Well summer is truly here upon us.   Weve felt its warmth and heat for the past month.

As a business we have had to navigate the heat in the office and ensuring the wellbeing of our staff, plus making time for the fact they are wanting to take holiday time off.

If I can be bold and talk about the weather.    Whatever your work environment, we can all agree none of us are used our humid hot climate at this time of year.   All we can do is manage it the best we can, whilst we have it.   As with the great British weather, a rain storm and temperature drop is probably just around the corner.

We travel to other countries and see what they do.   Having just come from Austria, they have a similar climate to us.    They pretty much do what we do.   Work the 9 to 5, with hospitality industry working lunchtime and evenings.   One significant change they close nearly everything on a Sunday.   Its like a ghost town there on a Sunday.

Spain with their heat opening up, early in the morning.   Closing in the afternoon and then opening again in the evening.   The split day. 

So how can we manage our ever changing temperature conditions and keep our staff members happy as best we can.   We have done for many years in our own office environment changed from tea and coffee drinking to supplying bottles of water and soft drinks in the fridge, cold drinks always at everyones disposal.   The regular trip to the shop for an ice lolly also featuring in our days when its been over 30 degrees.

We relaxed our work wear, so on those days the staff could wear looser clothing.   The ever ready cool airers and open windows.   Keeping everyone hydrated a constant reminder.  Even though we don’t move around too much, heat exhaustion is a real thing.

For those in the hospitality industry, weve seen closure of the kitchens on hot days.   Who wants to work in temperatures of over 50 degrees.   The reality of ovens on and stoves in a heat wave.

We don’t have health and safety rules in this country for hot weather, as it happens so infrequently. But its really encouraging to hear responsible employers out there, looking out for their staff.

Holiday requests and staffing

You’ve probably heard me talk about this before, but just thought I would share how we do it here with our team.  Which has so far worked really well for us.

We use a large wallchart in our main office, which shows everyones holidays on a large calendar using different coloured markers.   We ask that no more than two people off at any one time, and that notice is given for holiday requests.   We also ask that the holidays split over the year, to balance things out.     A holiday request form is completed and signed by the employee and the manager as confirmed as authorised. 

We have holiday forms and have created holiday buddies.  Ie two people doing very similar jobs not off at the same time for lengths of time.   A day or two is fine but, for a week, the holiday buddies liaise with each other.  

For larger companies,  they may have a HR department who use software to manage the holiday schedule.   Which will run on a larger scale but the same principle applies.   Tracking the holidays of your staff, so that everyone doesn’t ask for time off at the same time is vital for a trading business.   If everyone was off at the time , it puts too much pressure on staff that are not on holiday, and can create resentment.   It can also stop the company functioning properly and not be able to service the customers it needs to.  

Having a management system in place for holiday request allows the company to flow and one less headache to be thinking about.  With all these changes weve faced in recent years, who needs something else to worry about.

Spring has very definitely arrived, the garden furniture is starting to come out. Everyone is looking to be very cheerful.   Winter is very much behind us.

It is one of my favourite times of the year I love the change of the season, pink blossom, the change of food offering.  

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 that’s new in my area.

I thought about 2 years ago, what if I dont 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 for places you never thought you hear from.

In these times of high competition it is important to share to 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.

As we step closer to April 2025, change is on the horizon. This is when the new financial year starts and we discuss what could impact our business in the coming months. We’ll explore what is ahead and how to prepare effectively.

National Minimum Wage

The most notable one is the rise in National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage. We are probably familiar with this rising every April.

Take a look at the table below for the hourly rate changes.

The apprenticeship rate applies to apprentices under 19 or 19 and over in the first year of apprenticeship.

Personal Allowance

The freeze continues on personal tax thresholds. Your personal allowance is the amount you can earn until you start to pay income tax. The personal allowance is currently £12,570 and set to be until April 2028 where the government will look to review.

Employer’s NI

Employers NI is also set to rise from 1 April 2025. Currently employers pay NI on employees wages at 13.8% when it hits the threshold of £9,100 however, from April the rate increases to 15% and the threshold falls to £5,000.

 To combat against this, the government have increased the employment allowance. The employment allowance is a credit against the Employer’s NI. Currently it is £5,000 for the year and will increase to £10,500. Once you have used up your Employment Allowance, then you will start to pay Employer’s NI.

Corporation Tax

There are no changes in the rates of Corporation Tax. This means that, from April 2025, the small profits rate will stay at 19% and will be payable by companies with profits of £50,000 or less.

Companies with over £250,000 profit will pay corporation tax at 25%.

Companies with profits between £50,001 and £250,000 will pay tax at the main rate reduced by a marginal relief, providing a gradual increase in the effective Corporation Tax rate.

If you're concerned about budgeting for the latest tax changes, let us know! We are experts in managing budgets and identifying trends to help you make the most of your resources. We can work out whether the Employment Allowance is going to save you money, or cost you money and provide insights and solutions tailored to your needs. Additionally, if you require any extra services, don’t hesitate to reach out—we’re here to accommodate your requests and provide the best possible support. We’re always ready to assist in any way we can!

For those of you watching the Glastonbury Festival over the weekend.     

It was a great boost to our UK economy.   Some £40 million turnover taken over the 5 day event.  Over 200,000 people attended and 3 million people tuned in to see Kylie Minogue, with Stormsy and The Killers pulling in great ratings too.

Donations to Oxfam, Green Peace and Water Aid were the main charities benefiting from the event.

The area I want to draw to your attention was over 200,000 attended the event this year, and over 400 small food and merchandise providers helped make the event a great success.

Whether you love it or hate it,   its provided a great boost to what has been so far quite a difficult 2019 for many retail and service outlets.

Those 400 food and merchandise providers will be providing jobs to thousands of people, creating work for not just the Somerset area but all over the UK, as a lot of the suppliers would have travelled to the area for work.   

There was also 2,000 volunteers mainly representing and supporting the three main charities.

With our continuing confused political market at the moment, with uncertainty with what is happening with Brexit.    A lot of small businesses are struggling to keep a float,  they are finding it harder to gain long term contracts, and being able to gain fixed prices for goods that may be coming from overseas.    The uncertainty affects everything.    The exchange rate of the Pound Sterling to Euro is also still highly volatile.

Please keep supporting your local businesses, they are keeping millions of people employed at the moment, we most definitely need them into 2020.

We never hear about them in the news when they suffer, they just go about their business quietly.       We only hear about the larger companies finding things tough at the moment.

Our economy and stability we all like to take for granted heavily relies on them.

Give your local business whoever they are your full support in 2019 regardless of the political outcome.      Lets keep our economy robust to ride the storm.

#shop local

Our busiest season has passed with the self-assessment deadline and now it’s the season of love. With love in the air, its time to make your business your valentine. Take the time to make a plan of action for your business. What do you want to achieve in the next 12-18 months?

Are you looking to expand your business and grow a larger list of customers? or are you trying to cut back on the amount of expenses your business pays out ? These are all goals that should be in the clear to you. Write down your plan of action, top tip, something that is written down will be more likely to be achieved than something that you have stored in your mind.

Having it written down and somewhere in sight will give you the reminder and motivation to try and achieve this. Think of the strengths and weaknesses of your business. Refresh and re-train on yourself in terms of, what are your strengths, work on weaknesses to learn and help achieve your goals.

Loving your business will give you opportunities to take it to the next level. However, with opportunities you also must weigh up the risks. This is where you need a forecast for your business, a cashflow can help make the deciding factor whether its time to hold back and watch the spending, or if there is spare cash around to invest back in the business.

We are at the start of 2018.   Make it a good one.