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If you’re applying for credit, it’s important to make it easy for the person looking at your application. They’re only human, and if you catch them on a hard day with an application that’s difficult to follow, they may simply decide to reject it, rather than try to make sense of what you’ve sent. All About Your Business Whether your business is a company or a sole trader, remember to giv

The chances are you’re looking forward to a holiday over the summer, whether your tastes involve lying on a beach or something more active. If you’re running your business efficiently, there shouldn’t be a problem about taking a couple of weeks off to enjoy a well-earned break. However, there are potential dangers. There have been a number of cases where an employee has received a very plausible ema

If you’re an SME owner who’s plagued with late-paying customers, you’re not alone. According to recent research by the Institute of Directors, almost half of all SMEs are in the same predicament. The Scale of the Problem Out of 787 business owners surveyed by the IoD, 48% reported having had problems with late payments since April 2017. Many cited “excessively bureaucratic” payment syste

The law is notoriously pernickety about detail, and if you’re suing a company for a debt (or for any other reason), it’s vital to get everything exactly right. And the potential pitfalls include the name of the company. What Kind of Mistakes Are Made? Company names, especially if the business is registered  as a limited company, are very precise, and giving an incorrect or imprecise name could threaten yo

A happy Easter and/or Passover to you — whichever you celebrate. We’re now at the start of the new tax year, and I hope you’ve made a resolution to start it by minimising both the debt you owe and the debt you’re owed. Strong, effective systems can help with both, but if you have difficulties recovering money that’s owed to you, you’re very welcome to get in touch with SJ Collections. Ne

One the great successes that’s bucked the trend of recession and austerity over the past decade has been the small business sector. Apart from a brief dip after the Brexit vote, the FSB’s (Federation of Small Businesses) confidence has been positive for the last five years. All that seems to be changing, though. The Small Business Boom Since the crash of 2008, things haven’t been easy for business, or for their emplo

Every year brings new challenges and opportunities for businesses, but 2018 seems set to be even more challenging than usual. And it’s not just me who thinks so. PwC (Pricewaterhouse Coopers), one of the Big Four auditors, has set out six things for private businesses to look out for in 2018. Corporate Governance for Private Businesses The FRC is planning a big shake-up of the Corporate Governance Code. They’re curre

The sudden and dramatic collapse of Carillion has thrown into stark relief the whole system of outsourcing public contracts to a few large companies. Even before Carillion’s collapse, though, many experts were nervous that planning for crucial reform of the court system appears to be largely in the hands of these same giant contractors. Digitising the Courts The court system in England and Wales has never been so ove

Tax evasion and avoidance are big news these days, and most of us associate them with the multinational corporations and super-rich celebrities we read about in the news. But HMRC recently revealed who the biggest culprits are — SMEs. SME Tax Evasion HMRC estimates that they’re owed a total of £5.2bn in evaded tax payments, and of course those are only the debts they know about. Tax evasion, unlike tax avoidance, is

The Oxford English Dictionary defines responsibility as “The state or fact of having a duty to deal with something or the state or fact of being accountable or to blame for something”, and action as “The fact or process of doing something, typically to achieve an aim, or to act or do something official or concerted to achieve an aim or deal with a problem”. The question is, how can we take responsibility for our acti