What’s happening to CIS after April 2016?

at a construction site

The changes are outlined in this document – CIS Link

Key Changes

  • Reducing the Gross Status minimum turnover threshold to £100,000 a year for businesses with multiple directors (from April 2016)
  • Initial and annual compliance tests will focus on fewer obligations
  • There will be further amendments to the need to submit Nil returns
  • It will be easier for Joint Ventures to obtain Gross Status if one party already holds Gross Status
  • Online verification will be mandatory from April 2017
  • Earlier repayments can be made to liquidators in insolvency proceedings. Currently where a subcontractor is a company, no repayment of any amount deducted and paid over to HMRC by a contractor can be made to the subcontractor until after the end of the tax year in which the deduction was made. These rules will be amended so that in certain cases where the amount deducted by the contractor is excessive, a repayment can be made during the tax year.
  • Mandatory online filing of CIS returns will be introduced with the offer of alternative filing arrangements for those unable to access an online channel by reason of age, disability, remote location or religious objection.
  • The directors’ self assessment filing requirements will be removed from the initial and annual compliance tests.
  • You must re-submit returns for any period that you amend

We await the budget on 16th March 2016 for full details.

steve@bicknells.net

4 Tips for Choosing Cloud Accounting Software

Tablet

There are lots of brilliant accounting solutions on the market, so how can you decide which one will work best for your business?

Features

The first thing you need to decide is what features you need:

  • Projects
  • Stock
  • Construction Industry
  • Payroll
  • Invoicing
  • Automated payments – PayPal etc
  • Bank Feeds
  • Quotes
  • VAT Schemes
  • Document Storage
  • Accountant Access
  • Access – Apps, Devices, Mac’s
  • Contact Management
  • Reports

Don’t pay for things you don’t need!

Future Proof

As your business grows, will the software grow with you

  • Can you add users
  • Can you set access levels
  • Are there upgrade products
  • Can you add in other products (Apps) such as scanned receipts

Cost

How much does it cost? Normally working with an accountant will reduce the overall cost and provide a package deal

  • Monthly Software Subscription
  • Accountancy Fees
  • Book Keeping Costs

Ask for Help

Just because you have cloud based software it doesn’t mean you won’t need an accountant! you might think you don’t need help but an accountant will help you choose the right VAT Scheme, claim tax reliefs and comply with reporting requirements.

Accounting Clients

Cloud Checklist

 

steve@bicknells.net

Contact Us

Are you too busy to do your accounts?

businesswoman is very multitasking

When you start a business its because you have a skill or product that clients want and most small businesses put off the accounting because they find it boring, time consuming and unproductive. This often causes huge problems with tax, cash and business management.

What if it wasn’t boring, what if it was easy and quick to do?

  1. Apps for invoicing
  2. Available every where all the time on all your devices
  3. Automatic bank feeds to reduce data entry
  4. Dashboards of key data
  5. Easy access for you and your accountant

That’s why cloud accounting systems are the future. Take a look at this infographic produced by Sage.

 

https://i0.wp.com/sage-exchange.co.uk/image/528f785dccea4_sage-infographic-guide-to-cloud-accounting.png?resize=102%2C755&ssl=1

Obi Wan Kanobi might not be you’re only hope, cloud accounting could save your business.

steve@bicknells.net

 

Installing Sage 2012 using Templates

Whether you are changing systems or just want a fresh start with the latest version its worth trying the Sage Templates to upload data.

Once you have loaded Sage, click on Help, then About then Program Directory and you will find a folder called Import Templates, in that folder are Templates for:

Audit Trail Transactions

Customer Record

Fixed Assets Record

Nominal Record

Product Record

Project Record

Project Transaction

Stock Transaction

Supplier Record

The templates are excel files and on the top row are comments on the content required. If you are already using Sage you can export the data, clean it and then re import it.

Basically as a minimum you will want to import outstanding customer and supplier transactions (using the audit trail), static data for customers, suppliers and nominal and unreconciled bank transactions. The opening trial balance can be entered using the Audit Trial import.

Use the Practice Company on Sage until you are confident you know your imports will work.

It takes a bit of time to get the imports correct but once its done it works really well.

Steve@bicknells.net