Choosing the right furniture for your business depends essentially on the type of business. Cheap, second-hand desks and chairs may not be good business sense. If you think it possible that customers or suppliers will visit your premises at regular intervals, it is crucial to select furniture which projects the image you have planned for [...]
Choosing Other Equipment
THE RIGHT COMMUNICATIONS
You need to buy a fast modem; choose the faster feasible modem on general supply (say ?150 – ?200). A modem – either installed internally within your computer or attached externally – lets you communicate with others direct from your computer screen using your phone line. You can send and receive e-mail and [...]
Going For Growth
Growth businesses are the cream. They make up the top five percent of small companies – and around 20,000 a year are started. There are several subtle differences between the growth companies and the rest. What marks them out?
The definition of a growth company will usually be based upon one of the following measurements: growth [...]
Who Has To Register
It is the person, not the business, who is registered for Vat. Each registration covers all the business activities of the registered person. For VAT purposes, a company is treated as a person. There are a number of reasons why you might not have to register. These include:
? your sales (strictly, the amount of [...]
Customer Care
It’s all too easy when you’re struggling with the finances, the production, the employees to regard customers as ‘just another problem’, ‘a nuisance’ or ‘getting in the way’. But you need to drag yourself back to reality. Without customers, you have no business, no matter how slick your financial control, nor how good your man-management.
Put [...]
When The Business Is More Complicated
There will be many businesses for whom the simple system described above will not be sufficient. This will apply to you if you make many sales or purchases each month and keep a lot of stock on the premises. There will be an increasing number of documents and records needed. Your business may need to [...]
Accountant And Book-Keeper
The advice accountants may be able to give ranges from the basic services, such as book-keeping, to the more sophisticated, such as tax planning or raising funds. Not every accountant will offer every sort of advice. For example, a big firm of accountants is unlikely to undertake weekly book-keeping functions; an accountant working alone may [...]
Why Will They Buy
Before you can answer this question, you have to find out what your customer wants. What are the benefits and features of a service or product which your target group rates most highly? Research is essential.
Once you have the framework of your customer needs, you can begin to vary your service or product with the [...]
If You Are Self-Employed
The simplest way of increasing your pension is to start paying money into a personal pension, which is organized and invested by an insurance company; and, because you can get tax relief on what you pay at your highest rate of tax and your money is put into a tax-free fund, doing this may be [...]
Building Your Reputation
Once you have selected your business or product name, your next strategy is to devise means of getting your name noticed by as many of your target customers as you can. Obviously, you do not want your name to be associated with any bad news, so you may find that you do not want to [...]
How Is The Tax Worked Out
What Do You Charge Vat On?
You charge VAT on the taxable sales you make; this is known as output tax. The amount of VAT is worked out on the price for the goods or services you are supplying. Occasional sales of second-hand goods are treated in the same way as new goods, but if your [...]
Losses For The Self-Employed
If you have made a loss in your business, what can you do with it to cut your tax bills? Your two main options are to:
? deduct the loss from other income or a capital gain
? carry the loss forward and deduct it from future trading profits from your business.
DEDUCTING THE LOSS FROM OTHER INCOME [...]
Property Income
The tax treatment of this income is outside the scope of this book and only brief details can be given here. A helpful tax concession is the ability to rent out a room in your own home and pay not tax. The Lloyds TSB Tax Guide 2002-3 gives fuller details of the Rent-a-Room scheme and [...]
Investigating And Negotiating
Before you sign anything, there are several steps to take to investigate the premises further. These steps are:
? to estimate costs
? to check structure of property (if it is freehold or a repairing lease)
? to investigate the legal side of things, and
? to look at local authority requirements.
TO ESTIMATE COSTS
There are [...]
What To Do With A Design
Sometimes the success or failure of a product depends not only on how it works, but on what it looks like. The outward shape or decorative appearance of a product can also be protected, either by:
? relying on the automatic protection of design right (a bit like copyright), or by
? registering the design, [...]
Other Insurance You Can Get
INSURANCE AGAINST FIRE AND OTHER PERILS
This covers destruction or damage to your buildings and contents through fire. You can also be covered for other risks such as lightning, explosion, aircraft, storm, flood, riot, malicious damage and so on. If you work from your own home, you will still need to get your own insurance policy [...]
Your Suppliers
Quite a lot of the way you can deal with your suppliers (or creditors when you owe them money) is simply the reverse of what you do with debtors. Taking credit from suppliers is a significant source of finance for most small businesses. However, the other side of the coin is that those suppliers may [...]
Working From Home
Many small businesses will start off in the back bedroom. Some, especially if they are part-time businesses, may stay there permanently. Working from home has several advantages:
? it is free
? it involves no travelling
? the work can be combined with any domestic tasks to be done
? there are no fares or [...]
How To Pay For Equipment
There are four main ways you can pay for equipment. Two of them involve buying the equipment, so you become the owner; the others do not, the ownership being retained elsewhere. The ways are:
? buying outright
? hire purchase
? leasing
? contract hire.
The Plan To Control The Business
When you produced your business plan before you started your business, you incorporated some forecasts: profit and loss and cash flow. These could form the basis for your plan (or budget), which you need to control the business, although probably with some adjustments.
What you need for a budget that you use to control your business, [...]
