accounting news Archives - London Accountants

Spring Budget 2023 – a brief roundup!

Posted on March 22, 2023May 3, 2023 by Megan Davies

Spring Budget 2023 – a brief roundup!

On 15th March, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt unveiled a variety of fresh tax, benefits, and energy policies in the Budget. We’ve tried to keep it simple and below we’ve rounded up the key announcements.

Energy Price Guarantee:
The Government has announced that the Energy Price Guarantee will stay fixed at £2,500 per annum, rather than increasing by 20% as previously intended, for a three-month period starting from April 1st. This guarantee governs the energy bills of most households in England, Scotland, and Wales.

Prepayment meter customers will pay less for energy from July:
Beginning on July 1st, prepayment meter customers will be charged the same amount for energy as those who pay through direct debit, thanks to the Energy Price Guarantee modification by the government. Consequently, the Treasury predicts that prepay households will see an average reduction of £45 in their annual energy expenses.

Extended Child-Care support:
Childcare support for parents will be expanded in several ways, which include:

In England, eligible parents of two-year-olds will have access to 15 free childcare hours for the first time, funded by the government. Starting from April 2024, this benefit will become effective. Furthermore, from September 2025, eligible parents of any child between nine months and school age may receive up to 30 hours of free childcare. It should be noted that, in certain cases, additional payments may be required based on the childminder’s fees, despite the reference to these hours as “free” childcare.
Parents claiming universal credit in England, Scotland, and Wales can now receive upfront funding for childcare expenses. For those eligible, the first month’s costs will be covered. Following that, similar to current procedures, you must pay and claim back the expenses, with the maximum amount rising to £951 for one child and £1,630 for two or more children.

‘Work capability assessment’ for benefits to be scrapped:
The Government has declared that it will eliminate the contentious ‘work capability assessment’ used by the Department for Work and Pensions to determine an individual’s qualification for specific benefits, such as universal credit, as part of a significant overhaul of the benefits system.

The reform aims to support disabled individuals and those with long-term health issues in seeking employment and remaining in the workforce. According to the Government, this modification will allow disabled benefits claimants to pursue work without losing financial support.

However, in conjunction with the Budget, the Government has also pledged to “strengthen” the enforcement of universal credit sanctions, which could result in more penalties for individuals who are deemed to have failed to seek employment or take up a job.

The precise implementation and timeline of these modifications are not yet clear.

Pension Savers to get extra tax relief:
The Government has unveiled three significant alterations to the tax relief provided while saving for your pension:

The annual allowance will increase from £40,000 to £60,000 beginning in April 2023.
From April 2024, the lifetime allowance, presently £1,073,100, will be entirely abolished.
The money purchase annual allowance will increase from £4,000 to £10,000 in April 2023.

The Government has decided to maintain the current levels of savings and ISA allowances:

The ‘starting rate’ for savings will remain fixed at £5,000. This allows individuals earning less than £17,570 from employment to earn up to £5,000 in savings interest before paying any tax on it.
The maximum amount that can be deposited into an adult ISA will continue to be £20,000, and the junior ISA limit will remain at £9,000. Moreover, there will be no adjustments to the Lifetime ISA threshold of £4,000.

Help to Save Scheme extended:
The Help to Save scheme, which offers a 50% savings boost to low-income earners claiming universal credit or working tax credit, worth up to £1,200, was originally set to stop accepting new applications in September of this year. However, it has now been announced that it will be extended until April 2025, with the same terms remaining in place.

Income Tax thresholds are NOT changing:
Although income tax was not a central point of discussion in the Budget, it is an essential aspect of many people’s finances.

Last year, in the Autumn Statement, the Government announced that income tax thresholds would remain frozen until April 2028. This freeze implies that even if someone’s salary increases, albeit below inflation, they will end up paying more in income tax over time.

In some instances, individuals may fall into a higher tax bracket, while others may remain in the same tax bracket but will still pay a higher percentage of their earnings as tax if their salaries rise. This is referred to as “fiscal drag” in Treasury terminology.

Tobacco & Alcohol prices to rise:
Starting from 1 August 2023, the duties on wine, spirits, and beer bottles will increase in line with the Retail Prices Index (RPI) measure of inflation, resulting in a 5p rise in the price of a 500ml bottle of beer or a 250ml glass of wine. However, the duty on a draught pint of beer in a pub will not increase, as it is protected under the Government’s ‘Brexit Pubs Guarantee.’

Moreover, the price of tobacco products will increase starting from 6 pm on 15 March. The Government announced that it would increase by RPI plus an additional 2%, while the duty on rolling tobacco would increase by an extra 4%.

We hope this round up of the Spring Budget has been helpful & clear.

If you are looking for Fulham accountants or a tax advisor in London, get in touch!

e: office@londonaccountants.co t: 0203 137 9791

Kind Regards,
The Team at London Accountants

Employee vs contractor – what you need to know!

Posted on March 6, 2023May 4, 2023 by Megan Davies

Depending on the nature of your business, you may have workers who are employees or contractors, or you may have both. Each has their merits, but it’s important to review which are which in order to meet your tax obligations.

When you have an employee, you must withhold income tax as well as report on additional benefits. Contractors generally look after their own tax obligations.

It’s against the law to treat an employee as a contractor. Significant penalties apply if you do, so it’s important to get it right.

The simplest way to remember is:

An employee works in your business and is part of your business.
A contractor is running their own business.

But how can you be sure that you’ve got an employee or a contractor on your hands, especially with remote work blurring the lines between employees and contractors?

Does there come a point that you should actually be hiring a worker as an employee, when you thought they were a contractor?

There are six factors to consider:

1. Ability to subcontract or delegate

An employee is not able to subcontract or delegate the work. They must perform the outlined tasks themselves. If they can’t do the work themselves for any reason, say a prolonged illness, and someone else does it, this is substitution. Your business would then pay the other person to carry out those activities.

A contractor can delegate the work as long as they’re not obligated to do it themselves as per the contract. If your contractor can’t work, they would arrange for another qualified person to do it. You would pay your contractor as usual, who would then pay their subcontractor.

2. Basis of payment

An employee is paid a set amount per period of time. The most obvious example would be an annual salary or hourly wage.

Some employees are paid piece-work rates. They receive an amount per successful sale, or per the number of pieces produced. A commission basis would be a price per item structure.

A contractor, however, is paid an agreed-upon price in exchange for a predetermined result. Some contracts may specify the amount to be paid in increments as stages of the project are completed. But the key takeaway is that a contractor is paid when the agreed-upon result is achieved.

3. Equipment, tools, and other assets

If your business is responsible for providing the equipment, tools, and other assets required to perform the job, that’s characteristic of an employee.

If the worker is providing these items, they are likely a contractor.

4. Commercial risks

Employees do not bear commercial risk and they are not liable for correcting any defects in the work at their own expense. Instead, your business takes this responsibility. The worker will be paid for the time required to perform the task to completion.

A contractor assumes the commercial risk. They are responsible for fixing any mistakes on their own time. This extra work would fall under the umbrella of the terms set at the beginning of the project. Your business does not have to pay for any extra time taken or materials used, unless otherwise specified in the contract.

5. Control over the work

Employees have to complete the work the way the employer specifies. What work is done, where it’s done, how it’s done, and when it’s done are all up to the employer. The employee then completes the work as required.

Contractors are not subject to the same rules. They decide when and how the work is done, so long as it meets the obligations laid out in the contract. For example, a contractor could choose to work three 10-hour days to complete a job, rather than working four 8-hour days.

6. Independence

An employee works within a business. They complete tasks as required until they leave the job.

A contractor operates independently and may have any other number of contracts on the go with other companies. They can freely accept and refuse other work. Their obligation is complete when they deliver the specified outcome.

Final thoughts

It can be confusing to make the determination between an employee and contractor, but it’s important that you do so in order to meet your tax obligations and play by the rules. Contact us to learn more about your tax obligations for employees and contractors.

If you are looking for Fulham accountants or a tax advisor in London, get in touch!

e: office@londonaccountants.co t: 0203 137 9791

Kind Regards,
The Team at London Accountants

Don’t miss out on the Tax-Free Childcare program!

Posted on February 27, 2023May 3, 2023 by Megan Davies

Don’t miss out on the Tax-Free Childcare program!

According to HMRC, more than 400,000 families utilised the Tax-Free Childcare (TFC) scheme in December, and they are now encouraging other eligible families to check their eligibility and take advantage of it.

In the past, childcare voucher programs were popular, but they have been closed to new participants for many years. In their place, the government created TFC, which provides financial assistance to working families with children up to the age of 11 (or 16 if they have a disability).

An eligible family must establish a TFC account, which is used to cover childcare costs. The government provides financial assistance by contributing to the account. For every £8 deposited into a TFC account, the government adds £2, up to a limit of £500 for each child every three months (or £1,000 for a disabled child).

In its latest press release, HMRC revealed that in December 2022, over 400,000 families received £41.5 million in top-up payments through the program. Families are encouraged to check their eligibility and apply.

However, if you are currently receiving childcare vouchers (still available to those in schemes prior to 4 October 2018), you may be better off sticking with them. It is important to note that if you successfully apply for TFC, you will not be able to switch back to vouchers if your circumstances change, such as if your income or your partner’s income exceeds the £100,000 maximum for TFC.

You can use this tool to determine the best option for your family!

If you are looking for Fulham accountants or a tax advisor in London, get in touch!

e: office@londonaccountants.co t: 0203 137 9791

Kind Regards,
The Team at London Accountants

Inflation sees hike in vehicle-related benefit charges

Posted on December 12, 2022 by Megan Davies

Inflation sees hike in vehicle-related benefit charges!

Certain benefits, including those related to company-owned vehicles, are revised annually to reflect inflation. The relevant figures for 2023/24 have just been confirmed…

What do you need to know?

The consumer price index is the benchmark the government uses to measure inflation. This is linked to several key figures for the purposes of calculating the cash equivalent to establish the taxable benefits in kind. Three of these figures relate to company-owned vehicles where there is some element of private usage.

Firstly, there is a fuel benefit where an employer provides petrol or diesel to an employee that is used for private journeys. There is no de minimis, so a small amount of fuel provided and not reimbursed by the employee is enough to trigger the benefit. The cash equivalent is worked out by multiplying the appropriate percentage for the car by a fixed fuel benefit multiplier. For 2022/23 this is £25,300, but due to high inflation this will increase to £27,800 from April 2023. A jump of £2,500.00!

Next, there is the company van benefit. This is a fixed amount, i.e. there is no variance depending on the van’s emissions level. If the van is used for private journeys, and this usage is not “insignificant”, the employee will be taxed on a fixed cash equivalent. For 2022/23 this is £3,600, and will increase to £3,960 from April 2023.

Finally, if fuel provided by the employer is used for private journeys, the employer will be taxed on a fixed cash equivalent of £688 for 2022/23, rising to £757 from April 2023.

We are also currently running a promotion until 1st January 2023.

£225 + VAT for a basic Self-Assessment Tax Return (usually £299 + VAT)

Offer is valid until 01.12.2022.

e: office@londonaccountants.co t: 0203 137 9791

Kind Regards,
The Team at London Accountants

3 Mistakes That Strangle Growing Businesses

Posted on June 17, 2022May 4, 2023 by Megan Davies

3 Mistakes That Strangle Growing Businesses!

Businesses want to grow and help a larger audience, but too many make mistakes that cripple their growth. Even worse, they keep repeating them! Don’t do the same; avoid the blunders outlined below.

Hiring Toxic Personalities

Businesses hire more staff as they grow. But if they expand too quickly, they will feel pressure to fill positions on their team, even if the job candidates have a few personality flaws. While some people change, others don’t, and a few toxic personalities will poison your company culture.

This is why controlling growth is so important. Though it is hard to predict, you can create a game plan when you exceed your projections. Creating a team of healthy personalities is another priority. If you don’t, toxic employees will look for coworkers with similar values. If they can’t find them, they will try to hire them!

But what personalities should your company avoid? There are many, but micromanagers are one of the most common. Instead of letting their coworkers do their jobs, they bug them over minor details, sabotaging team goals. Managers do manipulate emotions as part of their job, but some abuse this power. They will try to ruin people with gossip, or tell bosses what they want to hear, even when they know it is terrible advice.

Instead, always look for team members that value their coworkers and employer, and have enough emotional maturity to find and fix their own weaknesses. They will become better team members over time, and will face problems even when it makes them feel uncomfortable.

Changing Your Product

Businesses always want to find new markets, and while they could woo customers in more places, creating new products is another way to reach a larger audience. Bringing a new product to market is an investment new businesses should consider, as long as they know the risks.

Instead of creating a new product from scratch, some businesses tweak their old ones. While this can work, change isn’t always an improvement. Testing your product with consumers will help mitigate risk, but tastes shift quickly; fads don’t stay popular forever.

Customers often develop an emotional connection to their preferred brands. Experimenting might feel like a betrayal of their trust, and it is almost impossible to win back a customer’s loyalty. Growing businesses don’t always have enough resources to create new products, and focusing on your successes might be your best strategy. You can even ask for customer feedback while you build capital.

Misinterpreting The Market

Demand shifts randomly. People don’t always know what they want, and why, and products soar and plummet in popularity for reasons no business can predict. Sadly, too many companies overestimate their brilliance, and pay for their arrogance when their predictions and investments fail.

Understanding your niche will help you create reliable strategies. Infrastructure helps; liquidating assets quickly is better than storing them indefinitely. The more time you spend learning the intricacies of your niche, the more money you will save when a strategy fails.

Keep in mind, too, that predictions fail both ways. Some companies don’t release products that would become hits, while others spend millions advertising obvious failures. Every miscalculation is an opportunity; learn and take advantage! For example, use a failed product launch to discover more about your core audience.

If your business sells great products and services, it will grow if you get out of the way. Every business should ponder the blunders outlined in their article; their customers’ happiness could depend on it.

Got a question about your business? If you are looking for Fulham accountants or a tax advisor in London, get in touch!

e: office@londonaccountants.co t: 0203 137 9791

Kind Regards,
The Team at London Accountants

Collaboration: 5 Reasons It’s Essential to a Growing Company

Posted on June 6, 2022May 4, 2023 by Megan Davies

Collaboration: 5 Reasons It’s Essential to a Growing Company!

Many elements are vital to a growing company’s success. A financially-astute leader is one. A confident and motivated sales team well-versed in a company’s product and service line is another. But starting and growing a business requires more than employees with extensive functional skills and appropriate personal characteristics.

Growing a business requires collaboration – namely, the deployment of employees in a way that allows them to work together to problem-solve and act with a shared sense of urgency.

When this occurs, group members come to leverage the strengths of one another as they work to achieve shared objectives vital to the company’s growth. Also, mutual learning takes place, which increases the probability that each employee’s performance will evolve from good to better and then best. In turn, a company’s performance improves as well.

As collaboration occurs, teams leverage individual differences to produce exceptional outcomes. This knowledge sharing creates a learning enterprise in which employees more readily identify solutions to problems. As a consequence, the company may become more operationally and financially successful.

There are many reasons that collaboration has these positive effects, not the least of which is the ability of a company to make the best use of available skills.

Makes the Best Use of Available Skills

A collaborative environment makes a range of disciplines accessible on an as-needed basis, which leads to the efficient use of employee talent in a way that isn’t possible otherwise. Collaboration allows multiple individuals to participate in the completion of a task at hand, which makes it more likely that the right talent is available at the right time. With collaboration, tasks are completed more efficiently, leaving more time for a staff to concentrate on activities that contribute to company growth.

Facilitates Problem Solving

Collaboration allows a company to throw the most skilled resources at a problem, which may mean a solution is identified more quickly and more cost-effectively than might be possible otherwise. Leveraging the most appropriate resources means a team’s overall functional breadth and depth increases, which can improve the quality of a project’s processes and end products.

In addition, diverse and complimentary talent may enhance individual work processes as each employee becomes a part of a greater whole, which can positively affect a company’s culture. It’s the change in culture that contributes to new thinking, which may lead to new products and new ways to use existing products, each of which contributes to company growth.

Leverages Individual Differences

Asking employees with very different skills to collaborate to accomplish an objective leverages individual knowledge, strengths and capabilities and maximizes organizational potential. A team succeeds or fails according to the combined capabilities and commitment of the individuals involved.

Deploying a variety of unique strengths and skills advances a team’s understanding of a problem, which can lead to faster problem scoping and solution formulation, and more effective solutions.

Builds Company Knowledge

A group brings different perspectives to a problem at hand. As individuals share their perspectives, each team member considers problems from multiple viewpoints and the person begins to think like the group.

Likewise, as each individual demonstrates a particular skill, other team members may learn these skills, which will be helpful when attempting to accomplish new goals. In effect, team interaction allows team knowledge to build up, like compound interest. In this way, a company leverages individual perspectives across the enterprise.

Creates a Learning Enterprise

Collaboration provides an opportunity to move beyond learning management systems and content to learning in context, which can be empowering to an entire team.

When two people work together, it’s inevitable that they share knowledge, which contributes to a culture that supports ongoing learning. Consequently, collaboration creates a safety net that protects a company from a lack of appropriate knowledge.

As an individual collaborates with others, his knowledge expands as does the reach of his knowledge. When this occurs throughout the organization, its knowledge boundaries expand leading to new opportunities and new ways of doing things.

Collaboration supports a company’s efforts to act with a shared sense of urgency by deploying employees with particular skills in a variety of ways. Collaboration is also an effective means of problem solving because it allows a company to leverage individual employee differences, evaluate employee efforts in the aggregate and create a learning enterprise. When problems are solved more readily, resources become available to achieve other company objectives, including company growth.

Got a question about your business? If you are looking for Fulham accountants or a tax advisor in London, get in touch!

e: office@londonaccountants.co t: 0203 137 9791

Kind Regards,
The Team at London Accountants

Separating personal and business expenses

Posted on June 3, 2022May 4, 2023 by Megan Davies

Separating personal and business expenses!

There are some things in life that go together well and others that definitely do not. Business and personal finances are in the category of items that should not be mixed.

Although it may seem like a headache to keep them separate (who wants to manage all those bank accounts?) your life will be greatly simplified once you separate your personal and your business finances, especially your expenses.

Paperwork and taxes will be easier to manage and you’ll have a better idea of how much money you spend on your business. Here are some tips to keep your personal and your business expenses separate.

Understand the difference between personal and business expenses:

Most times, the line between personal and business expenses is clear. Any expense that is directly linked to your business earning an income is a business expense. If you buy something to be used for your business, it’s a deductible business expense. If you buy something to use privately, that’s a personal expense.

If something is mixed between business and personal, such as a laptop that you use partially for business and partially for personal use, you can only claim a deduction for the amount that you use for business. So if you use the laptop for business 75 percent of the time and for personal use 25 percent of the time, you can only deduct 75 percent of the laptop.

Whether you use something entirely or partially for business, you need to have a record of the purchase.

Open a business credit card and/or bank account:

Having a business credit card and/or bank account provides you with an easy way to not only keep your private and business expenses apart, it also gives you an easy way to track your expenses. When you use the same accounts for business and personal use, everything is mixed on the same statement and it can be difficult to determine (or remember) which transactions were related to your business and which were for your private life.

With business accounts you know that every transaction is related to your business and should therefore be deductible. You don’t have to search through every statement at tax time to highlight the deductible expenses because every transaction is business related.

You can also easily check your statements to see how much money your business is spending. That’s incredibly difficult to do if your business and personal transactions are all linked to one account.

Where possible, buy separate business items:

Depending on how small your business is, you may not be able to keep all items separate, but buying devices that are used for both business and personal use gets complicated. In an ideal world, you have a separate computer for home and work, a separate work and personal cell phone and even separate vehicles.

Having duplicate items for work and personal use makes it much easier to track expenses. Rather than determining how much of your cell phone bill you can deduct for business, you know that your business phone is 100 percent deductible. Same with your computer and your vehicle. It costs more (especially the separate vehicle) but it keeps your personal life separate from your business life.

Final thoughts

It can be tempting to try to write everything off as a business expense but don’t fall into that trap. Open separate accounts, buy duplicate items where you can and keep receipts of your business expenses.

If you’re unsure, talk to us to find out which activities count as a tax deduction and which do not. We can answer your questions and can even help you come up with a system to track your expenses.

Got a question about your business? If you are looking for Fulham accountants or a tax advisor in London, get in touch!

e: office@londonaccountants.co t: 0203 137 9791

Kind Regards,
The Team at London Accountants

Why your business needs you to say no

Posted on March 25, 2022 by Megan Davies

Benefits of using technology!

These days, you can use technology to take care of almost any issue facing your business. If you have a task you don’t like to do, there’s an app or software program to take care of it for you.

Being open to new possibilities is a positive trait shared by most entrepreneurs. But saying yes to all the people you meet and opportunities that come your way can get you into trouble.

When we overcommit (especially when we take on projects that don’t actually benefit our business) our stress can hit the roof. It’s much hard to be productive when we’re feeling burned out and resentful.

One of the most impactful changes you can make in your business is to form one simple habit: give yourself time to weigh the cost and benefit before making any decision, and politely decline any opportunity that doesn’t align with your goals.

If you’re feeling stressed and less productive than you’d like, it’s time to get better at saying no. Here’s how:

Check your business plan!

Your business plan is more than a record of the year’s goals and projections. It’s a living document designed to help you guide your business in the direction you want it to go.

Although some decisions may seem small (an invitation to coffee, a request for advice), all of those “asks” add up. In order to stay focused on the success of your business, you need to always keep your short and long term goals in mind.

If you don’t have a business plan (or it’s been some time since you wrote one), any of these free small business plan templates can help you get clear on where you want to take your business – and how you’ll get there.

Make a thoughtful decision:

If someone’s request does not help your business, your decision is easy. If you may want to work with the person in the future, or there’s something you can ask in return that will benefit your company, a definite maybe is in order.

Before you say yes ask yourself the following questions:
– How does agreeing to this benefit my business? How important is that benefit at this time or in the future?
– Do I have the capacity to carry out this request at this time? How might other aspects of my business suffer if I prioritise this request?
– What does my gut say? Will I feel burdened, owed a favour, or for any other reason resent saying yes to this request?

Scripts for saying no:

If you’ve weighed the decision and need to turn someone down, these simple phrases can help you to say no gracefully.
– Thank you for thinking of me but I can’t take on another project right now.
– I’d like to help you but I have other commitments.
– A healthy balance at work at home is my priority at the moment. I know this is a small request but I can’t be of service right now.
– I’m sorry I can’t do what you’ve asked, but I can do this for you if it helps.
– I’m unable to help you now, but perhaps another time.

Notice that specific reasons given for declining a request aren’t offered. You don’t need to give a list of excuses for saying no, which can sound unconvincing.

Unfortunately when offered reasons for refusing a request, some people will add pressure by trying to challenge them.

Final thoughts

When you become skilled at saying no, you’ll not only avoid additional stress, you’ll have more time to spend doing meaningful work you enjoy, building a business you love.

One final thought: if the thought of saying no still fills you with dread, don’t think of it as saying no. Think of it as saying an enthusiastic “yes” to you and the success of your business.

Kind Regards,

The Team at London Accountants

Do you know your break-even point?

Posted on March 21, 2022 by Megan Davies

Do you know your break-even point?

All business owners need to be aware of this – that is, the number of units they need to sell in order to cover their operating costs.

Once you’ve reached your break-even point, it’s time to celebrate: your business is no longer in the red, and you are officially earning a profit.

This article will show you how to calculate your break-even point so you can make wise business decisions that support greater growth.

Why your break-even point matters:

Entrepreneurs who attempt to run a business without knowing whether or when they’ll be profitable probably won’t be in business long.

Knowing your break-even point comes in handy whenever you’re making plans to invest in your company’s growth, or making a decision that will have an impact on profits (i.e. a cost-benefit analysis).

Another key advantage of knowing exactly how much you have to earn to start generating profits is improved accuracy of your budgets and forecasts.

What are your fixed costs?

The first step to calculating your break-even point is to list the predictable, ongoing monthly expenses required to run your business.

Examples of fixed costs include:
– Rented or leased office space
– Rented or leased retail space
– Employee salaries
– Office expenses
– Insurance
– Utilities (e.g. heat, electricity, phone service, internet)

Do the best you can to include the most accurate numbers on your break-even spreadsheet – and be sure to add an additional 10% to cover unforeseen miscellaneous expenses.

List your variable costs

You’ll also want to take into account the business expenses that vary month to month. In order to be as precise as possible, calculate an average monthly cost by tracking your variable expenses over a two to three month period.

Examples of items you’ll want to include monthly estimates for are:
– Inventory
– Labour
– Commissions
– Shipping costs
– Delivery fees
– Interest fees Icalculated on your business credit cards or lines of credit)

Based on your fixed and variable monthly costs, you can now determine how much you need to sell in order to reach your break-even point.

Try this simple break-even formula

To find the break-even point for any product or service you offer, enter the following numbers in the formula below:
1. your company’s fixed overhead costs
2. the price of each item for sale
3. each unit’s variable costs

Fixed costs ÷ (unit sales price – variable costs)

As an example, let’s calculate the break-even point for a web designer offering fixed rate website packages priced at £5,000/each.

Fixed operating expenses: £10,000
Variable expenses/package: £1,000
Current sales price: £5,000/package

£10,000/(£5,000 – £1,000)
£10,000/(£4,000) = 2.5

According to this calculation, the web designer would need to sell 2.5 website packages to break even and start earning a profit.

In order to improve profitability, the designer may decide to cut expenses, switch to lower-priced business service providers, raise her rates, or try to sell her customers new “add on” services.

Final thoughts

To ensure you’re always making business decisions based on the most accurate, up to date info, make it a habit to update your break-even analysis each quarter.

Now that you know your company’s break-even point, what will you do to increase your small business’s profitability today?

Kind Regards,
The Team at London Accountants

Category: accounting news

Spring Budget 2023 – a brief roundup!

Employee vs contractor – what you need to know!

1. Ability to subcontract or delegate

2. Basis of payment

3. Equipment, tools, and other assets

4. Commercial risks

5. Control over the work

6. Independence

Final thoughts

Don’t miss out on the Tax-Free Childcare program!

Inflation sees hike in vehicle-related benefit charges

3 Mistakes That Strangle Growing Businesses

Hiring Toxic Personalities

Changing Your Product

Misinterpreting The Market

Collaboration: 5 Reasons It’s Essential to a Growing Company

Separating personal and business expenses

Why your business needs you to say no

Do you know your break-even point?

While you do your business, we'll do your numbers.

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