Making Tax Digital can be simple to set up and will have positive effects on businesses in terms of time and cost savings, according to a leading firm of chartered accountants in the region.

Martin Bugg, of Larking Gowen, says businesses need to act now if they haven’t already started the process of moving their VAT returns onto software.

“Larking Gowen is Making Tax Digital ready and fully accredited for two of the leading software packages, QuickBooks and Xero,” says Martin.

 “As a Platinum Partner with QuickBooks, we have an excellent working relationship with them and first-rate support for all our clients,” he continues.

 “This includes providing our clients with the newly released Welcome Hub for QuickBooks online, which delivers free up to date training and support on the software, together with an email series of training material.

 “Larking Gowen is one of a small number of firms in the UK to offer this support free of charge to its QuickBook clients,” says Martin.

 By 1 April 2019, most VAT registered businesses in the UK must submit VAT digitally, and by 1 April 2020, other businesses need to get on board.

 “With our help, getting the software and transferring your company data onto it can be a straightforward process,” says Martin.

 “We start with a conversation to find out where any difficult issues are, and where efficiencies can be made. We can then recommend the software package that is most appropriate to your business,” he says.

 In a ‘one-stop shop’ service, Larking Gowen can then convert their client’s data into the software.

Once set up, the client can receive ongoing support and checks, if they need it, to make sure they are using the correct VAT codes in each part of their return.

 “Making Tax Digital is something all businesses have to come to terms with, but it delivers a number of positives which make the process worthwhile.

 “By using MTD, you are in effect buying your time back. The time savings you make can be used to generate more income for your business.

 “In addition to this, you have the benefit of seeing your business in the here-and-now rather than historically, which is a great benefit to decision-making. You can get your accounting data on the move, either on a phone or tablet.

 “My clients can see the impact of any business decision much more quickly, and can follow up or reverse it as necessary,” explains Martin.

 As well as the main packages, Larking Gowen can provide a number of ‘bolt-on’ packages, such as Chaser (automated credit control system) and Receipt Bank (which manages your receipts) which can bring further automation and therefore more efficiencies to a business.

 “We have also found bringing these services to our clients and talking about efficiencies, connects well with our business advisory offering, which can have a tangible effect on growth and profits.”

 For more information, please call Martin Bugg on 01603 624121 or visit www.larking-gowen.co.uk

A couple of weeks ago I was honoured to be asked to judge and present the overall winner of the DevelopHER Awards 2018. There are a number of categories in the awards, including TechStar which I also judged, and the overall winner is chosen from the winners of the other categories. I believe that the best developers start writing code at an early age and continue throughout their lives and on through their careers. As well as learning all they can, all the time, they give back to community around them and help other people develop as well. Federica Freddi, who also won the Emerging Talent award, is clearly passionate about software development and is fully deserving of the DevelopHER award and I couldn’t have been more delighted to be able to present her with it on the night. Federica told me “It is fantastic to see so many women recognised for their contribution to our industry. It is a huge honour for me to be able to represent so many talented people that are making the difference in tech. As an Emerging Talent, I still have a long way ahead and I don’t know what awaits for me in the future, however I am sure I will never forget to stop along the way to give back to people and help the next generations of tech stars to grow too.” I am hoping we’ll see Federica back in Norwich very soon.

“Understanding your consumer in any industry is vital; especially when they’re irrational.”

The ‘perfectly rational’ individual wakes up in the morning in complete darkness…

He gets dressed for work but never turns the light on because he knows exactly where all of his clothes are. He rationalises to turn the light on would be irrational. Spending an extra penny on lighting would take away an unjustifiable figure from his concise and dotted budget.

He drinks a cold coffee for the same reason. Boiling a kettle is one of the least energy efficient appliances in the home. The caffeine is just as strong as if the drink was slightly cooler than 100 degrees. He thinks the potency of caffeine is not related to the temperature of the drink, so why boil the kettle?

After he is dressed he heads to work. He does not need to travel to work because he sleeps at his desk. If you asked him why he would say that to own or rent is irrational; “when it is possible to sleep at work why waste the paycheck on a house and commute?”

Does this sound like someone you know? Human beings are not one hundred percent rational. We are emotional beings.

As science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein once said: “man is not a rational animal; he is a rationalising animal.” In other words, we always try and explain our behaviour without knowing why we do it.

In the 1970s, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky highlighted just how irrational human beings can be. These two academics helped develop the idea of “cognitive biases,” showing that humans systematically make choices that defy clear logic. A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment.

An example of this deviation occurs every morning for some people. How many of us are guilty of skipping breakfast. Is breakfast not the most important meal of the day? Not eating in the mornings knocks our capacity to function throughout the day. Breakfast kick-starts the metabolism, helping you burn calories and helping us perform efficiently throughout the day. So why do we do it? Because we don’t have time in the mornings or we are too rushed or… and so on. Little things get in the way and we end up making poorer choices because of it.

These seemingly insignificant irrationalities can have a big impact on our perceptions of our customers. Understanding the customer is crucial in any industry; especially when they’re irrational. Knowing the exact problem your customers are trying to solve, and what shortcuts they might take to solve it is what is demanded by today’s consumers.

Take any everyday consumer product such as washing up liquid or toiletries, consumers generally have a preference for a small number of ‘trusted brands’. Knowing what makes a brand ‘trusted’ and why someone would pick one trusted brand over another is crucial insight in today’s competitive world however irrational the thought processes are.

Behavioural economics is a research field that uses psychology to understand more accurately how people make economic decisions. The insights provided by academics can be used by businesses to work with people’s irrationalities rather than against them.

One of the ideas within behavioural economics is framing. In a nutshell, framing is the difference between painting something in a positive or a negative light. This taps into our biological desire for immediate gratification or loss aversion (depending on if the frame is positive or negative) making us more likely to shift our decisions a particular way.

At the heart of behavioural economics lie nudges. These small hints, tweaks or changes are used to ‘nudge’ very specific behaviours in order to create larger lasting changes over time. This can be as simple as putting fruit before a chocolate sundae on a lunch menu or having to enter your pin rather than tap your card.

Putting fruit higher on a lunch menu means the reader has to actively reject the healthy option before they can accept an unhealthy one as their eyes scroll down. Entering your pin rather than using contactless creates friction. That friction that creates a half a second pause can be enough to make you think, “do I really need this?”

In theory, the wealth and range of products available means people should be able to have their exact needs met more so than ever before. In practise, people become overwhelmed and resort to rules of thumb; some businesses don’t understand that people don’t have the time the energy or the desire to seek out the best option.

While having a fleet of behavioural scientists might be a bit excessive for your company, taking a behavioural approach to your products and services could be the difference between a happy customer and one that is misunderstood.   

nor(DEV):con 2019

Thursday 21st to Saturday 23rd of February 2019, The Kings Centre, Norwich, NR1 1PH, https://nordevcon.com Tickets: https://nordevcon-2019.eventbrite.com Friday opening keynote: The Failure of Focus, Liz Keogh We know that in our landscape of people and technology, aiming for a particular outcome doesn’t always lead to us getting what we want. Sometimes the best results come from approaching a problem obliquely. But in Agile our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through the early and continuous delivery of valuable software. We like to start with the outcome, meet the needs of our users, delivering high-quality working software with happy teams and true agility… but how might that focus be holding us back, and what are the alternatives? In this talk we look at some different strategies for approaching complex ecosystems, starting from where we are right now, and allowing innovation to emerge through obliquity, naivety, and serendipity. Friday closing keynote: Software doesn’t always work out, Kevlin Henney Looking at the number of software failure screens in public places, it can sometimes seem that software developers are the greatest producers of installation art around the planet. Software failures can be entertaining or disastrous. They can also be instructive – there’s a lot we can learn. Saturday keynote: Plain Wrong?, Heydon Pickering I love writing JavaScript. The trouble is, so does everyone else. When people aren’t writing JavaScript, they’re usually writing frameworks for writing JavaScript in JavaScript. In fact, most of the JavaScript that’s around these days seems to either be written for, or within, a JavaScript flavor like React, Vue, or Angular. Frameworks make writing your own code faster and more ergonomic, but they do not come without problems. Code written with Framework A depends on the environment Framework A provides in order to work – and this dependency often represents a lot of code to transmit, decompress, parse, and compile. What about ‘plain’ JavaScript? Is it always naïve to think anything worthwhile can still be achieved just writing some straight-up code? It turns out this is a tricky question to answer, because the line between plain and flavored JavaScript is kind of blurry. It’s also not clear who should be the ones to get to write JavaScript, for what reasons, or when. But there’s no doubt the little we do as web developers is often done with much more than we need. See the full schedule here: https://nordevcon.com

Part of our vision at Naked Marketing is to generate positive impact for our clients and help their organisation achieve success through our ideas, design and approach. This desire for positive impact is built on our belief that design should be an investment, not a cost. When design can deliver tangible, or even less-tangible, results against set objectives, it becomes effective – and through that we maximise value to the client

The effectiveness of design in business is a well-explored narrative. The Design Council established in 2007 that for every £1 invested in design, businesses can expect over £20 in increased revenues. Since 1997, shares in design-led business outperformed the FTSE 100 by more than 200%. But the positive impact of design goes far beyond the bottom line and it can mean different things to different businesses or communities – it can improve customer experience, raise levels of engagement, generate new revenue streams, improve sustainability, raise morale, create new jobs and much more.

This is why, when first discussing a new project, we ask the question: “What does success look like to you?”

Perhaps you aim to increase footfall at your next event (tangible), or it could be that you wish to increase the perceived value of your brand in your customers minds (emotional). One may be easier to measure than the other, but in the course of time the outcome for both objectives can be tracked and analysed.

This mindset isn’t something that you can switch on overnight, it’s a culture that has been embedded in Naked from Day One. Our philosophy of always delivering more value than we charge is built on the idea of having a positive impact on the goals of an organisation. It’s all very well developing good design in response to a business challenge, but, without objectives for success in place and measuring against those, how can you track if your budget was wisely spent with your marketing and design agency? As an example of this, we’ve seen recent success with a relatively new client of ours, Abacus Hotels, who were part of the Best Western group. Naked were asked to help build the brand equity as a standalone group of hotels. The project, of rebranding each hotel and redesigning individual websites, alongside marketing activity, was set against clear objectives for success. After six months, the brand identities have been rolled out across the hotel group, and the website results are now offering tangible rewards. In this period the group has seen an increase in web bookings of 370%, and revenue from these bookings has climbed by 415%. We are confident enough to say that Abacus Hotels have seen a return on their investment within a month. Now our ongoing focus for Abacus is very much on retention of new customers, whilst continuing to build on the growing brand reputation we have helped to create. You can find more on that project here » So before your next project, why not first ask yourself ‘What does success look like?’ …you know we will!