Before you know it, you can easily become swamped with all the little bits of admin that need doing, you might even be put off before you start trading!

Here’s our ten-step checklist for start-ups to help you see the wood from the trees and get on with doing what you do best:

1) Have you got the funds (plus a little bit extra saved in case of emergency)?

Starting a business can be expensive – not least if you’re giving up another income to start your new venture – so make sure that you’ve accounted for all feasible expenditure for your first few months of trading.

2) Have you got time?

Starting your own business can also be hugely time consuming. To be successful, you’re likely to need more than just funds – you’ll also need the support of those around you, free time to put into making it work (are you going to have a ‘day job’ too?), and a good dollop of self-belief.

3) Do you have a business plan?

Business plans are vital. A good business plan will include: realistic financial projections, market and competitor research, an executive summary detailing your business proposal, your aims, what your product or service is, and who comprises the management.

4) Are you aware of all of the Health and Safety and insurance regulations for your industry?

Different industries carry different Health and Safety and insurance regulations. Make sure you’re familiar with yours and that you have all the right documents and policies in place; the last thing you want is to be closed down for breaking the law.

5) Have you opened a bank account for your business?

You’ll need to set up a separate bank account to any personal ones for your business. This is a statutory requirement.

6) Do you have a licence?

Some businesses require a licence from the local council to operate. This includes the likes of taxi firms, window cleaners, driving instructors and restaurants.

7) Have you arranged an accountant, bookkeeper, or record keeping system?

Whether you intend to keep your own books, or pay someone else to do it, it’s important that you start as you mean to go on, and keep clear records from day one. Think about how you are going to record your receipts, how you will invoice, and decide on some sensible systems to keep track of any other dealings your business has.

8) Have you registered with HMRC?

When setting up your own company or going self-employed, you need to register with HMRC as it will affect your tax and National Insurance contributions. You will be required to file certain forms and make certain payments throughout the year, so you may prefer to engage an accountant to do all of this for you.

9) Have you registered with Companies House?

If you plan to trade as a Limited Company, you need to register with Companies House. You can register online or get your accountant to do it. You’ll need to know your Company Name and Address, Officer Details (Director and Secretary), Share Capital and Shareholder Details, and make a registration payment of £18.

10) Do you need marketing materials?

You may not want to splash out on leaflets and ads from day one, but the vast majority of businesses have websites these days to outline what they do and showcase their services/products. You don’t have to spend a bomb, but having a basic web presence is now pretty much expected of all modern businesses. Business cards may be another essential, especially if you intend to get out there and network to win business.

Working through this checklist, you may find that it throws up as many questions as it answers! If you’re still struggling, give us a call on 01327 856076 and we’ll be happy to talk you through your options.

If you have paid in excess of the maximum NI contributions required for the tax year you can reclaim the excess amount. The PAYE system will normally ensure that you will not pay more than the annual maximum on your regular employment. However, if you have two or more concurrent employments in the tax year, or you are employed and self-employed at the same time, you may pay more NI in the year than the annual maximum.

Each taxpayer has their own annual maximum figure based on their individual earnings. The annual maximum NI for employees will be at least £4,279 and for taxpayers who are both employed and self employed the annual maximum is at least £3,180. However, you need to add to those figures the amount of NI payable at the additional rate (currently 1%), which cannot be reclaimed.

If you believe you have paid more NI than your personal annual maximum you can reclaim the excess by writing to the NI Office in Newcastle upon Tyne. You don’t have to calculate the amount of NI repayment due, as the NI Office will do this for you. But you must provide evidence of your earnings during the tax year, such as P60 forms or accounts. We can help you with all of this.

There is no time limit for reclaiming overpaid NI contributions, so you can submit claims for all past years where a repayment is due.

If you are likely to overpay NI for the current tax year you can apply to defer the NI charges on one of your jobs. Do this by completing form CA 72A for employees, or form CA 72B if you are also self-employed. It is not too late to submit either application.

VAT Rates and Refunds top

VAT can be very complicated at times! Most goods and services carry VAT at the standard rate, which is currently 17.5% and is due to increase to 20% on 4 January 2011. However, some transactions, such as financial services, are exempt from VAT, and some goods, such as children’s clothes, carry VAT at 0%.

To confuse matters even more, certain services can carry VAT at 5%, or 17.5% or 0%, depending on the circumstances. For example, renovating a house that has been empty for at least two years can carry VAT at 5%, but repairing a roof on another building will generally require VAT to be charged at 17.5%, unless the building has ‘listed’ status when the work may be zero rated if it is an approved alteration.

If you find you have charged VAT at too high a rate to your customer you should refund the excess VAT charged, if this is practical and possible. You also need to correct your VAT returns for the excess VAT paid over to the VAT office. You can only make a claim for overpaid VAT for VAT periods ending in the last four years, so don’t delay if you find an error that covers several periods.

Most worryingly, 34% of those asked think employment law obligations are ‘not relevant’ to their business, while 20% had concerns as to whether they were meeting these obligations- even if they understood them.

Employment relations minister Lord Young said: “We know that running a small business is both challenging and rewarding – and that this combination often fuels a successful enterprise.

“The essential job of managing employment law need not be one of these challenges.”

The findings coincide with Business Link launching a new tool to help small business understand the legalities of starting up: www.businesslink.gov.uk. The tool covers all elements of employing staff, including pay and pensions, managing staff and dealing with employee issues.

Ken Winnard, founder of graphic design consultancy, Design Force, has used the My Business tool to help develop his company, Ken said:

“As we’ve grown the business, the site has helped me with areas like recruitment. When we employed a new business person a couple of years ago, I needed to create a new employment contract, and the site’s tools helped me achieve this by setting out the information I needed to include. I would otherwise have had to have used a solicitor, so it definitely saved me some money.
“You can also check your legal responsibilities towards staff as an employer and make sure you’re compliant with different regulations, with the site taking you through the recruitment process.”

If you’re running a business and you want to expand, you’ll need to consider the best options for meeting your needs – these could include outsourcing or training existing employees, or recruiting new staff.

Taking on people will always mean some form of investment, but if successful, employing staff will allow you to expand and make your business more valuable in the long-term.

For small businesses, keeping track of cash flow can be a struggle. With limited staff, or none at all, keeping on top of accounting often falls by the wayside in busy periods.

There are some simple steps you can take to make sure your business finances start, and end, 2010 in order.

• Set up a filing system and start recording everything

Apart from the legal requirement, by keeping this information split between income and outgoings, you will have a better sense of cash flow, helping you to better manage your business.

By catagorising expenses into ‘rent’, utilities, or stationary, for example, you will get a clearer picture of where you might be over-spending.

• Check your records against your bank statements

Making sure you tick off everything on your statement before filing it away each month will help you keep check of missing receipts, and provide a constant monthly deadline for getting your records in check.

• Get everything on a computer

Keeping your records on a spreadsheet, or using bookkeeping software, will allow you to see transactions in an instant. Figures will be easy to find, should a mystery debit appear on your bank statement, and you can even produce projections, based on previous months.

• Remind yourself

Keep an up to date calendar, or set reminders on your computer – if you use Outlook, tasks, emails and dates can be set to ‘pop-up’ when their due. If you have an accountant, you will also need to enter the date they require your records by.

Leave yourself 30 days before each deadline, allowing plenty of time and avoiding a last minute rush.

If you really can’t commit to the above, it may be time to call in an experienced bookkeeper. Of course, there will be an expense associated with this, but since it could free up your time, and give you better information with which to make business decisions, it might just be worth the investment. I provide a free accountancy question and answer session every Tuesday on Twitter, join me @AccountsAssist.

The apprenticeship scheme provides a real opportunity for employers to take on cost-effective labour who can be trained to meet the specific needs of their business. For apprentices, the scheme delivers paid, on-the-job experience at a time when University places are at a premium and tuition fees and the student loan means years of debt for graduates.

A recent survey on behalf of the Learning and Skills Council identified that the 76% of employers asked, stated that apprentices helped them to improve productivity and 77% felt that the scheme helped them to be more competitive. 59% said that training apprentices is more cost-effective than hiring skilled staff, leading to lower overall training and recruitment costs.

With the targeted age group of 16 – 24, also the age group that has most suffered in the recession, the apprenticeship scheme offers a real lifeline for young people looking to start their careers and allows employers to grow their business without taking large financial risks.

For apprentices between the ages of 16 –18, the National Apprenticeship Scheme (NAS) will fund 100 per cent of the cost of training and up to 50 per cent for those aged 19 and over. In addition, to further promote the scheme, the NAS is offering up to 5,000 grants, worth £2,500 each, to employers who take on apprentices between 16 and 17 before the end of March 2010.

Legally, all apprentices – except for those in the agricultural sector – must be paid at least £95 a week, though according to the NAS the weekly average is £170. Employers who take on apprentices must provide 16 hours of paid employment a week and on-the-job training.

Simon Waugh, chief executive of the NAS, said: “We are in danger of becoming a low-skills, low-paid nation. Many firms find their ability to grow is hampered by a lack of skilled labour, yet apprentices are a key, cost-efficient way to get a better trained workforce.”

Apprentices can be considered for almost any business sector, with over 190 different schemes, in industries ranging from tourism to construction. To date, more than 100,000 firms, including giants such as British Gas and Rolls Royce, have apprentices, but Waugh hopes this number will soar, he said: “There is a lack of awareness about apprenticeships in many firms and we (the NAS) want to change this.”

To celebrate National Apprenticeship week, events are taking place throughout the UK, to introduce employers to the scheme and present the business case for taking on an apprentice. For more information, visit, www.apprenticeships.org.uk.

Blamed on HMRC’s new computer system, the blunder could see individuals hundreds of pounds short, depending on the level of their earnings.

Andrew Hubbard, president of the CIoT, warned advisors and their business clients to check their new codes. “Most people on PAYE are used to assuming that what the taxman sends them is correct, (filing) away coding notices without bothering to check them.

This year, many of them are being given wrong information, and unless they spot it and tell HMRC, their employer will receive the wrong information too and the employee could get a nasty shock when they open their April pay packet and see it is as much as £100 lighter than they expected.”

Richard Mannion, director of national tax at Smith & Williamson, said that HMRC’s previous system had suffered problems in the past. “They’ve now installed a new system, which is more flexible, but they are having teething problems.”

The mistake is likely to significantly affect pensioners with part-time jobs or people who hold down more than one job, as the system is likely to generate a different tax code notice per job.

People with investment income may also be affected as the HMRC tries to collect tax due on individuals’ estimated investment income, such as bank interest, dividends and rental income, through their tax codes. In many cases this will be based on previous tax returns and may be excessive and out of date.

To avoid undue taxes, all employees must check their tax code and contact HMRC if it needs to be changed. For more information about understanding your tax code visit: www.hmrc.gov.uk/incometax/codes-basics.

A HMRC spokesperson insisted that “the new system is working as it should…as part of our transition to this new system, in the first year, we also expect some of the codes we issue to be incorrect. Anyone in this position should call HMRC to make sure the right tax code is applied.”

16% of small businesses were found to have downgraded environmental issues this year in order to keep their firms afloat, with nearly half of them blaming the cost. In addition, 42% reported that they are held back from improving their environmental practices.

Around one in six (17%) have not been able to make their companies more environmentally sound, as desired improvements are prohibitively expensive. One in ten (9%) are hindered because of restrictions placed on the business or the premises, while 4% say they don’t understand the changes that could be made.

Despite this, nearly all (98%) small business owners claim to have taken some measures to improve their environmental impact, up from 80% in 20082, spending a total of £1.5 billion, or around £1,000 per company, in the process. The measures taken, range from ensuring that all electrical equipment is turned off when not in use, through to the installation of renewable energy sources.

Paula Ickinger, Head of Business Banking Marketing at Abbey and Alliance & Leicester said:

“There are one and a half million small businesses in the UK, so it is very encouraging to find that so many of them have taken steps to reduce the environmental impact of their operations, in some cases at great expense. While some of these changes are relatively minor, the cumulative impact will have been huge.”

“It is particularly interesting that so many companies have actually made environmental considerations a higher priority since the economic downturn. Many green initiatives incur a significant up front cost, which can be off-putting but in the longer term they can help to reduce overheads as well as carbon emissions.”

“Businesses could help cover the cost of being more environmentally sound by saving money in other ways, such as reviewing regular costs like utilities and bank charges. By researching the deals available and switching to a more competitive offer, businesses can save thousands of pounds each year, which can then be put to better use.”

Raising taxes for small businesses would ultimately cost the UK billions of pounds and hundreds of thousands of jobs, according to a new independent report for the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB). The report, by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), argues that increasing the burden of taxation on the country’s small businesses – which make up 99 per cent of all UK businesses – would plunge the economy further into debt and take its toll in jobs at a time of spiralling unemployment.

Small firms are already bracing themselves for an increase in employers’ National Insurance Contributions (NICs) in April 2011. Using its own economic simulation model, CEBR tested the knock-on effects of adding 1p to employers’ NICs, paid by small and medium sized enterprises. The CEBR findings suggest that the NICs increase would cost the economy 57,000 jobs but only make a small dent in the gap in the public finances. In addition, the report states, these job losses alone would cost the Treasury around £900m in additional jobseekers allowance and other benefits.

The FSB has been calling for the Government to take steps to make it easier for the country’s 4.8m small businesses to employ staff, and so tackle rising unemployment and drive the economy out of recession. Polled FSB members believe cutting payroll taxes is the most important change the Government could make to encourage them to take on another member of staff. FSB members have also said that a reduction in business tax – such as corporation tax – would give them more of an incentive to take on another staff member.

The CEBR report found that if the Government raised the rate of corporation tax from 21 per cent to 26 per cent – the result of equalising the tax rate between big and small business – would cost around 100,000 jobs from the small business sector and reduce economic output by £4.3bn, while reducing the public sector deficit by only £1.6bn over 10 years.

Ahead of the Chancellor’s Pre Budget Report announcement, the FSB is urging the Government to freeze employers’ NICs completely.

John Walker, National Policy Chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses, said:

“This research by the CEBR shows that taxing small businesses to help reduce the public sector deficit is a dead-end that will instead cost us dearly in jobs and economic growth. The FSB has long been saying that small businesses are the country’s economic drivers and they cannot play their part in pulling the economy out of recession if they are faced with increasing taxes.

“The FSB is calling for a freeze in employers’ National Insurance contributions as the most constructive way of tackling the challenge of rising unemployment and continuing to put small businesses in the best possible position to draw the economy out of recession. We need to see the Government take on these practical proposals at a time when the country faces such financially testing times.”

Ben Read, Managing Economist at Centre for Economics and Business Research, added:

“Our report shows that the potential benefits to the public purse from increasing taxes on small business are at best minimal, and in the long term may actually damage public finances. Moreover, almost all empirical evidence shows that increasing business taxation provides disincentives for small businesses to engage in activities that they have particular strengths in: entrepreneurial activity, investment and innovation, and employment.

“In short, taxing economically beneficial activity is inconsistent with encouraging a strong recovery, and would damage growth and employment prospects.”

The FSB believes that a freeze on new business regulation would create more than 300,000 jobs, and provide the economy with a second economic stimulus.

A survey of FSB members showed that nearly one in three businesses (27%) that wanted to expand said they were too scared to do so, because they were put off by complicated regulation. Of those businesses planning to down-size or close, 50% said their decision was strongly influenced by the regulatory burdens they faced.

According to the Government’s own figures, 60 per cent of businesses listed regulation as an obstacle to success. Based on these statistics, the FSB estimates that removing these regulatory obstacles could create more than 258,000 new jobs and save more than 55,500 from being lost.

Released ahead of the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester, the FSB policy paper entitled ‘Regulatory Reform – a route to economic recovery’, calls for a moratorium on business regulation and accelerated simplification of current laws.

John Wright, National Chairman, Federation of Small Businesses, said:

“We cannot and must not underestimate the burden that unnecessary regulation puts on small businesses. Around half of all firms planning to close or down-size were influenced in that decision by the heavy impact of regulation. However, we know that small firms want to employ more staff and the Government should be making it easier for them to do so, especially as we pull ourselves out of recession and into recovery.

“The FSB is urging the Government to give the UK’s regulatory environment a strategic overhaul, to provide it with what will amount to a second economic stimulus, to boost growth and employment.”

The report found that just under half (44%) of small businesses say staff are more lax about closing windows, setting alarms and locking exit doors in the summer months of June to August, while one in five respondents (20%) have arrived at work to discover that a window or exit has been unlocked or the alarm is not set.

Hiscox have also revealed that small business owners are also failing to prioritise their security strategies. Despite high redundancy figures, almost three quarters (73%) admit that they don’t change locks and access codes to the office when staff leave the company. In addition, almost eight out of ten (78%) small businesses take no extra security precautions for employees who find themselves in the office alone.

Sam Franks, small business insurance expert at Hiscox UK, said:

“The summer months are a prime time for burglaries and it is crucial for small businesses to take all of the necessary precautions against office theft. Many of these steps are quite simple and could be as straightforward as having a procedure in place to ensure the office is fully secured at the end of each day.

“Theft can have a number of devastating consequences to a small business; not least the impact on staff productivity and the loss of income while equipment and client data are restored. Simple tricks such as backing up data and improving IT security can save a business thousands of pounds, while having the necessary insurance cover is vital should the worst happen.”

Hiscox has provided security tips to help SMEs protect their business this summer:

1. Make sure you use all your security measures every time the office is left unattended
2. Protect your business by changing access codes and removing systems access when employees leave
3. Plan for how you would do business if your office is damaged or you lost some equipment. Regularly test the plan to make sure it works
4. Take appropriate steps to protect sensitive business information, including clients’ data.