Many councils in the UK have a bad reputation when it comes to being on top of collecting their council tax but I can safely say that the Stoke council are one of the worst.

Julie Latham campaigned against the closure of the Shelton swimming pool said ”Yes, cuts have to be made but cuts in the right places.” I agree with this completely, as do many Stoke On Trent tax accountants, so why do the council think it’s easier to make cuts than collect the money that is already owed?

Many small businesses don’t understand the concept of finding the right accountant for them, but it is definitely very important. Most just believe that any accountant will suffice, with many people turning to the big expensive accountancy firms for help. This is usually the wrong decision.

By choosing a smaller firm, who specialise in small enterprises, can completely transform your business. Generally speaking, these firms have much more time to invest, not only in your accounts, but in your overall business as well, almost assuming the role of a business adviser.

By not choosing to work with a Tax Accountant, you leave yourself open to a lot of extra responsibility. If you miss tax induced deadlines etc. you could be liable for penalties which can incur additional charges. Tax penalties and VAT penalties are amongst the most common to produce extra charges, but things like missing invoices etc. can also cause big problems with the accounts.

The problem is, this means it is harder for small and medium sized enterprises to find a suitable and experienced accountant, in their area, willing to work with them. The truth is, smaller businesses may only need help with the smaller jobs like their year end return or simply just tax advice, however, there are ways to make this job of finding an accountant, much easier for these businesses.

By searching online you will find endless lists of directories and contact details for accountancy firms all over UK, but this doesn’t help you filter the results into the smaller firms that might be willing to help, and the big firms that will be less inclined to help.

Small Business Accountants specialists can be more easily found through online customer finder sites where the consumer submits their details and then receives responses from registered chartered accountants with quotes about how much they will charge for the job. They also provide responses from multiple firms at once, cutting your time involved in the searching process.

Manchester partner Philip Storer said: “After 30 years of decline, there is now widespread consensus that a strong and vibrant manufacturing sector is fundamental to the economy.”

“In 2012 we expect that the government will continue to focus attention on the rebuilding of manufacturing.”

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Large parts of the accountancy profession are costing clients a huge £1.8bn in poor advice. The entire accounting profession has to sit up and do something about this as a matter of urgency.

In a surprising private survey, figures collected by Wickersham and Pipe seemingly evidence accountants making mistakes with 40% of the 4.5m private sector businesses in the UK, therefore affecting 1.8m clients. We are unaware whether this report is mirrored by IACEW research which is one of the leading accounting authorities here in the UK.

If this research is typical of the UK, the data supports the innovative activities such as that of Accountant Now, the free service to start ups, as well as small and medium sized enterprises in the UK, with its assistance in helping SMEs find the right accountant is one of the critical success factors in business success. Accountant Now also benefits accountants by helping them find the right kind of clients with significant savings in time and inconvenience.

Originally, the mould circuit was cooled by a single water chiller with a 316kW cooling capacity, plus an air blast cooler for the hydraulic oil cooling circuit – a system that cost approximately £33,000 a year to run. Based on the chilled water system working 8,400 hours per year at 85% load, IsoCool calculated that the IsoFC would lower the running costs of the cooling system to approximately £14,500 a year.

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Big accountants have been expanding aggressively in consulting in recent years through internal investment and acquisitions – such as KPMG’s purchase of EquaTerra, an outsourcing adviser, earlier this year. However, the conflicts of interest that can arise when an auditor offers consulting services or tax help to its audit clients has prompted the European Commission to push for a crackdown. KPMG’s main offices are in London and these figures are collect by certified London accountants.

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Well, small may not be necessarily beautiful. It perhaps might be in terms of people, but business economies of scale are often vital for competitive advantage.

The truth is entrepreneurs often do not know how to grow, and end up filling offices full of people, increasing the vulnerability of the business and working for little of the benefits. This is often why business people revert to a small size.
Dunstone hasn’t done this. He grew in a chaotic way, upsetting millions of telecom customers along the way, and not focusing on customer value.

I am pleased he has survived. He might have done better to have humbly asked for and accepted help from the right business consultants, nearer the beginning of his empire building. He highlights that this is difficult to do.

Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is no longer a toothless bulldog

says David Smith, the deputy information commissioner, after it was given the authority and muscle might to issue civil commercial fines of up to £500,000 for offences relating to data protection violations.

In a report titled, Referral fees and the theft of personal data, the committee says: “Currently the only available penalty is a fine, which we feel is inadequate in cases where people have been endangered by the data disclosed, or where the intrusion or disclosure was particularly traumatic for the victim, or where there is no deterrent because the financial gain resulting from the crime far exceeds the possible penalty.”

This is another example as to why all British companies need e-risks insurance cover in the business insurance policy, and it might also act as a warning for particualrly the small amdn medium sized enteprises (SMES) in the UK who think they can ignore the data protection guidelines. I would always recommend SMEs consulting with a legal expert on business intellectual property regarding their website or how they transact business online.

Read more of Guardian article “MPs back more powers for Information Commissioner’s Office”

Thanks to Dr. Tim Morgan who was quoted in the reader comments of the FT article ‘UK Economy off track’ who helps share his following analysis:

The first problem faced by the UK, then, is that both of the economic drivers of the last decade private borrowing and public spending are dead in the water. The second (and bigger) problem lies in the way in which the era of recklessness skewed the economy against organic growth.

Morgan goes on to highlight the biggest beneficiaries of private borrowing

• real estate,
• construction and
• financial services.

These sectors are unable to grow further. Morgan correctly surmises “is a bit of a snag”, since these important sectors account for nearly forty percent of UK GDP.

Furthermore, as there is likely to be no more public spending on such large scale growth is halted in some other areas, and some of the most vital sectors to UK growth (i.e. the sectors with some of the most growth potential, according to UK Entrepreneur, Luke Johnson)

• healthcare,
• education and
• public administration

Jointly Morgan says this adds up to nearly another twenty percent of the British economy.

Then finally with reducing real incomes which affects the UK High Street and Retail sector then Morgan calculates total amount of the UK economy affected and now ‘ex-growth’ reaches seventy per cent {“O My God!”}

Is it any wonder Sir Mervyn Rees, Bank of England head, warned British economy had derailed:

“We were on track but the problems in the euro area and the marked slowing in the world economy have lengthened the period over which a return to normality is likely”.

UK Small Business Sector