Small Business Stalled by Cash Flow Crisis

Almost half of small companies in the UK have been hit by a cash crisis – for 50% of the small businesses polled by Everline in 2013, money was not readily available to pay for essential financial obligations and expansion was put on the back burner. Regular access to cash flow is crucial. For example, small recruitment agencies set up to handle a specific need in the area are finding it hard to progress beyond making ends meet. If you run a small business, what solutions do you have to avoid cash flow problems and move forward?

Cash Flow Problems

In the survey, 29% of respondents said that a lack of cash flow was restricting their business expansion. An additional 23% of businesses had put marketing initiatives on hold, and 28% said they paid suppliers and other businesses late because of a lack of access to cash. These cash shortages occurred at least once a month, and the main problems happened when clients or customers paid late. 

Bank Loan Solutions?

It is all too easy to fall into the cash flow trap. You run your business efficiently, but if you have no access to cash when you need it, you quickly run into problems. It only takes a few suppliers to pay late or several customers to forget to pay, and you end up stalled, with no money to go forward. Sometimes the only solution seems to be a business loan, but it is increasingly difficult to access loans in the current financial climate, and debt in the form of bank loans can be difficult to sustain. Fortunately, there are other solutions to free up your cash flow and maintain a healthily functioning business. 

Look in a Different Direction

For example, outsourcing functions such as payroll can help streamline your business and make it easier to access cash when you need it. Outsourced payroll services are designed to take the payroll off your hands, so it is guaranteed to be paid. You can then use the cash to generate new business. This access to ready cash flow is vital for recruitment businesses and other companies that need to deliver payments regularly on time. In fact, when you think about how to set up a recruitment agency, one of the first things you need to consider is how you will make payroll.

Additional benefits of outsourcing payroll include no need for a payroll team and, therefore, a reduction in wage overheads. You also do away with other hidden costs such as postage, stationery, and printing. Once you have outsourced financial functions such as payroll, you can develop marketing and sales strategies and concentrate on how to grow the business rather than how you are going to find the cash to meet your regular payment commitments.

Outsourcing can have many benefits apart from not needing to house your payroll team in your office. You only have to pay for the service provided and not for additional expenses like sickness and holidays for team members. You can operate from a smaller office with less overhead for heating and light. You don’t have to provide office equipment and furniture. Perhaps the biggest benefit is that you gain from having a professional, knowledgeable team that specifically understand payroll. It is far better to have a specialist team that is up-to-date with the latest legislation than to have a ‘Jack-of-all-trades’ in your office who has to juggle many jobs at once. Outsourcing shouldn’t be viewed as a cheap option, rather a far better resource than you could otherwise provide.

Of course, this kind of service must be used responsibly, and it is important to know how you are going to ultimately pay your bills as well as the cost of the outsourcing. Outsourcing is no match for sound financial planning – when you prepare for the future, you increase the chances that you can cope with unexpected costs and obligations.

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/yourbusiness/10504363/SMEs-in-the-grip-of-cash-flow-crisis.html

Image attributed to FreeDigitalPhotos.net David Castillo Dominici

3 Tips to Simplifying Your Business's Payroll

Managing a business is never simple, especially when you begin to employ other individuals who work for you. When you want to run your business properly, having a clear grasp on your financial situation is essential at all times. Knowing how to simplify your company's payroll can help rid the stress of worrying about taxes and fees you may owe in the future. The more actively involved you become with your company's financial status, the easier it is to achieve success in any industry.

Work With a Professional

Working together with a professional CPA (Certified Public Accountant) or a business accountant is ideal whether you have just recently launched a startup company or if you want to manage a larger corporation responsibly. Professional accountants are capable of gaining insight into your financial picture quickly, giving you different options and routes to take to ensure you continue to profit and maintain stability. Utilizing the services of an online payroll provider provides many advantages, such as:

Use Software Regularly

Installing your own software to track payroll expenses as well as other financial investments or expenses can help you to stay in control of your business in all areas, including finances. There are many different programs that allow you to easily keep track of your investments as well as taxes that are due based on your employees' earnings or salaries. Using software regularly on a daily basis not only allows you to monitor sales and profit, but it also gives you more knowledge of the financial overview of all areas of your business. Just be sure to invest in software that provides quick input of required information (such as employee address, salary, deductions, marital status, etc.) and automatically totals taxes and withholding. 

Research the Affordable Care Act

You can also research the affordable care act to compare all of the options you have when it comes to your employees and their healthcare. By choosing a new healthcare plan to help cover your employees, you may need to re-configure the amount of payroll taxes you owe quarterly or annually, depending on the size of your business and the number of employees you have hired. To learn more about the affordable care act and how it can influence you personally and your business, click here.

Learning how to simplify your business's payroll can ultimately help to relieve you from stress and worry while ensuring all taxes and fees are always paid on time. The more engaged and involved you are with handling the finances of your company, the easier it is to build a successful business regardless of whether you are trying to launch an online eCommerce store or if you have a local business you plan to open.

Following these tips will result in significantly less stress as you prepare to tackle your businesses’ payroll.

Author Bio
Karleia is a freelance blogger. Away from the office and doing business she enjoys spending time with her two young daughters and husband.

4 Advantages of Outsourcing Your Payroll Services

Outsourcing your payroll duties in the UK has become an easy task that can be handled by qualified professionals who use the latest technology. Thankfully, there are plenty of accountants out there who can help you get the service you need from the comfort of your own home or office. This is a great way to save money and use your own free time to grow your business or launch new products and services for your client base. With that in mind, let’s take a look at just a few of the advantages of working with a quality payroll service provider.

The payroll service professionals at Berkeley Hamilton can handle all of your payroll needs quickly and efficiently

• You’ll save money. Because you will be able to allow the professionals to use the current software and technology that they have available in their office, you won’t have to spend money to make this available to your office staff. You can also free up employees who customarily perform this task on site for other duties to make your company even more efficient.
• You’ll receive quality services and work with courteous professionals. The professionals will provide services for you that are error-free and that you can depend on for reliability. If you have a team working on your behalf, you can trust their work with confidence and enjoy peace of mind on payday.
• You can take advantage of their experience and skills. If you outsource your payroll duties, you will be taking full advantage of the experience that they have garnered over the years and the skills with which they perform accounting procedures. They will be up to date with all of the laws, rules, and regulations pertaining to tax issues so that your company will be in compliance at all times.
• Your deadlines will be met efficiently. When professionals who are committed to performing a first-class job for you are hired, you will receive payrolls that are acceptable to your employees and that promote job satisfaction amongst your staff. They will be flexible and change according to your individual needs and free you up to concentrate on tasks that require immediate attention. You will see overall productivity rise when pay cheques arrive on time and without errors. 

You can find exceptional payroll services around the UK that can fully manage all of your payroll needs from start to finish. The firm Berkeley Hamilton is an excellent example of the professionalism that you will receive from experienced specialists who are committed to excellence, working diligently on your behalf, and providing you with work of which you can be proud. You can finally be stress-free when reports are due and pay cheques are to be distributed. Instead, you can work to grow your company and reach the goals and objectives that you have set in place. Be sure to select your payroll service team with care so that you can enjoy all of the benefits that they have in store for you.

How to Manage Your Financial Payroll With Accounting Software

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Processing payroll is a primary duty of different sizes as well as kinds of business houses. However, all entrepreneurs will uniformly agree that this aspect of managing a business is extremely time consuming. For collating the information of the different employees, applying the tax to be deducted and for complying by the new legislations a lot of time is wasted. Even if you have a special in house team working for the same purpose, they spend a lot of time in performing this particular task. To aid the finance team of your organization, you can take the help of accounting software. These softwares are tailor made to meet with the payroll processing needs of the clients and increase the efficiency of the accounts team.

If you are planning to install accounting software in your organization, you are going to come across many options on the cyber world. However, opting for the one suiting your need is the most vital challenge.

Here are some ways discussed by Mitchell Charlesworth whereby you will be able to manage your payroll processing efficiently with the aid of accounting software:

One Stop Solution

The payroll accounting softwares are the one stop solution for handling different aspects of payroll processing. Right from accurately determining the monthly pay of every employee to managing the taxes applied on their scale of salary, everything is handled by the software automatically and with precision. However, the employees need to incorporate the right facts and figures in the software, for it to work properly.

Expert in Multitasking

The payroll accounting softwares are expert in multitasking. If different employees in your organization are paid in different methods like some are paid in monthly basis, while others are paid in hourly basis or some are hired on contract, then the salaries are to be calculated using different methods. Moreover, the rate of tax applied is also different. The payroll accounting software can handle the multiple payment rates for different employees with efficiency. Moreover, if your employees are working in different states, the payroll accounting software can handle their portfolios with ease as well.

Easier to Apply Different Kinds of Benefits and Taxes

The accounting softwares are developed in such a way so that it can automatically calculate the tax rate applicable and bonuses and withholdings applicable to different employees accurately. Thus there would not be any chance of grievances among the employees and they will be happily working for growth and profit of the company.

Easier to Track Records

Payroll accounting softwares ensure the use of least paper works and all the important data are stored in the platform itself. Moreover, professionals have the option of storing hard and soft copies of the different payroll transactions and the income and expenditure of the company. Therefore, it is much easier to track different monthly and annual records for preparing valuable market reports and innovating new policies that will be crucial for the growth of the organization. Thus by using this advanced technology, handling different aspects of the business become much easier and faster.

Latest Updates

The payroll accounting softwares are automatically updated by the organizations that develop it. Therefore, the latest legislations and tax rates are integrated in the software at the earliest so that the organizations using it can comply with the latest guidelines set by the IRS. So there will be no instance of fines or litigation because of failure of the professionals who were not aware of the latest rules and laws.

However, to get the best result it is extremely important to choose the right software meeting your need. There are different softwares meeting up with the needs of different size of organization. Choose the one that has the facilities meeting your company’s and employees need. Presence of extra features might make it a bit difficult for the users to make the best use of the payroll accounting software. So do some research and communicate with accounts teams to understand the need of the company and thereafter invest in an ideal one.