Business planning
Every business must plan ahead in order to ensure success, but it is too easy to succumb to the daily pressures of work and delay or ignore strategic planning. The result of poor planning is often rushed and misinformed decisions, over/under capacity, inefficiency and missed opportunities.

Every business owner needs to invest time in developing a long-term plan, starting with what you want to achieve from your investment and what your reasons for being in business are, and then developing a plan to help achieve these objectives.

We are well placed to help you develop these plans and have a considerable pool of experience and expertise to draw on. The financial aspects are usually the backbone to any business plan and you need to ensure that this aspect has been adequately dealt with in your plan.

Contact us today for a strategic planning review.

Business start-up
Most people who start up in business do so because they have a good business proposition, not because they are experts in the financial aspects of running a business. These factors can often be quite daunting to the entrepreneur and this is where we can help by evaluating your ideas and helping you develop them into a feasible business.

We can also help you:

• decide on the most suitable structure for your business (i.e. sole trader, partnership or limited company)
• prepare a business plan, cashflow projections, budgets and trading forecasts to prove the financial viability of your ideas and demonstrate this to the bank / potential investors
• assess your finance requirements and access the most appropriate source of finance
• help you establish relationships with banks, solicitors, etc via our well established network of contacts
• carry out registration procedures with Companies House, Inland Revenue or Customs and Excise
• set up an internal accounting system which complies with statutory requirements

Call us for a free initial consultation to find out how we can help your ideas become reality.

Business valuation
One of our key objectives is to help our clients increase the value of their business. Each year we can carry out a valuation of your business using software developed by the Added Value Network. We will produce a detailed report showing the current value of the business and ideas on how you can maximise its worth.

Company secretarial
When running a hectic business you cannot afford to use valuable time making sure you are complying with the Companies Act. However you do need to be aware how this legislation affects your company and its directors. We can help by carrying out the company secretarial duties for you. Our services include:

• company formations
• preparation and filing of statutory returns
• preparation of all documentation (such as minutes and resolutions)
• maintenance of statutory books (share register, minute book, etc)
• general advice on company law

Financial performance review
We will carry out a financial performance review of your business. This will be in the form of a detailed report which includes:

• graphs and charts illustrating how your business has performed this year
• ratio analysis to highlight areas of strength and weakness
• detailed commentary advising you which areas of the business can be improved

Management accounts
The most important part of our compliance services is the preparation of periodic management accounts. Monitoring and controlling the financial performance of your business is of paramount importance and regular management information is vital to the continued success of your business. We can either carry out this function for you or help you set-up internal systems to generate the information.

We will also take this service one step further by interpreting these figures for you and making suggestions to help you improve your profits or to help your business grow.

Payroll
Running your own payroll can be time consuming and complicated, particularly with the ever increasing complexity of taxation and employment legislation. There is an increasing burden on business to comply with these issues and non-compliance can lead to substantial penalties.
We can prepare payrolls for businesses with 2 to 200 staff.

Our service is comprehensive and confidential and includes:

• computer generated payslips
• administration of PAYE, national insurance, statutory sick pay, statutory maternity pay, etc
• completion of statutory forms (including year end returns)
• summaries and analysis of staff costs
• administration of incentive schemes, bonuses and ex-gratia termination payments.

Even if you only have a few employees, you will make savings by engaging us to administer your payroll.

Statutory accounts
If you are a limited company then you are required to prepare accounts that must be filed with Companies House in a statutory format. We can help you by preparing your statutory accounts and filing them with Companies House for you.

If you are a limited company and your annual turnover is in excess of £5.6 million then it is a legal requirement to have your annual statutory accounts audited. Even if your turnover is below £5.6 million then there could be occasions when you are still legally required to have an audit. You can also have an annual audit voluntarily.

Our approach to an audit assignment is not based purely on helping a business fulfill its statutory obligations. An audit gives us an ideal opportunity look inside a business to see what makes it tick. We can then use this knowledge to work with the Company's management team to help them get the most out of their business.

Taxation
Corporate & business tax will represent a substantial cost to any profitable business, not only in terms of the tax itself but also in compliance with reporting obligations, investigations with tax authorities and penalties for non-compliance.

We can help you minimise your corporation tax payments and relieve you of any administrative burden of complying with tax legislation. We will deal with all business tax matters, including preparing income and /or corporation tax computations and preparing and submitting your partnership tax return or corporation tax self-assessment return.

Personal Tax.
In 1996/97 self assessment was introduced to help ease the burden for unincorporated businesses. If anything, it has actually added to their burden. We can help to relieve you of this by preparing your annual self assessment tax return.

We are also able to prepare capital gains tax computations and inheritance tax computations for you.

A key service we offer to clients is in the area of taxation planning, aimed at minimising your future tax liabilities.