Business Butler Blog - financial

You wouldn’t let anybody look after your legal matters, would you? And would you take financial advice from someone you met in the pub? Hopefully not. Ok, what if you were ill, would you seek help from any Tom, Dick or Harriet? Of course not, you’d make an appointment with your doctor.

So, when you entrust someone to look after your business’s finances you need to make sure they are fully...

Startup founders in the UK have raised concerns that access to funding is proving difficult as prospective lenders are becoming frugal with their finances. All businesses are facing challenges with escalating costs and an unstable economy but startups are not as robust as established companies and are more susceptible to the effects of the recession. This is alarming because a lack of funding i...

Most people work hard throughout their career with the aim of being able to enjoy a comfortable retirement and if everything goes according to plan then maybe retire a few years earlier than the state pension age. However, nothing is straight forward and life is full of surprises, some pleasant and others not so. The current economic crisis couldn’t have been predicted when workers approaching ...

A new government campaign has begun to try and get businesses to reduce their prices for consumers. On Monday evening the new tsar at Number 10, David Buttress, asked business leaders their ideas on “how to help” fight the cost of living as it keeps rising.

In a BBC article it was discussed that a government source has given information to the broadcaster concerning the government’s plans...

In today’s blog we will be going through and discussing the different types of exit strategies, what they mean, and how you can put them in place in the early days of creating your business. Exit strategies are an important part of anyone’s business plan and fundamental for, of course, the latter days of your business depending on the time frame you put in ...

Payments made from the government’s Covid emergency lending programme to fraudulent companies will cost taxpayers £4.9 billion. The funding was essential to safeguard millions of jobs and keep businesses afloat but in the rush to make the credit available it appears that fraud prevention measures were not implemented in time.

Concerns were raised before launch

The g...

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak was never going to be able to please everyone with his autumn budget and there were always going to be winners and losers, but let’s have a look at the key points for businesses from his budget statement.

The Chancellor confirmed that the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) anticipates that the UK economy will grow by 6.5 per cent this year ...

The first annual Regions and Nations Tracker published by the British Business Bank has revealed alarming regional disparities in accessing equity finance and private debt in the UK.

Although more than 40% of businesses were accessing external finance in 2021, the lack of local investors in certain areas means that there are lost economic opportunities across the UKs regions and nations.

The furlough scheme, which has safeguarded millions of jobs during the past 18 months, finally closed at the end of September. The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, as it was officially known, was launched in April 2020 when large parts of the UK economy were forced to close because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Under the scheme, the government contributed up to a maximum if £2,500 per month ...

Latest research indicates that 20% of startups will fail in the first year and 60% won’t succeed past year three, startling figures that would put many people off trying in the first place but business owners are brave at heart. A lack of financial management knowledge is often quoted as one of the main reasons why businesses fail and with that in mind it is essential that business owners equip...

The most pressing issue facing startups today is a lack of finance and almost 30% fail every year in the UK because of this. With that in mind it is imperative that when you are looking for investment you give yourself the best opportunity of success by being totally prepared for the whole process.

Pitching your business to potential investors can be daunting. Any type of business present...

A Guest Blog by Ian Tovey, Funding Expert

A saying heard countless times during my long career in commercial banking and finance and one that is particularly apposite as businesses emerge from the turbulent last 12 months or so!

Its probably fair to say that all businesses will have been affected by the impact coronavirus, both positively and negatively and their wo...

Estate planning was once the preserve of the wealthy but these days it is extremely important for everyone, especially business owners. Nobody likes to think about the inevitable but when you run a business you know better than most that the key to success is planning.

As a business owner, your family probably rely on you as the main source of income, so if the worst was to happen and you...

A Guest Blog by Matthew Jones, ACA CTA, R&D Tax Credit Expert.

It is no secret that HMRC are enforcing a variety of measures to prevent abuse of R&D tax credit claims following the recent identification and prevention of fraudulent attempts totally over £300 million. This is a loud and public warning. Choosing the wrong adviser can potentially place...

A Guest Blog by Graham Wingar, Financial Expert.

At the beginning of the year we would have seen opinions ranging from “COVID-19 doesn’t exist” to “The whole world is going to end”. Now with more understanding about the health effects of the virus and how it may impact the economy we can take a more balanced view.

As part of our quarterly investment update, I have g...

Money, or the lack of it, is a concern for businesses at any time but during the current economic environment it takes on even greater significance. Business owners are constantly looking at ways to reduce costs without sacrificing quality or raise margins without losing customers, and even for businesses robust enough to survive the worst economic crisis on record, every pound counts.

So...

Can you imagine as a business owner being entitled to thousands of pounds and not even knowing? How frustrating would that be? Sounds too good to be true, does it? Well it is true and thousands of businesses across the UK are failing to take advantage by not making a Research and Development (R&D) tax credits claim.

In fact, recent research suggests that less than 20% of eligible SMEs...

When the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) was first launched last month, it was welcomed with open arms by businesses across the UK. However, it soon became apparent that the CBILS was not the panacea that businesses hoped it would be and it wasn’t long before the scheme started attracting criticism.

In response to this, Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, r...

The loudest noise heard on Thursday was at 8:00 pm when applause for the Clap For Our Carers campaign supporting our valiant NHS staff reverberated throughout the UK. But the cheers from millions of self-employed workers a few hours earlier were not too far behind on the decibel scale.

This eagerly awaited announcement was exactly what the nation’s self-employed have been patiently waitin...

With business owners throughout the country unsure of what the future holds it is reassuring to know that the Welsh Government has pledged to invest almost £1.4 billion to help businesses during the Coronavirus crisis.

You may wonder why businesses in Wales were not included in the initial statement from Chancellor Rishi Sunak but that is due to the fact that business rates and small busi...

You wouldn’t let anybody look after your legal matters, would you? And would you take financial advice from someone you met in the pub? Hopefully not. Ok, what if you were ill, would you seek help from any Tom, Dick or Harriet? Of course not, you’d make an appointment with your doctor.

So, when you entrust someone to look after your business’s finances you need to make sure they are fully...

A recent report into the spending behaviour of more than 133,000 small-and-medium-sized enterprises (SME’s) in the UK over the past 10 years has just been published and makes interesting reading.

We’ll take a look at some of the pertinent points from the comprehensive report now. The global report actually covered a total of 250,000 SME’s across the UK, US, Canada, France and Australia wi...