Forest Software
Web, SEO and IT & Business Advice for the Smaller Business
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Last updated on October 15th, 2024 at 04:46 pm
Making Your Aims Clear in Your Small Business
As business people we all have aims, both long term and more immediate, but how many of us that employ staff make our aims clear to our managers, supervisors and staff ?
Do your staff spend hours on non-essential work because they think that it’s important – how much of this work is really useful to you as a business owner and how much of the work being done is because you haven’t told your staff clearly what your aims are. Continue reading
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Last updated on May 7th, 2024 at 02:43 pm
All of us that work in an office know how hard it can be to keep fit and exercise as often as we should. This article aims at giving a few tips that will make it easier to get that little bit of exercise and keep fitter while you are at work. None of the tips will involve massive changes to your work routine (we are not suggesting that you go to the gym at lunchtime for example). Continue reading
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Last updated on September 5th, 2010 at 06:07 pm
What is IR35?
Back in April 2000, schedule 12 of the Finance Act 2000, IR35, was enacted into law. IR35, a controversial piece of tax legislation, was introduced by the government to tax ‘disguised employment’.
Prior to the passage of IR35, contractors who declared themselves self-employed could offer their clients personal contracted services through their own intermediary, personal service company or limited company. Contractors were able to establish an employment contract with clients that could be classified as an ‘employer-employee’ dependent relationship, while maintaining the tax privileges of their independent status. The contractor was previously able to reduce the amount of taxes and Class 1 NIC contributions that other ‘normal employees’ would be required to make. IR35 was instituted to expose these ‘disguised employees’ and close the tax loophole.
Despite governmental discussions on abolishing the ill-defined legislation, IR35 still remains in effect and has repercussions for anyone planning to start a company.
The Implications for the Self-Employed
“Getting caught” or falling within IR35 legislation can have a devastating effect on freelancers, contractors and the self-employed. The HMRC can audit accounts for up to six years in arrears and force a contractor to pay any unpaid taxes in as little as three to six months. Tax obligations under the IR35 schedule can also increase by 25% or more, forcing contractors to increase their rates to compensate for the income shortfall.
Self-Employment Check
IR35 legislation is complicated enough that a specialist contract accountant should be hired to review any contract to determine if it is subject to IR35.
The HMRC, which is responsible for investigating and auditing contracts between contractors and clients, uses a complex scheme to determine the precise relationship between the parties specified in individual contracts. For IR35 rules to apply, an individual would have to perform the service personally for the client, but not directly. The contractual arrangements would involve services rendered through the intermediary, normally the contractor’s personal service or limited company. The contractual arrangement would have to be organised in such a way that if the contractor had provided the services directly to the client, an ‘employer-employee’ relationship would exist between the two.
IR35 rules do not apply directly to a person, intermediary or limited company, but rather to individual contracts. Therefore, some contracts may include IR35 taxable income and others may not. What’s more, IR35 does not define ‘self-employment’ status. The entitlement to a 5% expense provision is not reduced even if a contract is deemed IR35 taxable.
Self-employed individuals should diversify clients and consider the following to determine if they actually pass the ‘IR35 self-employment’ test:
- Do I incur risks if the service is performed poorly?
- Does the contract allow me autonomy over work performed?
- Is there an actual physical business?
- Are there other employees?
Umbrella Companies: Why Use Them?
Despite its fee structure, using an umbrella company may be a good idea, especially as a short-term option and for contractors who are reluctant to set-up their own limited company. For starters, the contractor would essentially become a PAYE (Pay As You Earn) employee of an umbrella company, thereby making their employment status completely transparent, which is important for IR35 regulation compliance. Provided that you are not treated as a permanent employee of the umbrella company you can still remain outside the scope of IR35. An added advantage is that the umbrella company completes your expense and tax reports, freeing you from this often time consuming obligation.
However, working for an umbrella company also significantly reduces the contractor’s autonomy and representation. When considering starting an independent business, contractors should speak to a tax specialist and legal consultant, or an IR35 Accountant to determine if joining a PAYE umbrella company would be beneficial or not.
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You may have seen my recent post about customer service and how not to do it, this time I thought I’d give you some examples of good customer service from my recent experiences.
The most recent one was when I had a day on the Norfolk Broads, typically it had been warm and sunny until the day that the boat was booked for and when getting things together for the trip I made sure that I had warm clothes with me. I was very pleasantly surprised when I got to the boat yard and was offered a different type of boat that had a heater in – and even more pleased when I was told that the boat (booked until 5pm) did not have to be back until later than that. A great example of someone thinking of the customer and offering a solution to a problem before it became a problem – well done Fineway Leisure – I would happily recommend them if you are looking for a day boat on the Norfolk Broads.
Another example of great customer service involved a friend of mine who was a Matron of Honour at a wedding. During the final dress fitting she managed to get deodorant on the front of the dress and was obviously upset by this. In desperation she took it into a dry cleaners near her office and asked if they could do something, explaining that the wedding was now only just over a week away and that there was a bank holiday in between now and the wedding. The cleaners took the dress and her contact details and said that they would do what they could and tried to put her mind at rest. Now comes the example of good customer service, at about 7pm on the Saturday of the bank holiday my friend had a text “just to let you know that the stain has come out and we are open from 8am on Tuesday”, just a simple text that has meant that the cleaners now has a confirmed customer that is spreading the word to her workmates and friends about how good they were. If you are wondering the cleaners were Ovada in the Broadway, in Peterborough just past the old Broadway Theatre on the opposite side of the road.
And one final example, I have an old bank note from a local bank (a £5 note from Stamford Spalding and Boston bank dates 1907 – before they merged with Barclays in 1911). I was thinking of selling this note and contacted someone that was advertising them. The following morning I got an email saying that the person was not buying those particular notes at the moment but giving me a lot of information about the note, the bank and also suggesting a price that I should be looking for if I do decide to sell it. It probably took the person 2 or 3 minutes to type the information but it was so useful to me that I know that if I want to buy old bank notes in the future I will look at the banknotes4u.co.uk website first.
So you see, good customer service comes in many forms, and need not cost you very much as a business, but the paybacks from satisfied customers will often be much greater than you could hope – many people buy on a recommendation and if it’s a recommendation from one of your customers think how powerful that testimonial can be.
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Last updated on September 5th, 2010 at 06:07 pm
Building a website, and keeping it up to date, that has a professional look and works well can help your company generate interest in its products and services and hopefully, either directly or indirectly, increase sales. On the other hand, a poorly designed website can harm your business by putting people off by presenting a bad impression of the business before they ever get a chance to talk to you.
Before you start developing the online part of your business, you should consider the following common misconceptions:-
1. Building a website will not automatically draw in customers – the so called “if you build it they will come” idea. The problem here is cost – advertising on search engines like Google can get expensive if you are paying for every visitor. You need to find more economical ways to draw people to your site probably on a local level but this could be on a national or even international level. Options include off-line advertising, business cards, email marketing (but be careful to avoid spam mail) and even affiliate marketing where you pay people either for a lead or commission on sales.
2. Try to keep your product range simple. Unless you are a Tescos’, Sainburys or one of the other big stores do not try to sell everything to everybody. The presentation of a specific line of products that is targeted to a particular market segment will help you distinguish your company from your competitors and draw in interested customers. Become a specialist in your market, someone that people know understands the product or service very well and you can compete with the bigger players.
3. Be different, imitating the competition will not help your business and if you imitate them too much may cause your problems. When you copy what others are doing, you will not stand out to your potential customers but will just be seen as one among many others. You need to present yourself in a unique way and blaze your own trail through innovative presentations and the overall look of your website. Having said this do not go too far from “the norm” in your chosen market segment.
4. Your home page should not overwhelm visitors with content. You have a very short amount of time (about 12 seconds) to grab the attention of your visitors or they will go elsewhere. Layout your home page attractively and explain just enough about your business that makes the visitor want to look at other pages of your site. Remember though that not all visitors will see your home page, if your site is attractive to the search engines people may arrive at the site on any page.
5. Websites full of gimmicks are counterproductive. These may look great but they often load slowly. You may think that it looks cool to have images that flash on your site but often this turns people off, in the same way that music that automatically plays when a web-page is loaded can be a turn off if your visitor is working in an open plan office.
6. Despite what you may read, building a good website is not easy. There are many factors involved which you will not be aware of until you are well into the process. Whether or not you can do it yourself depends on the type of site you want and your own experience and skills. For instance, you will need to become proficient in HTML, CSS and demonstrate an artistic sense. You may also need to understand databases, PHP or ASP and Javascript for advanced websites. Hiring a web designer that specialises in business websites might be your best move.
7. A website that has no real focus or purpose has little value for a business. You might be tempted to get one going “just because everyone has one”, but you should work out what the purpose of your website is, do you want it to :-
- sell products
- increase awareness of your business
- provide information to drive local sales
- add credibility to your business
8. You should be prepared to keep your website up to date and add content on a regular basis. For example, if your business is a shop and your website advertises your products do you have opening hours on the website – if so do they change at bank-holidays etc. You may run a bed-and-breakfast and need to update room availability, or you may run a bigger business and need to update product ranges. Think about having a news section on the website that will allow you to update news (new contracts, new staff etc) but if you do this make sure that it is updated regularly, there is nothing worse than seeing a news page that was last updated 18 months ago.
Reading Time: 2 minutes
Last updated on September 5th, 2010 at 06:07 pm
Many webmasters work hard to build sites and it can be very frustrating when not all the site is read and indexed by the search engines and those pages that are read do not feature well in the results. The initial thought is often “why in my site not appearing” usually followed by “my site deserves to be at the top of the results”.
There are many reasons that pages on your site may not be ranking as well as you hope or expect. These can include :-
- you may be competing against some well established sites in your industry
- your competitors may be publishing information or have a forum that people find useful and link to
- competing sites may have invested in good quality SEO (search engine optimisation) work
- your website may be new and not yet have any good quality links to it
- there may be problems on your site
If you are convinced that your site is not competing against well established sites that have good information and have carried out SEO (or even if it is) it may be that you need to carry out a site review. Here at Forest Software we review sites for clients looking for problems that may hinder website rankings, however here are just a few things that you should think about if you are considering a review of your website.
- Why do you have a website – is it to inform existing customers about your services / products. to offer customer support, to attract new customers or (as some people have told me) because everyone else has one.
- What do your visitors want from your site – customer support, product information, down-loadable documents etc
- Are you trying to convert visitors into customers? – how will you measure a conversion, is it a sale, capturing an email address, downloading a product document, subscribing to a newsletter for example.
Once you have your basic ideas look at your site with a fresh eye – ask someone that has never seen your site before to take a look at it and find their way around it – try to watch what the visitor does without making any comments, remember that there is no right or wrong way to navigate though a website. Make notes of the path followed and any comments made – you may know how to reach your order or contact page but does the person you are watching find it.
Next have a look at the entire navigation – there used to be a “rule” that, in my view, still applies – you should be able to get from any page to any other page on your website with a maximum of three clicks, this is where a site map may help you. You will see from our site that the navigation means that it is easy to get from one page to another. Try to embed links to other pages in the text of your pages where relevant so that your visitors can find their way to linked pages easily (see the “site map” link above as an example).
Many of the problems with websites not being indexed can be put down to poor navigation, remember that both human visitors and search engines will appreciate being able to move around the site easily.
The next post in this series will deal with some of the more technical elements of a site review and some of the tools available both online and offline that will help you spot problems and how to solve them.