Thinking about getting started with Facebook advertising? Before you do, join LittlePiggy and 24 Fingers on this Lunchtime Learning Session where they will share hints and tips to make sure you get your Ads to the right people, at the right time for the right price.
8:15-10:30 (SPACES AVAILABLE)
12:15-2:30 (FULLY BOOKED)
Increasingly we are expected to ‘sell’ as part of our jobs; whether it is the seasoned professional under pressure to cross-sell or the teenager at the fast-food counter cheerily inviting you to ‘go large’.
Join us as we explore the use of concepts from Behavioural Economics to improve sales by selling less.
Building on our December and January Behavioural classes, this session will look at combining strategic HR with concepts from Behavioural Economics to create an environment where less time is spent selling but people buy more.
At our 2019 masterclasses we are also encouraging attendees to make a donation to the MPower Project. The project has recently started working in the Norwich area and is already oversubscribed and under funded. Our masterclass sessions have always been free to attend and donations to the project go a long way in supporting these vulnerable women.
The linked article below gives an outline of the incredible work of Alison and everyone at Ormiston Families on the project;
https://www.chadwicks.co.uk/articles/ormiston-families-mpower-project/
Last year around 500 people came along to hear what we had to say. In 2017 we raised over £3,500 for our previous charity – Action for Children. In 2018 we smashed our target and donated £6000 to the Orimston’s MPower project.
Thursday, 02 April 2020
Last week, Rishi Sunak announced that self-employed people in the UK will be able to claim support worth 80% of their average monthly profits, in an “unprecedented” move to cover the impact of Covid-19.
The bailout is broadly the same as that offered to employed workers and led to the Chancellor saying:
“It is now much harder to justify the inconsistent contributions between people of different employment statuses.
“If we all want to benefit equally from state support, we must all pay in equally in future.”
So, what does this mean?
In the press conference that followed, Mr Sunak was quick to deny any imminent changes, although his comment heavily suggests that a tax hike is coming for self-employed individuals. My own inclination would be that national insurance contributions (NIC) will be the focal point.
Here is an example to illustrate why NIC might be targeted.
In 2018/19, a self-employed individual with profits of £50,000 would have paid class 4 national insurance of £3,486. They would also be subject to class 2 national insurance of £153. This gives a total amount collected by the Government of £3,639.
An employee on a salary of £50,000 would have paid class 1 national insurance of £4,628. The employer would also have paid class 1 national insurance of £5,737. This gives a total amount collected by the Government of £10,365.
Mr Sunak refused to go into any more detail, and said,
“It’s just an observation that there’s currently an inconsistency in contributions between self-employed and employed.”
Given the sheer cost of the bailout measures introduced in this last week alone, you would expect the Government to be looking to recoup this expense from somewhere.
As the Government is trying to reduce borrowing, then attempting to collect more tax seems a plausible way to cover these additional costs.
The previous Chancellor did attempt to increase Class 4 NICs, the main rate paid by self-employed people, to narrow the gap with contributions paid by employees. He quickly did a U-turn on this after facing severe backlash.
Will Mr Sunak attempt the same thing? – It certainly looks that way and, as always, we’ll keep you up to date as and when announcements are made.
Need help?
If you have any questions about national insurance or any other of the Chancellor’s announcements, please don’t hesitate to speak to your usual MHA Larking Gowen contact or email us at enquiry@larking-gowen.co.uk
You can find contact details on the Our People page of our website.
Jordan Brown
Going Live can be daunting. You have to think about what you say, how you sound, how you look and – most importantly – how do you get people to watch? Join LittlePiggy and 24 fingers on this Lunchtime Learning session as they share hints, tips and ideas to make your Live videos more professional and more engaging.
My experience of working with business owners and directors over the years (in good times as well as bad) has proved that a calm, well-structured approach to cash flow management has always provided the best chance of a successful outcome.
The process will help identify urgent short-term measures as well as enabling planning for the medium to long term security of the business. I see cash flow management as a tool to help you control your responses to current circumstances and an opportunity to review your business in detail to create strategies for the future. Different people will have different personal and business objectives and it’s vital that yours are taken into account in developing your response to the current situation.
Here are some straightforward things you should be looking at if you wish to continue to trade.
Have a plan and monitor progress
Create/update cash flow projections; these will be a critical tool
You may wish to prepare cash flows under different “what if” scenarios to help you plan
Many businesses will need to convert traditional monthly projections to a weekly or even daily basis
Focus on the cash-to-cash conversion cycle and reduction of working capital requirements
Ensure your financial records and reports are kept up to date so that you monitor profitability, overheads, stock levels, and debtors and creditors balances on a timely basis
Generate cash
Coming soon
Need help?
There are so many things to consider under each of the headings above. In my experience, many clients have found it useful to work through each area with us, receiving the benefit of an ‘outside view’ to stimulate thinking, helping them to develop and implement practical strategies.
We’d be happy to help you in the same way. Please get in touch with me or your usual MHA Larking Gowen contact at enquiry@larking-gowen.co.uk.
You can find contact details on the Our People section of our website.
When the Government recently introduced the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (or CBILS) offering to guarantee 80% of loans made by banks, we hoped that this would make a real difference for desperate businesses looking to survive through this crisis. Although not a perfect solution, after all these loans will need to be repaid, they offer zero fees and the Government pays the first 12 months of interest, so they looked like a much-needed financial lifeline.
In practice, businesses have struggled to secure loans from CBILS, with only £90 million lent so far. The Treasury has reported that, out of 130,000 applications, only 1,000 have been granted. Certainly, the experience shared by my MHA Corporate Finance peers, in a conference call late last week, mirrored this frustration across the UK. In fairness to the banks, their credit teams are no doubt inundated with applications and their people are suffering from the effects of COVID-19 just like the rest of us. Nothing is easy in these unprecedented times.
The Government has stepped in and introduced some welcome changes to help drive up the scheme usage.
The key changes:
We hope that these refinements will make a meaningful impact on the usage of CBILS, but note that the banks, quite understandably, will still want to see all the information they ordinarily need to assess a loan application. The extent of this will depend on the size of the loan but, according to the British Business Bank, these requirements are likely to include:
As part of the CBILS application process, the banks will need to establish the viability of each business by reviewing two key areas:
If you need any help with any of the above, particularly the preparation of cash flows and accounting information, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with your usual MHA Larking-Gowen contact or send an email to enquiry@larking-gowen.co.uk.
You can find contact details are on the Our People section of our website.
James Lay
Occupational Health:Sickness absence -how to deal with sickness absence in your employees.
Our experienced team would like to invite you to join us for a free Breakfast Seminar.
The seminars will be delivered byDr Lindsey Wrightand her team who will assist you in understanding how Occupational Health can help you to manage your staff’s wellbeing.
Breakfast is provided by our partnered charityAbout with Friendsand will be held at our Gorleston Clinicwhere you can meet the rest of our team.
Places are limited so book early to secure yours!
These sessions will follow the intention of our previous seminars; to provide essential HR knowledge for employers.
The UK gambling industry is worth £14.4 billion per year. As more igaming companies seek to establish themselves in the market, the Gambling Commission has recently introduced a series of new rules and regulations that are designed to protect the players. In this article, we will look at some of the recent regulations and the future of the UK online gambling industry.
The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) is the authority that is responsible for the regulation of gambling in Great Britain. Established in 2005, the commission introduces new regulations and grants gambling licenses to companies that seek to offer their online gambling services in the UK. To receive and retain a license, betting companies need to follow the commission’s high standards and requirements. Failure to uphold these rules could result in significant fines or losing the license.
In the last few years, the UKGC has introduced several regulations to create a safer gambling environment for players. In 2019, the commission implemented stricter age verification. This means that online casinos are now required to verify their players before they are allowed to deposit and play, even in free mode. Furthermore, a credit card ban was introduced earlier this year. It is estimated that more than 800,000 players use their credit cards to deposit and gamble, and this ban will protect players who are at risk of developing gambling problems.
There is no doubt that the UK Gambling Commission will put forward other regulations in the coming years. Some believe it will introduce a maximum betting limit on online casino games, such as the £2 limit that is currently in place on FOBTs. The commission has already put a ban on “feature buys”, which are slot machines where players can stake extra money to buy a bonus feature. However, a maximum betting limit has not yet been announced.
There are hundreds of licensed online casinos in the UK. And while the majority of them have no difficulty in implementing the UKGC’s new regulations, several companies are opting to withdraw from the UK market entirely. Several operators have received hefty fines for not following the Gambling Commission’s general rules in the past, and some companies may not be willing to take the risk that comes with operating a casino in the UK market. Furthermore, fewer companies may attempt to establish themselves in the market going forward. However, despite new regulations and stricter rules, the well-established igaming companies will still have good results in the coming years.
Hethel Innovation. Andy is the Deputy Innovation Manager of the Business Development Team and has worked in high demand environments for several years. From the daily pressure of working on set for TV, through to setting up and running two of his own businesses. Productivity is an obsession for Andy and the ability to improve ourselves constantly is something he has been working on for years.
Tuesday, 14 April 2020
This is widely regarded as a Chinese saying: “May he live in interesting times.” Well we certainly are doing that during this COVID-19 crisis. Business viability may seem secondary to keeping all your team fit and well, but really must operate in tandem.
Showing my age, I yearn for a reprint of a Law Society pamphlet called “The Expense of Time.” The basic format of salaries, direct costs, indirect costs and profit is a great financial model for a solicitors practice. However, if this is set up in a spreadsheet, you can perform simple variance calculations that enable you to see where profit and cash flow pinch points occur as you change the assumptions.
This is a vital exercise for legal firms as cash flow should hold up in the short term if you defer paying your VAT or income tax (in accordance with the government scheme), but you need to know what sort of problem this may store up for the future and how long you may need to take any loans out for. We know the banks have made loans available to professional firms already, but you still need a good business case that demonstrates how you can afford to repay it.
This can then help determine the number of people you may need to furlough, place on reduced hours or indeed make redundant. We all work hard to build our teams so we want to try to avoid big life-changing decisions (as far as possible), for what we all hope will be a short-term blip.
In looking at the short-term future, we’re all in the dark about the demand for our services, but carrying out a cash flow forecast by income stream will enable you to react as the situation changes, which is the one certain thing to happen. This should help you to work out the critical decisions, and it’s always better to sort finance out in advance than wait for it to become a crisis. This doesn’t need to be a big document, but something you will refer to and update.
Of course, we’re happy to guide you through the cash flow process and offer any support you need. Call 0330 024 0888 or email enquiry@larking-gowen.co.uk. You can also find contact details on the Our People section of our website.
Jon Woolston
Great Yarmouth Town Hall – one of a series of five events co-hosted by Norfolk Charity BUILD and Norfolk County Council, bringing together social care service providers and their customers (ie people with disabilities, carers, family members) to help develop the new market where eligable personal budget holders, and those that fund their own care, can make informed choices about who provides accommodation, support, advice, as well as social, leisure and learning activities.
Open to the public, on a drop in basis with limited spaces left for service providers.
Call 01603 618029 for more details
Wednesday, 08 April 2020
Government guidance was updated on 4 March to confirm that if you’re the director of your own company, you may benefit from the JRS in relation to salary, which is paid to you through PAYE. It remains however, that many such directors will often pay themselves comparatively little, preferring instead to withdraw profits via dividends, which can restrict its value for many.
That aside, one other concern had been the requirement, as for any employee, that a director should, in consequence of being furloughed, no longer perform any duties for the company. How then, would this fit with the ongoing duties that a director owes to their company under the Companies Act and otherwise?
HMRC have resolved this by stating, where directors still need to carry out particular duties to fulfil their statutory obligations, they can do so provided that they do no more than is deemed reasonably necessary for those purposes and they are no longer carrying out what is essentially their day job i.e., generating commercial revenue and undertaking services to or on behalf of the company.
In order then to furlough a director, it will be necessary for the company (acting through its board of directors), and where it’s in compliance with the statutory duties of one or more of its salaried directors, to formally adopt this as a decision by the company, note it in the company records and communicate it in writing to the director(s) concerned.
We consider that this decision should further make clear that the director is being furloughed in respect of their ongoing role as a director (rather than making reference to a separate employment, which may have further employment law implications), subject only to their being required to fulfil such statutory obligations as they owe to the company in the interim.
Finally, recognising that some company directors may be paid only once a year in satisfaction of their annual salary, it would appear that such an amount as was paid to them in the 2019/20 tax year will form the basis for calculating their average monthly earnings, on which any Job Retention Scheme reimbursement may now be based. In that event, it will be necessary for them to make sure that they are at least paid an equal monthly amount against which a claim for reimbursement can be made.
The above reflects our opinion based on information currently available and it should be recognised that HMRC have stated their right to retrospectively audit all aspects of a claim. As guidance continues to evolve, we further recommend checking for any updates when implementing any arrangements.
For more information please get in touch with your usual MHA Larking Gowen contact or call 0330 024 0888 or email enquiry@larking-gowen.co.uk.
You can find contact details on the Our People section of the MHA Larking Gowen website.
John Weston