1. Stamp duty will be cut for 98% of people who pay it 

only the highest value residential properties will pay more Under the old rules, you would have paid Stamp Duty Land Tax at a single rate on the entire property price. Now, you will only pay the rate of tax on the part of the property price within each tax band – like income tax. Under the old rules, if you bought a house for £185,000, you would have had to pay 1% tax on the full amount – a total of £1,850. Under the new rules you don’t start paying tax until the property price goes over £125,000, and then you only pay tax on the price of the property within the tax bands over that price. Under the new rules, you’ll pay nothing on £125,000 and 2% on the remaining £60,000. This works out as £1,200, a saving of £650. This will make the system fairer, and means stamp duty will be cut for 98% of people who pay it. Our stamp duty factsheet explains this policy in more detail. You can also access our infographic which gives some examples of how the new system will work.

2. The tax-free personal allowance is being increased by a further £100 in April 2015, to £10,600 The personal allowance

the amount you earn before you have to start paying income tax – will be increased again from £10,000 to £10,600 in 2015 to 2016. Typically, someone earning between £10,600 and £42,385 will be £825 better off by 2015-16 as a result of increases in the tax-free personal allowance since 2010. Even while making difficult decisions to fix the economy, since 2010, the government has cut income tax for 26.7 million taxpayers. Read the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement speech in full.

 3. Children will be exempt from tax on economy flights This will apply for under 12s on flights from 1 May 2015, and for under 16s from 1 March 2016 

saving an average family of four £26 on a flight to Europe and £142 on one to the US. The government expects these changes should be clear to consumers, and will consult on making sure that the tax is displayed on ticket prices.

4. Spouses will inherit their partner’s individual saving account (ISA) benefits after death

Currently, if someone passes away they can’t pass on their ISA to their spouse, even if they have saved the money together. 150,000 people a year lose out on the tax advantages of their partner’s ISA when their partner passes away. From 3 December 2014, if an ISA holder dies, they will be able to pass on their ISA benefits to their spouse or civil partner via an additional ISA allowance which they will be able to use from 6 April 2015. The surviving spouse or civil partner will be allowed to invest as much into their own ISA as their spouse used to have, in addition to their normal annual ISA limit.

5. Business rates will be cut and capped

with extra Help for the High Street To support small businesses in local communities, the ‘high street discount’ for around 300,000 shops, pubs, cafes and restaurants will go up from £1,000 to £1,500, from April 2015 to March 2016. This is in addition to doubling Small Business Rate Relief for a further year which means 380,000 of the smallest businesses will pay no rates at all. The government will also continue to cap the annual increase in business rates at 2% from April 2015 to March 2016 – this will benefit all businesses paying business rates. Finally, the government will extend the transitional arrangements for smaller properties that would otherwise face significant bill increases due to the ending of ‘transitional rate relief’. Access our infographic on full employment, and the government’s long term economic plan.

6. No more employer National Insurance contributions (NICs) on apprentices under 25

To make it cheaper to employ young people, from April 2016 employers will not have to pay National Insurance contributions (NICs) for all but the highest earning apprentices aged under 25. This is in addition to the announcement made at Autumn Statement last year that employers won’t have to pay NICs on under 21s from April 2015. These are part of the government’s wider ambition to have the highest employment rate in the G7.

7. Creative sector tax reliefs will be extended to children’s TV

Following on from the success of the film, high end TV, animation, video games and theatre tax reliefs, a new children’s TV tax relief will be introduced from April 2015. This will counteract a decline in investment in children’s TV in the last decade. Eligible companies will be able to claim 25% of qualifying production spending back through the relief. The government will also consult on introducing a new orchestra tax relief in April 2016.

I am bringing up the balance sheet again as we have been seeing some sets of accounts coming into our business with insufficient information to be a credible balance sheet.

I am seeing far too many prepared using the cash accounting system. I know this is not the easiest of documents to understand when you’re reading a set of accounts so I wanted to tell you some of the differences between a good balance sheet, and one that has been thrown together as a last resort.

I have been preparing and reading this document for a number of years and have seen all shapes and sizes. Part of my training was to read ones prepared by the FTSE 100 companies, not recommended. The financial statements can be complex and lengthy.         But micro and small companies are done fairly simply so you don’t have to read 50 pages of detailed technical language.

Be sure that not only does the balance sheet contain information about the profit or loss you’ve just made during your trading year but has a number of components.

I would expect you to receive a detailed set of pages describing the different figures in the balance sheet. This doesn’t need to go to Companies House as small and micro businesses are abbreviated, but you should have a full copy that you can use for your business going forward, if you don’t you need to question this.

If you are going to sell your business or go to the bank to borrow money, you are going to need this important document. This is an accumulation of your whole trading history whether you’ve been trading for a year, or 50 years. A company that is 50 years old balance sheet will look different and may have complexities that a new business will not.

Components to expect.

Fixed Asset Register

There should be a summarisation of the fixed asset register detailing accumulative costs and deprecation and changes happening during the financial year. There should be a net book value at the end so you know the value of your assets.  Fixed assets are your machinery, vehicles, refurbishment, furniture etc.

Intangible assets

These can be patents, trademarks, goodwill. This needs to be highlighted in detail, with amortisation or not.

Debtors

This can be money in the bank Trade debtors, customers that owe you money Other debtors can be prepayments, accrued income, if the company has loaned money to a member of staff etc.

Creditors

Overdraft facility at the bank Trade Creditors, Suppliers you owe money to Taxation HMRC any of the taxes, Corporation tax, VAT, PAYE Other Creditors Accruals, invoices you havent received from a supplier, but paid, directors loan etc.

Long term liabilities

Can be bank loans, lease agreements, hire purchase. If these components are known to you and are not in your accounts, you must question this.

The balance sheet is a financial document that tells the reader the financial position of your business it is vital to be correct. It is even more important than a profit and loss, that only tells you one year timeframe.

Make your business a strong one, a weak set of information will not help you move forward, it can have the opposite affect and hold you back.

Its in your hands!

Autumn has arrived and the summer holidays have been and gone, its time to look forward the autumn leaves dropping and Christmas approaching.

It is one of my favourite times of the year I love the change of the season, the leaves turning orange and red, and of course Halloween.

I wanted to talk to you about collaboration, we at Cross Accounting Service could not have enjoyed our success over the years without building up and keeping in touch with our wide network of colleagues and friends. So I wanted to share this bit of good news with you.

For my industry being an Accountant in what is a highly competitive market, there are literally hundreds of accountants in my area of South Wales. I keep an eye on who is the competition and who is setting up in my area.

I thought about 2 years ago, what if I don’t offer all the services my clients, or potential clients want, who could I talk to that does? I needed to connect with a larger company than myself who had access to a wider range of services that maybe my company doesn’t offer, and vice versa a company that would refer back to me in return. I found that very company, not only do I have someone to pass on work that I myself don’t do, they also send over work to me, what a great arrangement, they are also a great sounding board for me which I value very much.

My other network contacts, we meet regularly for lunch, not only do we have a great synergy with our businesses, but that wider network will refer to you if they get to know you, you will find work in places you never thought you would hear from.

In these times of high competition it is important to share the word about your brand and business, you cant do it all by yourself it will just take far too long.

So go on take the risk, build up that network, make an arrangement with a competitor, you never know where it will take you.

This blog is intended for information purposes only and is only advice from past experience, you may have other suggestions of your own. It is not intended to be used to make all of your business decisions but as a guide only.

What to do with your business if things have quietened down over summer

This may not be affecting you, but a lot of businesses suffer at some point during the year from seasonality or the great British weather affecting the productivity of their business.

Ive worked in the travel industry where if the weather is too good the telephone stops ringing, but Boxing Day the phone lines are maxed out.

Manufacturing tend to have a shut down over Christmas etc.

Everybody seems to be on holiday in July and August!

This might be adhoc or happens the same time every year, you know its going to happen, so planning ahead for that potential sales fall is vital to keep the operation moving and generating income for when the good times come back.

Keeping a buffer in the bank account certainly helps, you may need to scale back for a short period of time.

But for an ever growing business you are not going to want to scale back you want to keep on going.

Increase the marketing, do a special offer to either get things moving again in the Autumn, or get things moving now. The choice is up to you, but you are going to have to do something about it. Sitting on your laurels will not generate that income.

Use the time to look at your operation, are there systems you can tighten up on, costs to trim down. Think efficiency all the time, if you can do it better, add value, or save some time, its all a good thing.

Or a topical word at the moment, Collaboration. Get together with your network, maybe a couple of you have connected skills, and can promote each other, or do an event together and share the proceeds. What have you got to lose.

The important thing is to not sit back and wait for it to come, you make it happen.

This blog is intended for information purposes only and is only advice from past experience, you may have other suggestions of your own. It is not intended to be used to make all of your business decisions but as a guide only.

Original Post 05-05-2014 | Updated 09.01.2026

When you are running a business whether a new company or a well established one, getting the costing of your products or services costed correctly is crucial to your success.

Service Companies

Creating the Sales price.

Your main component of cost is going to be heavily on labour. You’re going to have to make sure that not only have you covered your labour cost, ie Cost plus employers NI. Contribution to overheads plus that all important profit.

A service company needs to have a mechanism for keeping track of those labour costs versus quoting for a job, at the fingertips at all times. The easiest and simplest route to finding this out is to keep timesheets, or cost the time of every element of each procedure. You always compare the timesheet for a particular job, ie the project, versus the original sales price. This will give you an average hourly rate of the job as a whole. You very importantly need to know the average hourly cost of your overheads. Basing this on the number of hours you have available as a maximum for every member of staff.

Ie You have two members of staff, each work 40 hours per week for 5 days work. As a yearly average that’s 4,160 hours at your disposal or 347 hours per month. Your overhead for example is £2,000 per month which equates to £5.76 per hour. A cost of this nature would be labour cost per hour, plus £5.76 overhead plus % profit.

Every business and industry is different, and you’re dictated quite a lot of the time by market rates, or competitors. By knowing your average overheads and labour costs, you will know the price you cant go below or face making a loss.

Hotels have this down to a fine art. They are mainly in the services industry again heavily focused on labour costs. When you have booked your room for the night. They will know ahead of time, the number of rooms they have, the cost of an empty room, and the cost of a full room. They will have broken down in their costing mechanism

The length of time to make a bed!

Cost of cleaning the room, length of time for each room!

Cost of washing the bedding/ towels!

Cost of the tea/coffee facilities!

Heating and lighting for each room!

Your breakfast cost!

Plus a contribution to fixed overheads, and % profit

Whether your service business is hourly project based or procedure based, you need to know the cost of each element.

Manufacturing and product based sales

Again as above you are dictated to by market rates, you might be a low volume business that can charge a premium fee for your product ie Apple Iphone.   Or a high volume business that charges sales at lower margins of profit but has to sell a lot of them. Ie Walkers selling crisps

When costing a product you need first know

Cost of the materials for the product!

Labour time to make it!

Cost of energy to make the product!

The more volume you make the cheaper it should be per product as you will become more automated in your processes plus you are likely to have more negotiation power with supplier costs. You need to build in a little slack as no-one or machine can work at 100% capacity all of the time. You do need to track efficiencies and always look at how you can make things better and demonstrate you are always trying to reduce inefficiencies. This is usually where profit can go down, if a business does not look to always improve its offering.

Supermarkets have just done this in the last 18 months, by offering the self checkout facility, they’ve saved both wages cost, time and rates bills.

The main thing to realise that this is not a static job to do, as you grow and develop or change your product offering you will need to keep monitoring these costs, or you could end up working twice as hard, for a lower gain.

Always be one step ahead.

This blog is intended for information only, you may have other suggestions of your own.  Please treat this as a guide only.