Tax Relief and Incentives for Business

Investing in Business has rapidly grown over the past years, particularly with the rise in cloud based business solutions and ideas.

Therefore there is a growing amount of diverse finance, as opposed to the traditional loan from the bank. Examples of this would be crowd funding and peer to peer lending.

Crowd funding has taken a huge rise as of late, everything from business propositions all the way to a very recent one where the Neath Community need to raise £11,000 so they can have their Christmas Lights switched on. In fact, thanks to Crowd Funding they have now raised £16,500 so it really does show an online support for new businesses and incentives whatever they may be!

The good news is that actually if your new business meets specific requirements then you may also be entitled to help with business rates or tax relief for research or development. This is all thanks to the wonderful people at Business is Great.

So why not check out their links and see what you could be entitled too today:

• Business rate reliefs

  An overview on which properties are eligible for discounts on their business rates, and how to apply for these reliefs
  

• Enterprise Zones

  There are currently 24 Enterprise Zones across the UK and they support new businesses through a range of incentives
  

• The Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS)

  This aims to encourage investment in small and early stage companies by reducing the risk to investors of investing in these types of companies
  

• Employment Allowance

  Employers can reduce the amount of National Insurance contributions (NICs) they pay for their employees by up to £2,000.
  

• Annual Investment Allowance

  Currently stands at £500,000. How to claim, what is covered and how to calculate it
  

• Capital Allowances

  A tax relief designed to allow the cost of certain of your company or organisation's assets to be written off against its taxable profits
  

• Enterprise Investment Scheme

  Helps small companies raise finance by offering tax relief to investors who buy new shares in their companies. Check here to see if your business qualifies
  

• Venture Capital Trust (VCT) Scheme

  Designed to help smaller companies raise finance by offering a range of tax reliefs to investors who invest in VCTs, who in turn onward invest or lend to small and medium sized businesses
  

• Capital Gains Roll-over Relief

  You may be able to delay paying Capital Gains Tax if you either sell (‘dispose of’) some business assets or use all or part of the proceeds to buy new assets. This relief means you won’t pay any tax until you sell the new asset
  

• Research and development tax credits

  Small businesses can get 225 per cent tax relief on their research and development spending
  

• Patent Box

  Eenables companies to apply a lower rate of Corporation Tax to profits earned after 1 April 2013 from its patented inventions and certain other innovations.
  

• Social Investment Tax Relief

  This provides a range of income and capital gains tax reliefs which can be claimed by individual investors for investments they have made in social enterprises, with a view to helping people and communities. It is in place for investments made or capital gains arising in the period from 6 April 2014 to 5 April 2019
  

• Tax reliefs for the creative industries

  A group of five corporation tax reliefs that allow qualifying companies in the creative industries to claim a larger deduction, or in some circumstances claim a payable tax credit when calculating their taxable profits
  

• Entrepreneur's Relief

  When an entrepreneur sells or closes their business, they need only pay ten per cent Capital Gains Tax on any qualifying profits
  
  
  
  (source: http://www.greatbusiness.gov.uk/tax-relief-and-incentives-for-businesses-and-investors/)
  

Lego Vs group interviews

I used to love Lego as a child, I could build an awesome tower using all the bricks out of the bucket fobbing off any of the instructions to build an airport or submarine as that was dull, no instead I'd make some Picasso style creation which in my eyes, was simply amazing and another bonus was how quickly you could swallow one and then end up in A&E (mine was within approximately thirty seconds, and it was a red specific brick).

Lego is still just as popular as it was back in my youth, I visited a friend who has a five year old boy and this young whippet had recently moved on from the big Lego bricks to the small ones (growing up you know) and I found myself losing all sense of time and reality working alongside him, then I suddenly thought; I have done this before in adult hood and no, I didn't choke on one.

Adult Lego

So where have I, as a fully fledged adult toyed with Lego before. I had this terrible flashback to when I was about 18 and I went for a interview for an established company (a'hem) which began with an initial "telephone interview", you know where they used to ask you:

"If you had an angry customer would you...1. punch them in the face, or 2. relax because remember, the customer is ALWAYS right

I was passed onto the secondary stages. However just to digress, how could anybody fail those interviews...the only thing I can think of is that a large amount of cats are applying for jobs, as they blatantly couldn't press the right button on the keypad. I look back now and it almost felt like I was going for the final stages of Britain's Got Talent, all for a call centre role on minimum wage and not forgetting the 24 hour, 7 day a week shifts I'd have to start forcing myself to go too.

Second stage

In I walk, all fresh faced and nervous about what was about to happen, and suddenly I find myself surrounded by other people whilst quickly being split into teams. This was new to me, and I did feel like I was enrolling to the Army. "Sit down and be quiet" squawked a particularly Alpha female manager, if she'd asked us to do ten sit ups...we probably would have done.

Then, said Lego was slammed by said Alpha female onto the table into our pathetic groups, with some straws. Our objective was to...well build something. There I am, as a mortified teenager suddenly realising I was never going to get this job as: A: I used to literally build towers and B: Swallow them so all in all, not good.

In the end

I look back and think who does this anymore in such an excruciating manner? Well tons still do, as I know a friend that went to a interview recently for a very well known shoe brand, and he was told, at the prime age of 39 to sit on the floor in a circle and in pairs, paint a picture to express how he "felt about the brand" needless to say he didn't stay. Though I did argue that at least they had glitter pens as well as paint so why not get creative? He didn't find that funny.

Yes, I've had other interviews that were excruciating, for example I was asked "how would you sell this pen" I mean come on...and I answered terribly as I started listing its qualities, like it was a fine wine but it wasn't, it was a bic.

Here at Data Clarity we don't do anything like that. We don't ask people to build Lego or to pretend they were dealing with a difficult person. Nope, because we actually want to learn about the persons history and soul, as that's all that matters to us - not if they can build a bridge with Lego. If the person wants to become part of the Data Clarity team then we'll happily have them on board for their personality as if the attitude is right, the rest can be taught. We'll always expand in the right way.

Is B2B Better at Social Media than B2C?

B2B marketing can be tricky, time consuming and sometimes unrewarding, and according to the 2011 Global Marketing Effectiveness Program by the Fournaise Marketing Group 73% of CEO's believe that a good old marketer is not able to prove that their strategies to increase sales and improve the organisations market growth will actually work.

Is this true? I don't actually think so! 

B2B historically was all about the trade, and cold calling trade customers or sending informal, discount driven direct mail. For example, buy now and get extended credit until December. Brilliant.

However now we must feel empowered, and realise our potential for B2B marketing and allow the B2C marketer's to do the front facing branding. Stop trying to do it. Now I am a slight hypocrite because I have always been in the commercial B2B market, where now; I believe, there has been a transitional shift. No longer is it trade only, you have to appeal to the end users too.

So lets ask ourselves some questions:

Internal social Media, but why?

You get it, most brands have jumped on the "our team is totally awesome, look at how awesome we are, we wear hoodies" band wagon, so now on a ton of websites you get to "meet the team".  For example meet Janice from HR who loves dogs, and mugs of tea but she also loves her job. Insert picture of her possibly with said dog/mug of tea/or a benign smile proving her adoration for the role she's been in for fifteen years. However, it does appear to work in the B2B market, people actually feel that a value proposition is getting to know the organisation properly, almost becoming a member of the family. Whereas within B2C - the consumers just want the shiny product, and strong advertising to prove their buying worth.

So what's my worth?

Think about what your values are, and stick by them. A question to ask is do you have the resources available to be successful? What I mean by that, is most social networking platforms are free so in the purest of senses it should be cheap to add social media to your marketing mix.

Fact is guys and gals, we know it isn't cheap. It's time consuming and sometimes can be uneventful. I suppose a lot of B2B companies use social media as an experiment. I struggled massively with Facebook, when I was in the commercial B2B market not so much however specialist B2B markets are flat in responding when interacting so was difficult to sustain a following.

Your worth, is quite simply realising that social media is non linear within your market. Your aim is to deliver a website with personality and core values, show leads and customers based on relationships.Be transparent. Be trustworthy.

Its all in the maths

Tell a great story, and analyse it! So story + data analysis = you're awesome! A great B2B marketer should be a fantastic story teller, and no it shouldn't all just be buy my product stories, and aren't we great - it should be informative, interesting and very very quietly pushing your business into their mindset. There are so many great software houses out there, such as Hubspot which will track anything you do social media wise. It really is worth a go.

At data clarity we offer a range of services to suit a vast array of B2B users, from web development, data management to SEO so in retrospect we're extremely versatile so in order for us to have succeeded, we did the above first and we're winning so can you!

The Problem with Excel

The Problem with Excel…

We all know that Excel can do an awesome amount of tasks for you to ease your working day and of course, most businesses use it in some manner. Though the ever changing updates and constant self-training involved can often lead to more issues down the line so yes its sturdy however it often leads to mistakes.

As a person who has used Excel for many years, from holidays to mileage forms I have lost track of my own path numerous times, and whilst managing other employees expenses made something sturdy, inconceivable to use.  

Showing the pitfalls in big business

A prime example of this would be JP Morgan, an American finance organisation whom, as others in the financial sector used Excel on a daily basis.

Fundamentally, a simple copy and paste plus a faulty equation made them a loss of $6 million dollars, with possible fines of $600 million. This is an extortionate mistake for a company of such stature.

Ok, so no I have never lost a company that much money but I may hold my hands up and say that I might have signed off a private expense inadvertently as there are so many loop holes, from general errors, to managing holidays and expenses you can make mistakes from all angles. 

The issue with using Excel as an accountancy package

1. Everybody studied I.T in school/college but how much do we actually know about it as a product and service. As mentioned the updates, confused ribbons and changing formats means that without an Excel Bible glued to your hip, chances are you’d miss a trick.

2. Setting up your accounts through Excel is time consuming and can often lead to a general lack of understanding of how it can help you in the long term. However the huge catch-22 is that it’s free so you balance its ease of use (or lack of it) with the fact it’s free. Actually you waste time and money by trying to work out how to use it.

3. In Excel, there is no flexibility, once you’ve set it up you can’t change or reconfigure later on. So you’re limited to its usability.

4. Yes we all know this, Excel is massively susceptible to fraud. I can remember working for a organisation where managers in separate departments used the same spreadsheet to compile and edit their own departments expenses, who’s to say that a colleague didn’t change £150 to £15000, we wouldn’t really know and fundamentally this could break your business.

5. Performance issues are a huge thing with Excel, when you start putting in large amounts of data onto your worksheets Excel simply has a nervous breakdown. Accounting software will integrate everything for you.

6. Hello road block, as Excel doesn’t track anything for you. Its down to you to monitor and understand your accounting software.

Why software is a better solution for you

It’s easy! The cloud based super secure network leaves you in control, with real time dashboards and data information, and you’ll wonder why you never have used it before as it’s so simple and puts you in control. 

Have as many or as little users as you’d like, remembering that you are able to control who sees what within the dashboard, giving you the knowledge that your secure information isn’t being viewed by employees whom don’t need to see such sensitive information. You’re guaranteed maximum up time of the software, and backups are done nightly in highly secure, offsite servers, giving you peace of mind. It also takes the pressure off your business to provide adequate storage, which can be costly.

No chance of fraud here, our solution is double SSL encrypted so exactly the same but even more secure then online banking, which is something we do every day and we put our complete trust that we’re never going to get hacked. 

Reporting should be easy, and take you no time at all. From profit and loss, balance sheets, tax returns, reporting for management and much more, it’s all there under one simple click.

Reasons why accounting software is better than Excel

1. Feel confident from the start

With our easy to use dashboard, you’ll feel confident in the knowledge that you are on the right track with your business straight from the word go!

2. The data is always correct
    Real-time financials are always kept in one central place, no longer do you need to worry about being glued to your desk, access our solution anywhere as we’re fully mobile integrated whilst maintaining the highest level of security.

3. Live information
   Panic stations over, if you’ve got a big investor coming to visit you, its no problem as you can get all the information you’d require in minutes. Think of how accurate your finances will be, leaving you in control and giving you the time to grow.

4. You’ll have a clean audit trail
   All of the historical information that your investors might need is available at their fingertips. A proper audit trail ensures your data cannot be compromised. It also records a document of every business transaction. This includes sales contracts, payments to employees, and more. Having a complete audit trail reassures investors about the validity of the company and meets the tax department’s needs.

5. Access to data anywhere, anytime
   Give any member of your team access your data online anytime, anywhere (as long as you grant them permission to do so.) Cloud software enables you to share your financial information with your employees, accountant, bookkeeper or financial advisor.

It’s about letting your business grow

I know, it's a tricky one about letting go of something you feel is tried and tested. However fundamentally change is for the positive in this case,  you'll feel in control, and save yourself time, effort and money in the long term. Try clarity365 for free today.

Expenses - The Mileage Issue

In the past, I have looked down at my desk, and there were receipts everywhere across the table alongside my mileage forms which I STILL needed to fill out and compile, but alas the month had slipped away from me, and quite frankly the lack of effort on my part deserves a good old slap on the wrist.

Why do we, as professional people have the inability to do this effectively and proactively?
I have discussed this so many times with employees over the years, one example was when I was working for a medium sized organisation I was finally promoted and with that, given a van (I know, life was good) which in turn meant I was then given one of the most complicated mileage forms known to man kind.

I had to tally up my mileage and where I'd been since the previous month, divide it by apples and multiply it by the number of monkeys that could fit in a Mini, which should give me a balanced form to submit back... needless to say it blew my mind and one very nice accountant took it off my hands otherwise my brain would have exploded with numbers... And monkeys.
Second to that, the years (pulls hair in frustration) I have spent going to one location, writing down the mileage, then invariably forgetting to restart the clock, which effectively means you've messed up the whole journey therefore an evening of sitting on Google Maps plotting the journey again, thus creating an evil sense of Déjà vu. That's where the stacks of overdue mileage appears, you get home, put your feet up and wham! Your desk is covered with unfilled mileage reports at the end of the month.

The point of this is, why don't we help ourselves more? Wouldn't it be brilliant if not only we could find something to simplify our lives whilst at home and on the go? The answer here is yes.
Imagine that, a mobile app that not only does the hard work for you, it consolidates your information to what has been paid or what is due from your employers. This keeps you in control. It also helps your employers track your expenses, making it so transparent you can't go wrong again (unless the monkeys come and get you).
Powered by data clarity; Clarity365 is the ONLY system to include full end to end Human Capital Management from mileage to absences and holidays.