Business news and opinion from Evans Weir > Tag: Accounting

In a rather combative presentation, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt delivered what is widely expected to be the last budget statement before the general election. With limited headroom and the now usual trail or announcements in the lead up to his commons speech, there were no big surprises arising from this budget. Even the 2p reduction in the National Insurance contribution paid by employees, which was supposed to be his big curtain call announcement, had already been ‘leaked’ before the budget.

Purchase orders (POs or PORs) often fulfil a key part of the procurement process, but they’re not used routinely by all organisations and there’s no obligation from an accounting perspective to have them – or is there?

If you’re a stock-based business, then getting your stockholding and product costings right can be tricky at the best of times. But recently, the effect of high shipping costs, long lead times, material shortages and inflation have made the job even harder. Get it right and you will have a strong cash flow, happy customers, efficient use of space and most importantly, profit on every item you sell! Get it wrong and you risk letting customers down, locking-up valuable working capital and reducing your margins.

As if to prove that nobody is immune to internal fraud, BrewDog CEO, James Watt, has gone public with information of a rogue employee at his firm in a bid to show it can happen to anyone and to remind companies to check their internal fraud systems.

It’s an interesting question isn’t it. In the UK we’re used to things being relatively cut and dried when it comes to VAT. There is the prevailing rate (currently 20%), zero rated VAT, (0%), VAT exempt (equally 0% but needs to be identified differently to Zero rated) and then the odd few idiosyncrasies such as energy at 5%. But by and large, the overwhelming majority of transactions will be either standard rate, 20%, or zero rated, 0%. That is unless you deal with someone like Amazon, who, it would appear, have been able to agree some of their own rates with HMRC.

From an accounting perspective, you need to account for the initial purchase of an asset but then add in a transaction for each year you hold the assets, to reduce the value to the business. There are no hard and fast rules on when or by how much you depreciate the value of assets but this explains some of the key facts and aspects to be aware of.

It is not uncommon for a director to loan a company money to assist with growth, asset purchases or cash flow matters. But loans into and out of the company accounts to a Director need careful management.

Whilst we’re happy to act as a virtual accounts’ office, we always say to our clients that it’s fine to outsource all your accounts work but please don’t outsource your thinking. Keep an active understanding as to what is happening and remain aware of your obligations. A recent tribunal between a company owner and HMRC has demonstrated the importance of knowing what’s going on – even if you choose to outsource.

The simple answer to this question is yes, but as with anything accounting related it’s not entirely straightforward…

At a basic level, a cashflow statement details the movements of money in and out of a business over a defined period. The cashflow statement enables you to monitor bank balances, allocate reserves, manage investments and plan significant procurement.

A profit and loss, also called a P&L, report is an important financial statement for every business. In summary profit and loss reports detail the company’s financial performance during any given period. It is a statement of the income and expenses, normally divided into categories, that when considered in conjunction with one another, explains how […]

Are your credit terms stopping you chasing outstanding sales invoices? It may seem obvious to reiterate the importance of chasing outstanding sales invoices, but how many companies can say, hand on heart, that they do chase them religiously and how many businesses can claim that they get 100% of invoices settled within their normal credit […]