Compliance and Managing Risk is an important part of business which is often neglected. Learn more to keep your business safe.
(And updated Wednesday 15th April 2020) In this article we pull together the key things you should be thinking about as you steer your business through these uncharted waters. Time and again, we have seen that it is rarely sensible to implement rash decisions. You should do what is necessary to mitigate the effects of […]
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What is it? GDPR – General Data Protection Regulation – is an EU regulation that applies automatically to all UK businesses and those companies must be GDPR-compliant by 25th May 2018. And, no, Brexit won’t stop their implementation. The drivers behind setting up a more robust data protection environment are found in the increasing misuse of […]
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Question of the week: 1. How will implementing FRS101 and FRS 102 affect my business and what should I be doing now to plan ahead (my year end is 31st December)? 2. Which is the better one to comply with? These were the 2 coupled questions posed by Colin from a manufacturing company. This […]
Continue readingMistakes help us learn and improve our businesses. While it is impossible for us to never make a mistake, you can limit the errors made by learning from others. Accounting mistakes from large businesses are often highly publicised and so much can be learnt from their experiences. So what are the three biggest accounting mistakes […]
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What do good contract terms and conditions look like? “And did you read the contract terms before you accepted them?” “No, m’Lud, they looked very long and very boring and life felt too short.” This defence might meet with some sympathy in a dispute over an on-line retail purchase; but in the commercial world, business […]
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Most lawyers are great at being lawyers; but developing the skills and finding the time to effectively manage a business is not necessarily what they signed-up for. It’s unlikely there are many lawyers out there who secretly yearn to become accountants; but focusing on three key accounting things within your business will go a long […]
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For any business, paying taxes on time is an important part of your financial management and there are significant penalties for late submission or late payment, as well as the distraction you get from having HMRC breathing down your neck. The main cause for delays is either incompetence in getting the forms submitted on time, […]
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‘Cash is king’ for SME’s and all companies need to employ best practice cash management policies. Based on my extensive experience as a part time Finance Director, I offer the following key practical tips: Cash planning Ensure that a cash flow forecast is updated regularly (daily/monthly/weekly) – it can be a simple excel spreadsheet for […]
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‘The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men, gang aft agley.’ Or, as Robert Burns might have written in more standard English, ‘often go awry’. The poet neatly summarises the central idea of risk management: we know that things will go wrong, but not precisely what or when. The discipline is to identify in advance the […]
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According to the International Monetary Fund’s ‘World Economic Outlook’, Britain will be the best performing of the world’s largest economies in 2014. A key contributory factor to Britain’s expected 2.9% GDP growth this year is the strongest rate of growth seen in the manufacturing sector for three years; anticipated at 3.8%. The manufacturing sector in […]
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