The Blog - Archive for

15 Mar 2011

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Does Business Link Contracts Finder actually find contracts?

by Sarah H.

In 15 days, the Supply2Gov website, which allows businesses to search for new tender notices in the public sector, will cease to exist. In its place will be Contracts Finder on the Business Link website.

But just try finding any “live” notices on it. The search is very clunky, the search terms unclear – and any results that do show up are all closed as the tendering process is already taking place. Oh, and by the way, you will need to have your Government Gateway number in order to get into the system.

The Cabinet Office has (once again) made a great show of Government’s intention to be more transparent and small business orientated in the public sector tendering arena. Even to the extent of appointing a Crown Commercial Representative, Stephen Allott. His remit is “to build a more strategic dialogue between Government and smaller suppliers”. He is setting up an SME panel, with the tempting invitation to “Join the SME Panel and hold our feet to the fire on delivering this exciting package of measures.”!

Contracts Finder is still in Phase One – so now is the time to get on in there and try to influence improvements – quickly! We would be happy to engage in user feedback. . . . .. but is there going to be a chance to do so?

8 Oct 2010

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Equal Opportunities = the right to be treated fairly and with respect

by Sarah H.

The subject of equal opportunities might be viewed by employers as a minefield, but prevention of a problem is always better than a cure. The Equality Act 2010 came into force on 1 October 2010. It replaces, and in some areas extends, existing legislation on discrimination and equality.

There are compelling reasons for putting an Equal Opportunities policy in place: Protecting the company and our employees, compliance with the Equality Bill 2010 and winning business from the public sector – not to mention making a better environment in which to work.

The principles of fair treatment and respect need to be applied to everyone, regardless of any of the following, so called “protected characteristics”

gender
marital or civil partnership status
gender reassignment
pregnancy and maternity leave
sexual orientation
age
disability
race
colour
ethnic background
nationality
religion or belief

Discrimination takes place if an employer treats someone less favourably than others on any of the grounds above. We used the Business Link and the ACAS websites for helpful guidance on the scope of the Act and how to set about our policy.

So what is the scope of the Act?

In the simplest terms, being an equal opportunities employer means treating everyone fairly and with respect. Our policy needs to reflect this as it applies not only our employees but also to the way we treat customers, visitors and job applicants. In short, anyone with whom we come into contact. It should ensure a shared responsibility by all in the company to make our workplace a fair environment – and compliant within the law.

Understanding the scope of the act and the meaning of equal opportunities was the first step to putting our Equal Opportunities policy in place. It sets out our commitment to recognising the rights of all individuals to fair treatment. This covers fair and equal treatment at recruitment stage, treating all applicants in an unbiased manner, offering equal opportunities to employees for training and career development and making any reasonable adjustments for disabilities should they arise.

The 2010 Equality Act extends previous legislation to include complaints of indirect harassment (ie not directed at the complainant) if it can be demonstrated that it results in making the workplace an offensive environment. There is also a new provision for “associative discrimination”. This is direct discrimination against someone because they associate with with one of the protected characteristics listed above.

Who is responsible?

The responsibility for implementing good practice should be driven by management but shared by all. In the area of equality that is particularly true. We all have a shared and individual responsibility to treat one another with the respect that we would wish for ourselves, regardless of our differences.

Raising the awareness of managers and employees to the principles of equality and fairness and by building a culture of mutual respect should go a long way towards avoiding problems. Our written policy is the company’s statement of intent. It is putting the those standards of behaviour into practice, together with routine monitoring and review processes, that will build and maintain the culture of respect within and hopefully avoid dispute.

3 Sep 2010

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We use FreeAgent (review)

by Sarah H.

The most important thing for a small business – or indeed any business – is to be able to track regularly and accurately the state of the cash flow. This means knowing how much work has been invoiced, controlling credit, closely monitoring costs and managing client accounts.

However, if it’s the most important thing, it is probably also the routine task that can get overlooked, forgotten or that gives way to more urgent daily issues.

When I joined Simpleweb as office manager a few months ago, I was introduced to Freeagent, the accounting software designed to help small businesses do all this.

Great, I thought. All good stuff that is going to make life easier. Providing the information goes in methodically and accurately, the current situation can be monitored daily.

So, what do we like most about Freeagent?

Well it’ s free! (well almost. There is a small monthly license fee of about £22).

The dashboard on our home page gives a great point of quick reference. It is graphic and clear and shows at a glance the state of the bank account, how much has been invoiced out, payments received and a debtors list so I can see immediately who needs to be chased for overdue invoices. It also shows a tax timeline with key payment dates for PAYE/NI, VAT and Corporation Tax and a quick reference profit and loss summary.

The contacts database means you can keep all your contacts up to date and the work flow section allows you to project manage work for key clients, generating estimates, time sheets and invoices. We use the invoicing function as it links into the payment details and bank reconciliation – but for project management we prefer Basecamp

To manage the cashflow, providing you upload your latest bank statement regularly to Freeagent, you can easily reconcile and account for money in and money out. The information you put in here is categorised into cost centres and feeds into the accounting section and profit and loss making costs monitoring and end of year accounting much easier.

The My Money section can be used for PAYE & NI, generating payslips, keeping records of expenses and more.

What do we not like so much?

Well, three months on, you can imagine my disappointment with one very important, you could say vital, aspect of Freeagent that has turned out to be seriously lacking: the PAYE and National Insurance calculator.

By their own admission, Freeagent say on their website: “. . . this is a simple payslip calculator” and that “if your payroll needs are more complex than the simple calculator supports, you can always use another payroll calculator and edit Freeagent to match”

We were nearly caught out by this simplicity and had been putting blind faith in the payroll figures generated by Freeagent. However, it turned out that there were some discrepancies in the NI payments, albeit small differences. Luckily we realised quite quickly that the system was not really robust enough to cope with the nuances of our payroll and the complexities of UK tax and NI deductions so we have handed the payroll function to our accountant who runs it all through Sage. Peace of mind. I do not think we will be duplicating effort by replicating the data in Freeagent. The net salaries and tax paid will still be accounted for in Freeagent, but not the calculations or payslips which will come from Sage.

Like any system, Freeagent is only as good as the data that is put into it and we have made a judgement call about which parts are really useful to us and then to make absolutely sure that we keep those sections routinely and accurately up to date – then it really does make life easier!

20 Jul 2010

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Grow your greener business success

by Sarah H.

Is our attitude to the environment in danger of becoming vuvuzela background noise – a constant drone that we filter out? Reducing the environmental impact of business and industry has been on the agenda for decades. Ten years ago, it was still quite easy to ignore and it has taken the big stick of legislation to make businesses respond.

The need to demonstrate sound environmental practices is being pushed further and further down the supply chain by larger organisations and by the public sector. As we have clients in both those categories, making sure we have an environmental management policy place is crucial.

But we are small company in the services sector, so do we have an environmental impact?

Maybe not the kind of impact that a chemicals giant or a metal bashing business would have, but we use energy, computer and office consumables and we travel to work – so yes, we do. And we would like to see if we can save on the bottom line – and be more competitive by qualifying for extra brownie points when bidding for new business.

Does this mean we need full ISO14000 accreditation?

Well no, at least not at this stage. ISO14000 is the international quality standard for environmental practice. Accreditation requires external assessment on an ongoing basis and is expensive. For the time being, this is a bridge too far. We have opted for putting an environmental policy in place that is monitored, reviewed and updated internally.

So what does our policy say?

In outline, we “copied with pride” by looking at other people’s environmental policies and following the guidance on the Business Link website and the Envirowise website

But of course the policy has to be ours to live up to. We assessed the areas in which the company has an impact and where we thought we could improve, for example by looking at what we buy as office consumables and what we do with office waste. The result is a straightforward policy statement with the undertaking to monitor for continuous improvement.

As far as the impact of our travel to work goes, we are fortunate that most of us can and do cycle to work. However, for many companies this is not the case. Carrying our a travel to work survey and reviewing ways of reducing commuting and business miles can really make a difference. For example, using video conferencing can save huge amounts of time and travel costs for a business. Encouraging car sharing and putting in cycle racks and shower facilities can help individuals to save on fuel and reduce congestion. Check out the Bike2Work Scheme. This can be a good incentive for employers and employees to encourage cycling to work.

And why is it important?

Skeptics might view setting up an environmental policy as merely a “box ticking” exercise carried out to support the bidding process. That would be an injustice. It led us to think constructively about our business consumerism and any waste products. It has also raised awareness amongst staff, both at work and on a domestic level. Most importantly, it will help us to stay competitive and win lucrative business.

Thanks to V-2 for use of their image

24 Jun 2010

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Emergency Budget – What’s in it for us?

by Sarah H.

“Tough but fair” and “unavoidable” are the Chancellor’s labels on this particular bottle of medicine. Ominous words maybe, but what are the active ingredients that will affect small businesses? We have been trying to evaluate the impact of the measures and have come to the conclusion that, as a small business, we will be relatively unscathed if not actually helped.

Tax & VAT – main points

VAT -The standard rate of VAT will increase by 2.5% from 17.5% to 20% from 4 January 2011. The zero rate for food and books remains in place while the lower rate for other items, such as fuel and power, remains at 5%. As long as the flat rate scheme for small businesses is still available, we can swallow that pill. The flat rate VAT scheme allows small businesses to apply a single percentage to turnover in a VAT period, therefore saving work recording VAT on sales and purchases.
Corporation tax – The rate for small companies will reduce from 21% to 20% next year.
Capital expenditure – The Chancellor has put the threshold for the Annual Investment Allowance for qualifying capital expenditure on plant and machinery back down to £25,000 – but not until April 2012. Until then the threshold will remain at £100,000.

There are also plans to increase the personal income tax allowance from April 2011, scrap the proposed 50p levy on landlines and review the IR35 and small business tax that relates to contractors and intermediaries.

Other measures

small business rates relief scheme

Plans to increase the level of small business rates relief from October 2010. Rate relief will apply to premises valued at up to £6,000 and then tapering to £12,000. Take a look at the Business Link website to estimate your business rates. You can find the rateable value of a property on the Valuation Office Agency website.

Government backed funding schemes

There will be an increase in the funds available under the Enterprise Finance Guarantee Scheme. This scheme is aimed at encouraging banks to lend to small businesses that are poised to grow but lack the funding to do so. However, the health warning here is that, although the lending is backed by government funds, the banks will still apply their own commercial lending criteria and will not lend if they do not think the loan will be repaid. You can check your eligibility for government backed funding by using the interactive tool on the Business Link website.

The creation of an Enterprise Capital Fund to facilitate equity finance for small businesses. The government will fund 25% and private investors (Angels) the rest.

Thanks to Anitakhart for image