Bank finance articles and tips

In my experience the standard of record keeping in small businesses has deteriorated over the years with many business owners trying to maintain their own records but with little success.

So what is good record keeping according to HMRC? They have been quoted as saying that "An accurate record of business money in and business money out in whatever form...will be all that is needed to fulfil the record keeping obligations that the law requires. Good record keeping is essentially about diligence, not technical ability."

I always tell clients that it does not matter where and how they record their business transactions as long as it is complete and accurate. Today it should be easier with the raft of computer programmes but the adage garbage in garbage out comes to mind.

So what is the problem? Last February HMRC announced a Business Records Check programme where they are to review the adequacy and accuracy of the records kept by 200,000 small and medium sized firms over the next four years.

Do you own a small business and need to know how to compensate yourself? The way you pay yourself depends on the type of business entity you own from a legal standpoint.

There are five possible scenarios: Sole proprietorship; Partnership; C Corporation; S Corporation; Limited Liability Company.

There are plenty of people still brushing off the potential marketing power of the popular microblogging service known as Twitter. It's true that the popular social media service used to be regularly plagued with instability (Hello, Fail Whale!), inexplicable account suspensions, and some rather poorly-handled customer communication issues. But it has survived the early years, and continues to grow in popularity and potential.

Twitter can be a great human search engine, an easy way to monitor the "back channel" (i.e, to see what people are talking about) at a particular event, and there's no way better to send a short, powerful message to two or three thousand of your closest buddies. And I'm only partly joking. Here are just a few of the ways savvy business leaders have found to put Twitter to work in the marketing department.

Similar to any other kind of business, financial institutions (FIs) are continually striving to stay competitive while decreasing costs, increasing efficiency, and improving their processes. While all three may not be possible to do at one time, lending automation helps institutions capitalize on their already existing strengths. This helps increase profitability so these institutions can be sustainable for the future.

Lending automation can be the decisioning engine, the workflow engine, and integration to vendor networks. Lending automation is used in many ways by FIs including: credit and risk decisioning, enterprise origination, pre-screen, cross-sell, offer optimization and repositories, vendor networking, and risk modeling. Modern lending automation systems can be customized to cater to FI's specific needs and specifications so the solution may incorporate only one of these processes, or it may include all of them.

There is a great saying that says "If you aim for the stars you may fall on the roof" which basically means if aim highest, you will at least get part of the way there, unlike if you don't aim at all. This is true in business with company's vision, if their goals are outstanding, then that is part of the journey.

One consistently-successful tactic for well-run businesses is to hold promotions that involve the corporate giveaways of promotional merchandise to loyal or potential new customers. One way to show your good vision would be to create a brand name marketing campaign centred on promotional hi-vis hats, the ultimate promotional gift choice for a business with vision.

In order to capture some commonly overlooked tax deductions, small business owners need to provide extra details to their tax preparers. A Registered Tax Return Preparer rendering advice about this record keeping is certain to have a growing clientele.

Some tax deductions require particular records that business owners do not automatically supply. By asking the right questions when you become a tax preparer, you will obtain uncommon deductions representing significant tax savings. Pointing out this value of your effort leads to loyal long-term client relationships.