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Yesterday the Government gave this year’s first budget update. Here are some key points which may affect you:

Measures to mitigate the effects of Coronavirus:

  • £12 billion package of tax and spending measures including grants and hardship funds for people a businesses affected.
  • Statutory Sick Pay to be payable from first day’s absence and fully funded by the Government for 14 days.
  • Business rates relief for the next year increased from 50% to 100% for retail businesses with rateable values up to £51,000.

Tax measures with immediate effect:

  • Lifetime limit for gains eligible for Entrepreneurs’ Relief (taxed at 10% instead of 20%) reduced from £10m to £1m for disposals from Budget day.
  • Duty on alcoholic drinks and fuel frozen.
Tax year 2020/21:
  • No change to personal income tax allowances and rates: 2019/20 figures continue for a second year, as expected.
  • Increase in threshold for National Insurance Contributions from £8,632 to £9,500.
  • Research & Development expenditure credit increase from 12% to 13%.
  • Structures and Buildings Allowance increased from 2% to 3%

Tax measures coming into effect later:

  • VAT ‘Domestic Reverse Charge’ on construction services, deferred from 1st October 2019, confirmed introduction on 1st October 2020.
  • VAT zero-rating to apply digital versions of newspapers and books as well as printed versions from 1st December 2020.

Click here to view our full Budget Summary document.

As you would expect we are taking reasonable measures to prevent the spread of Coronavirus to protect our clients and staff. Therefore we have decided to digitalise our Budget Update seminar and we will be recording and sending this out to you via email.

If you have any questions regarding the governments steps to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 or anything else within the budget summary,  please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Ad Valorem Accountancy Services
01908 219100
enquiries@advaloremgroup.uk

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HMRC have recently released an R&D statistics report, outlining the recent figures for claims.

R&D has become a real asset to eligible companies since its introduction in 2001. Over 300,000 claims have been made with a value of around £30bn in total. The figures for this year are not yet fully complete however the figures stated in the article are indicative of a trend. See the link for the full report.

R&D Tax Credits have had a majorly positive influence on technical innovations; especially so since 2012 when the minimum investment cap of £10,000 was removed. This is evident in our region through the sheer number of claims made in London, the South-East and the East of England who accounted for 61% of claims made in the year 2017/2018. 41% of claims made in this year were also made by companies that are under ten years old.

We believe that the impressive influence of SME’s within the statistic for R&D claims is due to the increases in the SME R&D expenditure rate from 125% to 130% in 2015-16.

The number of first-time applicants has risen by 15% following the increase in expenditure rates. This is due to the efforts made to increase the incentive to make a claim and further awareness of the scheme. Despite this, the rise in claims does not necessarily correlate to increased value. For example, 9000 claims made in the year 2017/2018 equated to £20 million in costs, whereas the potential for this band could have reached £41 million (based on a claim worth no more than £5000). Although it is tangible to argue that not all claims would be worth £5000, it is reasonable to say that this difference of £21 million could be reduced with a stronger supporting document and help from a specialist R&D advisor.

Considering the areas in which we are based, and the proportion of claims made in our region, we would like to stress the importance of having a strong technical document to maximise your claiming potential. No claim is too small for us because we believe that Research and Development is essential for progression in whatever sector your business associates with and we pride ourselves on the relationships we have built and continue to build with other small businesses like ourselves.

These figures show that now is the best time to claim R&D because the government are rewarding innovation generously for legitimate claims in order to meet their expenditure targets of 2.7%. If you have been thinking about conducting a Research and Development programme or are currently doing so within your business feel free to seek professional assistance with us. See the following link to take you to our R&D website.

If you have any questions, call us on 01908 219100 or email us at: enquiries@advaloremgroup.uk

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Purchase invoice capture – a fundamental of the cloud accounting journey!

Being on the cloud to ensure MTD compliance is a good starting point, but now this change has happened, we should take advantage of the positives of using online book-keeping systems.

Invoice capture is as simple as it sounds, when you receive a receipt or invoice you can immediately capture this in software which is integrated to a book-keeping system. This can either be done by taking a photo or scanning the item.

Physical receipts and invoices can be captured by camera on a smartphone app and then anything received in email (regardless of the format of the file) can be forwarded to a specified email address and captured.

The major benefit of invoice capture is the fact that you are no longer required to hold on to endless amounts of receipts and invoices from the previous 7 years. HMRC have confirmed that digital copies are acceptable and often preferable as they do not age or fade and hold a date time stamp from the software against them.

Another benefit of using digital technology to read the receipt/invoice is the reduction in human error. We have seen the number of manual errors reduce on businesses who use invoice capture.

Capturing your receipts on the go and letting the technology take the strain both saves you time and also brings your books into real-time.

We have identified and developed a strong relationship with several invoice capture providers and if you would like to find out more please to get in contact with us!

AV Cloud | powered by Ad Valorem

01908 219100

enquiries@advaloremgroup.uk

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MTD will soon be upon us. Are you ready for April 2019?

Many people are afraid to move away from their existing accounting software; as they are satisfied and familiar with the usability of it. However, as MTD (Making Tax Digital) is soon to be upon us, it may be time for a change. If you want your business to operate quickly, smartly and much more efficiently, then Xero will be your answer. Xero is considered as the UK’s top leading cloud accountancy software systems currently on the market and with the help of our specialist cloud department (AV Cloud) and expertise, we will ensure you’ll have a clear and more desirable overview of your current financial position. It provides real-time information, accessible from anywhere and at any time.

So, how does the conversion work?

There are various ways of converting your accounting information onto Xero. ‘MoveMyBooks’ was purposely designed to transfer data efficiently and more at ease for those utilising either QuickBooks desktop/online and Sage50.

MoveMyBooks will allow us to follow an easy, step-by-step process of simply collecting your source data, adding a new account in Xero and then moving it all to your new online account. We will then wait for a confirmation email to come through and confirm the conversion has successfully been completed.

So, what will be converted?

The software will move the Chart of Accounts, Customer data, Supplier data and individual transactions for the current and previous accounting years. It will also transfer all the nominal/general ledgers as well as keeping all the customer and supplier balances identical.

On the other hand, if you have never used a software system to record all your workings on and have preferred to produce them manually onto Excel spreadsheets. Converting your data onto Xero is even easier. The process simply consists of downloading a CSV template, arranging all your information to correspond to the format of the template and then this will be imported onto Xero.

If you want to have a 30 day free trial run on Xero – click on the link and give it a go. click here

For more information about converting your accounting information onto this beautiful accounting software or to simply know the benefits of utilising Xero. Then, please feel free to contact us with no hesitation.

Our contact details are as follows:

01908 219100

enquiries@advaloremgroup.uk

For more information about AV Cloud click here

 

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