Michael Austin, MD of Blue Dot, talks about the type of work we like to do, the skill-set required by a good finance director and how to change your accountant and choose a good one.
The interim or part-time Finance Director option works well because it is quick to implement and it recognises that once the problems are solved you can go back to a lower-cost level of resource which will consistently get the right job done in the future.
The business banking director was a joy to meet and certainly not the “Business Bank Manager from Central Casting” that we see all too often. And then don’t see at all.
Slower and more expensive is to send invoices by post. In the 21st century it’s difficult to understand why companies do this.
The January 31 deadline for filing your personal tax return is only days away as I write this and we’re down to the last half-dozen that need to be finalised and submitted. The common link among the last half-dozen is that most of the them have more tax to pay than they expected.
Your management accounts should be shared across your business as far as necessary to ensure that actions to improve profits and cashflow and reduce costs and risk can be taken as soon as possible.
It also reminded me that it can be daft to make decisions primarily for tax reasons. Putting the tax cart in front of the business horse is the wrong way to run a business.
Most businesses should be indifferent to VAT. You add it to your sales invoices, collect it when you get paid by the customer and pay it over to HMRC when it’s due. In principle: no problem.
If your business sells annual subscriptions or licences and you issue invoices upfront but want to see the revenue come through you P&L over the life of the contract, this is how to do the accounting in QuickBooks.
We use QuickBooks in our business and have been recommending it to clients for many years. We’ve built up a wealth of experience in how to apply QuickBooks to a wide variety of businesses from start-ups to international, multi-user, multi-site companies.
