As the spring of 2024 unfolds, the Government have unveiled their budget, setting the stage for economic policies, social initiatives, and infrastructure development for the upcoming fiscal year. This pivotal moment not only reflects current priorities but also shapes the nation in the months and years to come. In this blog, we delve into some of the top topics emerging from the spring 2024 budget and their potential implications.

National Insurance

The main topic for the budget was the cut in national insurance again. The chancellor reduced the amount of national insurance employees would pay by 2%. The rate going from 10% to 8% in April 2024. It is estimated that the cut would be worth about £450 a year for someone on a £35,000 full-time salary.

It is estimated that around 29 million workers are set to benefit from the change. The rate of 'class 4' national insurance contributions, which is the main rate paid on self-employed profits of between £12,570 and £50,270, will be cut from 9% to 6% from 6 April. This rate had been due to fall to 8% from 6 April, but the chancellor has taken it one step further today. The self-employed will benefit too as the rate is slashed from 9% to 6%.

Housing

The chancellor confirms plans to scrap the furnished holiday lets regime. The initiative gives tax reliefs on properties being rented out to holidaymakers and make renting out to holidaymakers more profitable than to long-term tenants. The move is expected to raise £300m a year for the Treasury, however a blow to furnished holiday lets owners.

The chancellor also announced the government will reduce the higher rate of property capital gains tax. This is a tax paid on the amount of gain when selling a property. Currently the rate is 28% for higher rate earners, but this is being reduced to 24%

Business and Investment

The VAT registration threshold will be increased from £85,000 to £90,000 from the start of April. This change is estimated to help tens of thousands of businesses.

Benefits and Income Support

The Household Support Fund, which helps people struggling with cost-of-living pressures and was due to close in four weeks' time, will continue for another six months.

Full child benefits to be paid to households where highest-earning parent earns up to £60,000 - the current limit is £50,000. The top of a taper to withdraw the benefit will be raised to £80,000 from £60,000 at the moment.

The chancellor also announces a consultation on child benefit rules, to apply it to collective household incomes rather than for individuals from April 2026.

If there is something you want to know more about, you can call us on 02920 653995 or

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I see alot of business owners going into owning a business and under selling themselves.  

We all have different reasons for going into business.   You might be looking to be in charge of your own destiny.  You have a great idea that youve always wanted to pursue.  You lost your job and want to create your own or have a redundancy package that you want to re-invest.

Whatever your reason use these tips below as at the end of day,  if youre not making a profit your dreams and aspirations fall by the way side.

Protect Your Margin

Your margin should be enough that it not only covers the direct cost of your product or service materials and labour, but allows you to make a profit to cover overheads and leave a profit/ or income for yourself to grow and develop the company.

There is a market price for every kind of product or service, ie what your customers will pay for your product or service.  Stay ahead of the competition, know what they are doing, offer something different to stand yourself apart.

The margin itself

Costing your product or service is a vital project in itself. 

Be aware of the percentages your industry can attain.  If your in the food industry aim for a minimum of 3 x your costs, manufacturing products maybe lower between 60 and 100% depending on your product or market.

If you are making a product, Costs include
Materials, Labour, Energy

Keep this exercise in mind at regular intervals, at least every six months.  Energy and cost of materials do fluctuate, you need to be on top of that.

For the labour cost, time yourself making the product, as you get busier, look at ways of saving time.

Ie a machine might do the job faster than you, you might be able to buy in part of the process.

Manufacturing sites, keep a close eye on this with the use of computerised stock systems, using either FIFO or Standard Costing methods.  They see first hand any fluctuations, look into any big fluctuations, up or down.

You can also replicate this using a manual method .

Service Provider
Your service is likely to be mainly labour cost.

Experience and judgement always help when costing up a particular job.  But always keep an eye on the actual time it has taken to complete the exercise.  Keep timesheets at all times and for everything connected with that client.  You will be building up a record in order to raise the sales invoice, plus you will be staying up to date and applying realistic costs when quoting for work.

Cost savings

Save yourself cost of sale by buying direct from the Wholesaler, negotiating the prices.  More volume should equal better discounts.

Try and buy local where you can, your carriage costs could be saved.

Saving labour time, by knowing  your time elements to the job, using machinery where possible.  Time management.

Don’t price yourself too cheap.  Remember you need to be selling at a profit.

Offer added value and up sale marketing, to make higher margins.

Split your products up by margin, ie get the selling mix right, volume on lower margin, less of the higher margin.   

What constraints do you have
Do you have only limited capacity of manufacturing space, limited number of appointments available put day.  Put this into your budget, not just numbers.

If you can improve your margin to a realistic target, you will see the positive result on your bottom line, and hopefully in your pocket too.

Set yourself goals, you can always do better.  Keep that mind set, it’s a great planning tool.

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.

We’re in the full swing of the Summer Holidays, as a business owner this can be a very busy time if youre in the food and leisure industry, it can also be a quieter time as many owners see because everything appears to be put on hold when suppliers and customers take time off and are on holiday.

How does Summer affect you? I see many business owners not taking time away from their business and carrying on regardless. Its important to have time away to recharge the batteries and to re-evaluate where you are going with it.

A lot of my clients are small micros businesses who might not have an army of staff to take care of things whilst theyre away. Heres a few tips they’ve shared with me on how they still manage to run their business but still take some important r & r.

Plan the diary around their holiday, do the bigger more important jobs in the run up to the holiday then plan the next jobs to be in the diary when they return.

Take small breaks so time away isn’t too dramatic and they don’t face backlogs coming back. Ie a long weekend away a couple of times a year.

Use a subcontractor to keep things ticking over until they come back.

Those companies with staff, leave clear instructions on what is to be done whilst theyre away.

Others leave the mobile phone on in case of emergencies but limit their workload reduced over the time period.

Whatever your business please take that rest time, you will read time and time again, those owners who take time away and have the rest are far more likely to succeed, than someone who never takes time away.

Work life balance is important to keep in the mind, we all like to think of ourselves as workaholics, and fully committed. Our health and wellbeing, and feeling motivated and energised is important too.

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.

Theres been a lot of news coverage regarding the political parties getting ready and promoting their manifestos for the next election to encourage you to choose our next government.

Whichever party is your preference your destiny and your business success is completely in your own hands.

We have as accountants a short timeframe of seasonality before everything hots up again in April/May. We use this opportunity to look at our systems and see what we can do to improve our service to our clients and make efficiency savings, we have found it highly rewarding to see the changes over these last five years.

We also actively speak to our clients about changing their systems to make themselves more efficient to take their businesses to that next level of growth.

Ways that can be useful.

• Purchase higher specification software to make the service a lot more standardised.

• Look at the process itself and find ways of doing the same job for less time.

• Negotiating with suppliers for a greater discount, certainly if youre spending more on that product.

• Get to know the customer better so that you can tailor the service better

• Take out the human element, if a machine can do it cheaper use it, this will save a lot of cost on a volume product, and probably better too as you’ve taken away the potential for human error.

• Create a little production run, and run through it with your staff, can there be short cuts, or cut out duplication. Review it and make it smarter. Particularly good with the restaurant and pub industries as well as manufacturing.

• If youre wasting time doing the little things and not getting the bigger picture tasks dealt with, maybe you need a member of staff. Use someone cheaper than yourself so that you can concentrate on the improvement of your income.

• Outsource, if you either don’t have the time or the expertise, definitely look at this for marketing and finance particularly.

Larger companies have a lot of duplication in them, don’t let that be you, it’s the quickest way of increasing the costs.  If get yourself in this routine whilst your small, y