Say it as it is

Bigger Businesses Still Not Paying On Time

Fri, 02 Oct 2020 11:52:58 GMT

Have your say in a new consultation

Successive governments have failed to stem the ongoing late payment practices that still hamper small businesses, despite introducing new legislation and creating the Small Business Commissioner's Office. Incredibly, 50,000 small businesses fail annually because of late payments, and over £23bn is owed to small and medium sized businesses- yet the Small Business Commissioner's Office lamely boasts that it has recovered less than £7.5m of unpaid invoices for small firms since it was set up in 2017. It's no more than a drop in the ocean!

They have also publicly named only 8 (yes eight) poor payers- they are Holland & Barrett, G4S, Bupa, Bombardier Transportation, Zurich Insurance, Jordans & Ryvita, Incentive FM and Sambro International. You can see the official reports on these serial offenders here , quietly tucked away on a website. You could be forgiven in thinking this is to avoid shame.

Do small businesses even know the Small Business Commissioner's Office exists, let alone that it has a mandate to support small businesses in recovering unpaid debt? Do large unethical firms like those named above, and small unethical firms, understand the harm that failing to pay within agreed terms and within the law has on small firms? Possibly not, but less open to ambiguity is that they clearly don't care and are not incentivised to get their payment practices in order.

So, make sure your voice is heard! A government consultation has opened to get the views of businesses on increasing the powers of the Small Business Commissioner's Office, extending their scope to include small as well as large bad payers, sanctions against late payers, powers to enforce compliance with information requests. The consultation closes on 24 December. Don't just let this pass you by, have your say now. Complete the Consultation here.

Are you missing out on R&D Tax Credits?

Fri, 22 Feb 2019 15:11:50 GMT

Small firms don't know they can claim

Many small firms don’t claim R&D Tax Credits. Many haven’t heard of it. Last year only 7,500 SMEs claimed, averaging £43,000 per claim. But there’s millions more going unclaimed. Many business owners aren't aware they can reduce their tax bill or get a cash payment through this HMRC Scheme.

If you carry out “R&D activity”, chances are you can claim back more than your actual costs against your Corporation Tax. How much more? More than double! In fact, those nice people allow us to claim 225% (200% last year) of the costs of staff, materials, test/ trial expenses, even software you buy to use in development, against tax. That’s pretty attractive isn’t it?

To be eligible, your R&D activity needs to fit this criteria- it should be incurred on project(s) which seek to overcome technical or scientific uncertainty. There has to be an element of risk- in other words there was no guarantee you would be successful. This usually translates into new product development, or improving existing products or services.

Even on a small scale it’s worth having. For instance, if in June and July 2012 you incurred costs of £10,000 developing a new product, you could reduce your taxable income for this year by £22,500 and boost your profits after tax by up to £6,300. So why wouldn’t you? You can even revise your last 2 years tax returns if you’ve missed a trick.

So if you think you can demonstrate R&D investment, talk to your accountant. Details are at this HMRC webpage , or have a chat with me. There’s more information about funding and subsidies for small firms on PHMC website

How Do I Get My Hands Off?

Fri, 21 Dec 2018 14:42:34 GMT

Letting go, delegating, empowering, trusting your team. How do you stop interfering with the day to day?

A coaching client asked me to focus on getting her hands off the business. She'd heard all the cliches of course (haven't we all!) , but hadn't accepted she was too hands-on until getting some pretty strong feedback from a manager who was on the verge of throwing in the towel before Christmas.

Our initial exploration of the problem confirmed it was indeed a problem- in fact, she was probably well and truly hands- in , not just hands- on . We explored why it was a problem, why she ought to become hands- off . Yes, you've heard it all before- it demotivates and undermines managers, stifles their innovative potential, and worst of all, prevents you as the leader from working on the direction and goals rather than looking after detail. Pennies dropped- recognition was complete, but what to do about it?

We went for a three-stage solution:

1. Log how time is actually spent. A record was kept, for two non-successive weeks, as a snapshot of how time is spent. Not too much detail, but enough to be revealing!

2. Reflect on how wisely that time was used, and choose what should NOT be done personally in future. In this case, there was almost 50% of the total time logged up for grabs- on the high side, but not completely off the scale in my experience.

3. Implement change. This was a combination of several actions, which included starting work later in the mornings, working away from the office at least a day a week, delegating more effectively and requiring structured feedback (reporting) from all (3) managers.

So, early days so far, but initial results are good. All managers now say (privately as well as directly to the client) they feel more trusted- and in two cases, far more challenged; the client herself still feels in control, mainly because she's getting prepared management reports and sees how the business is developing regularly, and she has more time to herself. Strangely, that's the part we're working on now- there's a lingering "guilt" to be dealt with.