweak the PAYE system so everyone pays the right amount of tax in 2008/09.

It’s the holiday season and you may be tempted to get your limited company to pay for some or all of your holiday costs. If you do this you will normally be taxed on the entire cost, but exactly when you pay the tax depends on how the holiday was arranged.

You must have a valid VAT invoice in order to charge VAT on sales or reclaim VAT charged on the goods or services you purchase.

Here’s what they need to show…

When is lunch tax-deductible and when is it not? Here’s a comprehensive guide to keep you right when claiming business expenses.

Most freeagents use part of their home as an office for at least some part of their work. Some might just do some occasional paperwork in a home-office and most of their time will be at client offices.

For others, practically all their working time will be spent in your office at home. Like everything, this has good and bad bits, of course.

Some good news is that Her Brittanic Majesty allows a proportion of the costs of running your home as a business expense…

If you’re starting out on your own for the first time you need to make a decision about the legal structure that your business will use.

Essentially, you have a choice of three options: being a sole trader, using the services of a so-called umbrella company, or starting up your own limited company. We’ll discuss each of these options in turn below.