Allowable Motor Expense Rates (2017) Revenue amended the rates for claiming motoring expenses with effect from April 1, 2017. Given that most businesses use these rates as the basis for Revenue-approved motor expense claims for businesses, you should be aware of the changes. The key changes are: They have increased the number of distance bands […]
This is a common question? To answer it, the first thing we have to do is to identify the form of your business. Are you a sole trader, a partnership or a limited company? This table summarises the key reporting areas. Sole Trader Partnership Company Income Tax Yes Yes n/a Corporation Tax n/a n/a Yes […]
What is Xero? Xero is a cloud accounting application that provides similar functionality as most of the standard accounting packages such as Sage 50 or QuickBooks. Being a cloud service, the data resides in the cloud and the application is accessed via a web brower. Xero is an example of software that are classed as […]
One of the most common problems for self-employed people is achieving or maintaining a good work/life balance. I recently had a client who was finding that he was overwhelmed by the amount of work that had to be done and was seriously considering pulling back from the business because of work life balance issues. So, […]
Feedback I get regularly from the clients is that they don’t know where to start with the financial projections. So in this article I want to give you a framework and an overview of how I go about doing projections. My approach is something that has built up over time. To help myself remember the […]
A friend of mine, a retired banker with lots of experience dealing with owner managers, has a phrase he uses about those business owners that he feels are in control of their business. What he says is that ‘they know exactly how much it costs them to open their doors in the morning.’ Are you […]
As I said in my last blog post, one of the most common areas where my business clients want advice is around decision-making – knowing which of the options they’re faced with will be most beneficial for their business. Whether you’re a brand new start-up business, or an established family business, it’s vital to make […]
One of the questions that I get asked most often by business owners is how to decide between one or more options – when faced with path A or B, how do you know which fork to choose and what the potential outcome may be? These sorts of question arise for businesses of all sizes […]
In one of my recent blog posts, I mentioned the need for a business to create an annual budget. One of my readers contacted me, saying “I don’t really know why I’d need a budget if I’m already doing the basic bookkeeping”. So, in this post, I’m going to set out why I think budgets […]
What should a business owner do to make sure he or she has the best possible information at his/her fingertips? We’ve already discussed how to identify the key transactions of the business and also how to record the information that’s important to your business and pull it into insightful reports. Now let’s look at how […]
