Free up extra cash for Christmas
Small companies rarely make use of all the help available to them
Too few small businesses keep unnecessary costs to an absolute minimum. Here are six ideas that might pay for a Christmas bonus.
Claim tax breaks
Many small firms do not realise they can claim valuable tax breaks. Consider tax credits for research and development (R&D): you can set anything you spend on eligible R&D against your corporation-tax bill, plus another 130% of the spending. This doesn’t have to mean conducting breakthrough research – the criteria are broad. You may qualify if you have taken a risk by attempting to “resolve scientific or technological uncertainties”. That might mean creating new products, but it could just mean changing what you currently do.
Bear down on bills
Too few small businesses shop around. It’s not just a case of finding the cheapest energy and broadband packages: the smallbusiness price-comparison site smallbusiness.co.uk can help you bag cheap deals on items from cardpayment machines to public-liability insurance.
Cut national insurance costs
Small businesses with a total employers’ national insurance liability of less than £100,000 over the course of the financial year can claim the Employment Allowance when making electronic filings to HMRC. There is the potential to reduce your total national insurance bill by up to £4,000 a year. You can also claim the Employment Allowance for the last four tax years if you have previously overlooked doing so.
Consider outsourcing
Outsourcing contracts don’t have to be the preserve of large businesses buying in large volumes of support services.
The cost of recruiting staff is rising and small businesses often don’t have enough of some kinds of work to justify full-time roles. In which case, hiring specialist support as you need it can make sense. While you’ll know what’s core to your company – and therefore needs to be kept in-house – support services such as bookkeeping, digital marketing and payroll administration are often better delivered by an outside expert.