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Use Our Business Address Service

Existing clients: buy a Business Address Service here

Our Business Address Service can be described as ‘any other usage’ of our address which is not at Companies House.

Sole traders would buy only it and nothing more; that’s all they would need.  Limited companies would buy it if they want to get letters from their bank or their clients.

The great thing about a virtual office address is that you don’t have to maintain a bricks-and-mortar one; you can have all the glamour of an address in the big city without the massive overhead of leasing commercial office space. No lease, no utility bills no hassle. The money saved can be put towards your business.

Here are some other clever uses of our business address service:

1. Use It As Your Domain Name Registrant Address.

Domain registrars want a mailing address for their database. While they may not display it publicly if you choose not to do it, a mailing address is needed.

For the sake of your personal privacy or because you want to look more professional, you can buy our Business Address Service here.

2. Keep Your Landlord Happy.

Landlords often won’t let you use your home address at Companies House. They may not even be happy at the idea that you are trying to run a business full-stop.

This is because they are 1. Afraid of having random bailiffs coming to their properties and 2. They don’t want to risk their property being re-classified by the local council for business usage, as that would affect their rates.

These are legitimate concerns, as newbie businessmen often don’t know what they’re doing. If the landlord did not police the uses his address were put to, over time it would attract a stream of bailiffs and other official and unofficial nuisances.

3. Project A Better Image.

A business address on business cards and stationery gives you and your enterprise a professional look and feel.

Most of our addresses offer a meeting room at an extra hourly charge, so you can meet clients there if you want to, subject to availability.

4. Be Flexible With Your Location.

Having a postal address which is not tied to your home address is very good if you think you might be moving home in the future.

You keep the same address for your ordinary business or personal correspondence while everything else might be changing in your life.

This helps you look more professional and stable. Clients who are spending money with you will do basic internet searches looking for signs of quality, and the reverse.

A business address which looks like a residential address on Google Maps is a red flag if you’re trying to pass yourself off as a high-class entity.

5. Keep A Foothold In The UK.

Many Britons migrate abroad for better weather or a cheaper lifestyle.

They sell the house or move out of their flat. They still want to have a British address for certain kinds of correspondence.

This is where are UK virtual address comes in handy.

6. Put It In Google My Business.

Google will list an address for your business which should be different from your home address.

It’s not illegal to use an address in a different city. This may also help with your search engine optimisation. We would say however that this is not something that should be abused, or relied on long term.

If you are living and operating your business 100 miles from London but are advertising yourself as being physically based in the capital then that is an incongruity that may cost you some sales.

The best approach is to offer the most positive perception of yourself and your business and be able to explain its features if someone calls you up and asks.

One way ’round this is simply to advertise our address as being for correspondence, in your contact form and elsewhere.

Many big companies trade from an industrial estate in the outskirts of a big city but have a postal address in the commercial district in the centre.

That can be our address.

7. Keep Stalkers At Bay.

In the digital era stalkers are becoming increasingly common.

These are people with mental issues who fixate on a person and try to intrude into their life, uninvited. The days of robust, instant and natural justice are long gone in an increasingly politicised UK society.

A vulnerable person can get a personal address for themselves and start migrating their communications there.

Some banks will happily route their letters through a virtual office. Most other entities will have no problem with it; they just want their bills paid!

The stalker finds less avenues to bother you and if they turn up at our buildings looking for you, they will get short shrift!

Buy a Business Address Service for yourself or your company today

The post Use Our Business Address Service appeared first on Blog.

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Accountancy For Startups

Successful startups need accountancy help. Income and expenditure need to be recorded, annotated, calculated and an accurate set of accounts produced.

Many small businesses go under, not because their owners were bad at trading, but because they were bad record-keepers. An unexpected tax bill in Year 4 can mean the difference between profit and bankruptcy.

With that in mind, here is a review of the three top accounting software packages and a new one from RegisteredAddress.co.uk.

Contact us via our online account ticketing system for more information

QuickBooks Online caters to individual accountants and small businesses.

It covers basic functions like payroll, inventory and reporting and meets the needs of complex small businesses and simple freelancers.

Bank reconciliation, drafting invoices tracking expenses and monitoring financial reports are some of its features. Also billing and invoicing services and expense tracking.

Users can download and reconcile credit card transactions, organise weekly timesheets, track bank deposits.

It can track projects and inventory, offering a range of service tiers and is scalable. Hundreds of apps integrate with it. It’s updated monthly.

Data is hosted in the cloud, so the software can be accessed by multiple users on different devices. It can synchronise with your bank accounts for live feeds.

Entrepreneurs can grant their accountant access and share files with them. Invoices can be customised and one can schedule automatic payment reminders. Profit and loss reports, cash flow, expenses and budgeting are other useful features.

QuickBooks provides customisable templates which can be branded with the business logo and then used to create invoices, bills and reports. Different staff can operate it at different permission levels to create a more secure operating environment.

It can also import data from third party services like Paypal.

Sage operates in a similar way, in that it offers different package prices and feature pack to suit small, medium and larger businesses.

Fees are monthly and the cheapest one offers simple income and expenses, invoicing, reporting, integration with your bank account and VAT processing.

Sage One handles statements, price quotes, estimates and invoices. Payment transactions from third parties can be imported. Accounting information is displayed on a single dashboard, for ease of viewing.

It can calculate applicable taxes using transaction data and users can forecast cash requirements in the future based on previous historical transactions.

Dashboards, transaction drill-downs and graphs provide your accountant with a clear overview of your accounts at any time. It works with Macs, PCs, iOS and Android as well as tablets, smartphones and desktops. It’s fully mobile and collaborative and its online nature means it can be updated on the fly, to keep up to date with changes to accounting rules and regulations.

Its creators make a bold claim for it: that it doesn’t require any accounting knowledge or previous experience.

It comes with free 24/7 email and telephone support, so new entrepreneurs can have some backup while they are learning how to use it.

One criticism is that it is more aimed at accountants than at amateurs.

However, we would say that there is no way that anything more than very simple income and expenditure can be simplified in accounting, without losing useful features.

Sage One offers a free trial so you don’t have to pay before you play with it. After the trial is over you can set up the account with your business details e.g. its name and type.

Xero Accounting Software is now giving QuickBooks and Sage some serious competition.

At the time of writing, it has over 1.2 million subscribers worldwide. Xero Early is aimed at new businesses.

Xero offers complex accounting features, reports and hundreds of integrations. As is common nowadays, it’s a cloud-based software. It is reportedly the primary accounting software used by over 16,000 accounting companies and now offers project management.

However, users have complained about recent price increases and that it no longer bundles built-in payroll with its plans. Customer support, limited expense claims, projects and multi-currency support are other points of contention.

On the plus side it has a lot of automations like group invoicing and default email templates. One nice feature is that it offers unlimited users.

However, there is limited tax support, limited invoice templates and the learning curve is steep.

Xero has the advantage for Mac users in that it’s cloud-based so there is no loss of features; anyone with normal internet access can use it.

Xero is a good solution for medium to large-sized businesses in need of strong accounting and the option to have multiple users without paying proportionately.

Users have access to their cash flow in real time from any device so they can work from anywhere they can get a wifi connection.

REGISTEREDADDRESS.co.uk Accountancy

Get in touch with us and speak to a qualified accountant!

We offer:

1. Small monthly payments for a complete accountancy service

Perfect for startups which range from dormant status, to a gross income of less than the VAT threshold of £85K (as at tax year 2019).

Let us take care of the essentials while you take care of building your business!

2. Simple and secure method of transferring data

We’ve simplified the entire process. You give us everything in a couple of simple ways (custom-developed by Registered Address limited) and we’ll take care of the rest!

3. Accounts checked by a qualified accountant

Software has its limits. It can’t highlight areas where you could save money on tax or the numbers don’t make sense for the industry you’re operating in.

We have live accountants who check all your data before sending them to you for your approval, to be then submitted to HMRC and Companies House.

Contact us via our online account ticketing system for more information

The post Accountancy For Startups appeared first on Blog.

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What SIC Code Should I Use?

SIC stands for Standard Industrial Classification. This is the list of  numerical codes that the UK government uses to categorise limited companies niches in the UK.

How do I find out mine?

The Companies House list is hard to use. If you try to search it by typing in your business niche e.g. “web design”, you will not find a code that matches your business. The codes are general categories and they do not list the business types that come under them.

Here is the trick: Look up some of your competitors in the Companies House database and see what SIC code they are using. Then use that code in your own Companies House listing or formation.

See the UK government SIC code list here. Search on any UK company’s registration listing here. Customers: Go here to form a company. Clients: Send us a ticket if you want to change your current SIC code.

The post What SIC Code Should I Use? appeared first on Blog.

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Complications Of Corporate Accountancy

Something that often catches out small businessmen is their accounting.

For example, there are two company annual returns to Companies House and one to HMRC.

These can be quite daunting for someone not familiar with accounting.

Technical terms are used, login access has to be obtained and some new businessmen are so naive they think they can set up a company and just leave it. That is not so.

Changing circumstances always require additional work and advice from your accountant. The client goes over the VAT threshold and the accounts become more complicated. The accountant makes more money, but, he earns it.

– Send us a ticket if you have a query about your own accountancy needs.

Accountancy is boring and complicated to the small-businessman and that’s why accountants get paid to do it.

Being tax efficient is a great way to ‘earn’ money by not giving it to the taxman.

Even if clients don’t earn much they want to save tax. Some businessmen are quite canny and make their accountant work for his daily bread.

A good accountant is responsive to your queries, files on time and saves you tax money.

For this kind of support, you can’t use a cheap accountant; they have to work for their bread and they have studied hard, for years, to know what they know.

You want someone you can trust to do your accounts; someone who is a member of a professional body and who doesn’t make mistakes you have to correct him about.

A good accountant can talk to a client on his level, explain to him what is needed to maintain his records properly and to remain within the bounds of the law of the land. Bookkeepers can handle simple procedures but when you have a complicated crisis you need a professional to help you.

It is possible to outsource accounting to, say, India, but such persons will not have the day-to-day knowledge of current affairs in the UK and HMRC’s latest accounting requirements.

Typical Accounting Tasks

– Companies House accounts; – Companies House Confirmation Statement; – HMRC: Tax return for Corporation Tax.

These returns require:

– Companies house authentication code; – UTR number for corporation tax return to HMRC.

And then:

Connected returns

– Payroll (PAYE) – optional, but usually necessary.

If you earn a reasonable amount, or you don’t have another job, then basic tax planning would be for you to have a payroll.

And then: 

– Register for PAYE;

– Collate staff information;

– Monthly submissions and payslips sent;

– Annual P60 emailed.

Possible adjustments:

– Changes to pay or rate; – Changes in staff, which requires …

… new staff details to be collated and issuing a P45 for the outgoing staff member!

More:

– Changes in staff tax code annually and possibly during the year;

– Sick leave, maternity, annual leave;

– CIS: Construction Industry Scheme, in the building trade;

— Verification of staff for the scheme.

And then the UK sales tax:

VAT – mandatory and voluntary

There’s an £85k turnover threshold, if your business reaches it, which leads to:

– The VAT Registration process;

– Quarterly returns (quarterly accounts with deadline 1 month and 7 days);

– Choice of schemes.

Important: Self-assessment tax returns for Directors is legally required even if they do not take any benefit from the company.

And then there’s the information required to complete the Self Assessment tax return. The accountant will need records of all personal income:

– P60 from employers; – Records of any taxable benefits such maternity allowance; – Rental income accounts if you rent a house; – If married, a marriage allowance adjustment (only applicable if applied for and main earner is not a higher rate tax payer); – CGT calculations if you sold a second home/rental property and more.

For anything beyond filling in P60 figures the additional work would normally be an extra charge.

And finally:

The 64-8 Client Authorisation Form

This gives authorisation to the accountant to communicate with HMRC on behalf of clients. It must have codes for each type of tax and must have an original signature; scans are not acceptable.

The above are the sort of tricky things you pay your accountant to deal with so you don’t have to. Accountancy for anything other than a one-man-band with simple income and expenditure accounts requires someone with a professional qualification.

Preparing and submitting accounts is complicated and stressful and interferes with the normal running of business if the small businessman is trying to do it himself.

 – Send us a ticket if you have a query about your own accountancy needs.

The post Complications Of Corporate Accountancy appeared first on Blog.

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Brexit – No Big Deal?

We are sure our readers are heartily fed up of hearing about Britain’s exiting the EU.

It has been babbled about at length and emoted over from the highest to the lowest levels of England’s green and pleasant land.

For client’s forming new companies and UK virtual offices generally, the effect will be – little to none.

This is not simply our opinion.

This writer attended a conference in early January of virtual office providers. The speakers were past and present staff of HMRC and Companies House (These are the UK government taxation and company registration departments, respectively.)

And what effect did they say Brexit would have on virtual offices?

Nil. None. Niente.

To be clear, this writer put the question more than once. “What effect will Brexit have on our industry?”

The answer was nothing.

Why?

Because British people and foreign residents have been forming companies and renting mailing addresses since long before the EU came into being.

Brighter minds than you or I looked around to find out what might be a problem, and came up with nothing.

So, try not to fret.

We suspect this will apply to large sectors of the wider economy as well.

Most British residents and businesses are not exposed to problems that could be generated by border queues or increases in import-export tariffs.

Thinking about it, in whose interest is it to create problems for normal international trade?

Only those persons who could benefit by our staying in the EU: civil servants and politicians and those others whose payments from the EU purse might cease. Hence the loud noises from certain quarters, and the shrugging of shoulders in most others.

To actively harm international trade, by one side or other of the British Channel, by creating trading problems after a cessation of a customs union, would be perverse.

Let us not, however, discount the irrational in Man or the venality of politicians.

Of more concern to economists worldwide currently is the amount of debt located in collateralised loan obligations and, within the UK, the possibility of a hard-line leftist government if the British Labour party becomes the dominant party after the next general election.

The post Brexit – No Big Deal? appeared first on Blog.

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Keep Your Home Address Private

Directors of UK companies have to give a public mailing address to Companies House. This is so that the public can write to them and also for greater transparency.  

Check your company listing here, then click on the ‘People’ link.

This address is called the Director’s Service or Correspondence Address. 

Companies House shows the name, postal address, month and year of birth for each director. That’s too much information if your public address is also your residential address.

1. Log into your account and buy the Director’s Service Address option; 2. Then buy the Change Director’s Service Address option.

Got More Than One Director?

Buy an extra Director’s Service Address here for each one of your company’s directors!

The post Keep Your Home Address Private appeared first on Blog.

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How To Change Your Forwarding Address

When you move house, you need to tell us where you’ve moved to, so we can update our system and send your letters there.

– Recently bought or renewed your account? Go here to and type the new address so our staff can begin the changeover.

– Been with us a while? Go here to change the address.

Local legislation and local authorities here in London require that we “know our customer”. They inspect our records. It also helps us filter out undesirable businesses. This means that our addresses are associated with quality businesses, and thus, yours is elevated by association too.

The personal name and the forwarding address on the account must match the ID documents uploaded and they must be readily legible and understandable by our staff.

What will be acceptable: a scan or photo of a tangible utility bill, bank statement, government letter, tenancy agreement or similar document from the new forwarding address on the account.

Our staff will review the documents uploaded and the manually change the forwarding address on the account.

– Need a mail forwarding address?

The post How To Change Your Forwarding Address appeared first on Blog.

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Keep Your Account In Good Standing

Some obvious ways our clients keep their accounts current is by signing up for the right service, renewing the account when it expires or striking off the company if it’s no longer trading.

New customers: register here to get a mailing address to put on your website Existing customers: update or renew your account here

It’s important that users are aware that they’re not allowed to display our address if they don’t have an active account with us. Our hard-working staff return-to-sender sackloads of letters every week. Unwanted letters also increase our overheads.

Here are 5 common unauthorised uses of our address:

1. The account has expired or the company is dormant, but the client is continuing to display our address on CompaniesHouse.gov.uk website as the registered office address, and in other locations;

2. The client purchased only one Director’s Service Address, but has all their other directors listed on Companies House, without creating a new Director’s Service Address account for the additional directors;

3. The client pays for a cheaper address but starts using a more expensive address;

4. The client pays for the ‘Registered Office Address Service’ but is using the address as a ‘Business Address Service’, or vice versa;

5. Account stacking: Paying for one account but registering multiple companies or businesses at our address.

6. Address squatting: not paying for the address at all but using it as a placeholder on a website.

TIP: If you no longer need your company you should strike it off, or, if you wish, we can strike off your company for you. Companies which are not maintained, legally, attract fines, which make the directors look bad.

Existing clients: Get us to strike off your company for you

The post Keep Your Account In Good Standing appeared first on Blog.

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10 Smart New Year Business Resolutions

At this time of year individuals often try to make firm promises to change something about themselves. It’s usually to stop smoking, start exercising and eat less.

It’s also a time that men naturally take stock of other things in their life, like their business goals and direction.

In the holiday period you are naturally not so busy. You’ve had some festive cheer and had time to take walks around the neighbourhood to see what your neighbours are up to.

– Does your website contact page have a postal address?

Maybe you’ve gone for a walk in the woods or up a mountain and gotten a different perspective than ‘nose to the grindstone, get to the weekend’ mentality the comprises much of the business week.

Here are 10 ideas about what to focus on in 2019.

1. Get it in writing

Verbal agreements are written in the wind. If you’ve done major deals, interior or exterior to your company, but they’re not in writing, change that fast.

Everyone needs to know their obligations; who, what, when, where, and why. A simple contract means there’ll be no misunderstandings later.

2. Pay taxes

The deadline for payment of self-employed taxes is coming up soon in the UK (31st January). If you’ve not started on your returns, do so now. Make sure you (or your accountant) have login access to HMRC to submit your returns speedily when your books are brought up to date.

3. Seek out partnerships

They don’t need to be symbiotic. Even the guy who runs the cafe you go to might have one good idea. People in the same or associated industries might be able to help you (and you them), as long as you’re not directly competing.

The point is not to operate in a sealed-off bubble. Even big companies can get blind-sided by a cheeky upstart. They turn in on themselves and start competing internally. Long-term, this can be fatal.

4. Delegate more

Keep the fun stuff to yourself and delegate the dull stuff to employees or contractors. It’s foolish to work 80-hour weeks and be un-clogging the company toilet yourself because ‘you want it done right’.

5. Make specific, dated goals

A vague resolution to do X some time before July will mean X will probably never be done.

Set a time and date, with details, of what X is and when it has to be done, and set a reminder, either electronically or on a calendar you look at every day.

6. Declutter your brain

Have a system of note-taking which means you can access important ideas quickly.

The ideal is that you can take a week’s holiday, come back to work, open up the spreadsheet/calendar/notebook and get right back into the flow without having to fumble around like a bumpkin.

Entrepreneurs tend to be clever people. Clever people tend to have good memories. Relying on your memory as your business grows will mean important meetings are missed and important documents are not signed. That is not clever!

7. More marketing!

Sometimes, the business of business gets in the way of getting new custom. Getting out there and blowing your trumpet can be stressful, especially for introverts.

A business that isn’t actively looking for new business can soon become moribund. Only someone with a monopoly of an essential good can afford to sit back and take things easy. Even then, monopolies don’t last forever.

Someone will see that you’re doing well and find some way to dislodge you. Or you will make an error, founded in complacency.

Make a list of promotional ideas as you go along and refer back to it any time you feel the company is ‘running out of steam’.

8. Update your business plan

We don’t mean the thing you gave your bank when applying for a loan. We mean your weekly, monthly and yearly to-do list.

A clever man can keep most of it in his head, but then he finds the authorities start sending him evil brown envelopes because he forgot to fill in a particular form. He has a clever idea while having a bath, writes it on a scrap of paper and then forgets it; free zero-point energy then takes another decade to become publicly available because some other genius has to think it up.

9. Keep reading, keep researching

You can ask any question you like of a search engine and get a coherent answer. Even late in the second decade of the 21st century, most people don’t capitalise on this. Forums have learned men who are happy to help a newbie, if only he can ask the right question of them.

Most citizens use Google to find pictures of cats and the shortest route to a pizzeria. They could be answering their most fundamental questions, while sipping coffee in their living room, instead.

10. Start exit planning

If you should ever need to quit your business, or you might want to sell it one day, have an exit plan in place.

Most important: get clear on what the actual value in your business is.

If specific individuals, contracts or relationships are essential to ongoing profitability, either lock those down in writing or find alternatives for a specific deal, should that deal, based on a personal relationship, collapse.

– Get a smart mailing address for yourself or your business.

The post 10 Smart New Year Business Resolutions appeared first on Blog.

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Business Predictions – Read The Signs

First, may we at RegisteredAddress.co.uk wish our clients and visitors success for the coming year of 2019.

2018 was overshadowed by the looming divorce that is ‘Brexit’, but this writer proposes that, as always, it is boring, underlying economic indicators that are better predictors of short-to-medium term outcomes for small and large businesses.

Here are a few signs to watch:

– Employment levels; – Energy prices; – Commodity prices; – FTSE 500 share prices; – Left or right-leaning governments’ economic actions; – Wars and rumours of wars; – Gold price; – Currency fluctuations; – Oil price.

The trick is watching these over the medium term.

If the president of the United States sneezes live on TV, US shares will go down. Briefly. That is only of interest to stockbrokers and the very rich.

Smaller players want to get a feel of overall trends.

You’ve probably fallen asleep just reading that list above. You shouldn’t. Watching indicators like that over a period of weeks, months and years, and reading reliable, conservative commentators, will make you the local savant when it comes to predicting the future.

You will then find that watching BBC nightly news will make you laugh, right before you turn it off to watch an interesting and informative video on Youtube (or a cat video. We all need a break now and again.)

What not to pay attention to: the ‘screeches’ of the day; what the popular press is wailing about today. It’s already too late to do anything about what’s happening today. It’s probably not that important. It may even be false news, and deliberately so.

The press is always behind popular trends, not in front. Investigative reporting is largely dead; internet leaking has taken its place. The only thing CNN, Fox and the BBC can do is jazz up these leaks and slant them according to the ideology of the station owners; news has become entertainment.

We plebs go “ooh” and “ah” and tut at misery happening to someone else, far away.

This applies most especially to the nightly news. News media now is always behind social media.

They don’t break stories; they waffle about them, at length and with little substance. Save yourself some anxiety before bedtime by not watching the 9 o’ clock news. If there’s flooding in Alaska, there’s nothing you can do about it at 9.15pm and your sleep will be disturbed.

Of more use are specialist publications, online and off, that address particular niches. You should subscribe to a magazine or two, learn to filter out the ignorant and those with an agenda, and thus sift out pearls of wisdom.

Somebody, somewhere, knows what’s really going on and has posted a short paragraph on their blog or a forum.

So, what will happen in 2019 in the UK?

There’s a small chance Brexit will blow over like a bad smell in a strong wind. Vested interests will lose some padded chairs but basic trade will continue, unless the technocratic class decides to make a stand. In the opinion of this writer, they may be blind enough to do so.

In life, a problem long dreaded can often turn out to be much smaller than in one’s imagination. Britain went through two World Wars in a short space of time; bombs were dropping nightly on London’s East End. Brexit is nowhere near that level of disruption.

The danger of Brexit is that it will disturb Europe’s economy, which is already febrile with low economic growth, civil disturbance and an odd forgetting of recent history; socialists are making a comeback.

Quantitative easing (money printing) is a trick that can’t be done indefinitely. Too many businesses are directly and indirectly reliant on easy credit to keep functioning. What a world it is, when ‘First World’ governments print money to keep the show on the road!

Bundled debt, this time called ‘collateralized loan obligations’, has made a comeback. Silly prices are being paid for mere trophies. Large banks are being investigated once again by the authorities.

This is therefore not a time to make big gambles, like taking out fat loans or leasing premises one doesn’t urgently need. The outlook is too unsettled. With one proviso:

A smart man can make a fortune during unsettled times by buying that which is undervalued at that time.

The UK, as an entity, needs to get 6 months’ past Brexit (end of March 2019) for the short term outlook to be clearer. From an historical point of view, getting out of a dysfunctional legal union is not disaster by any means.

Britain, with its Pound, is simply a useful place to store your wealth which is not the US, Switzerland or a dubious offshore destination.

If the economic indicators were stronger, Britons would be tutting at the antics of our continental neighbours while sipping their morning cup of tea, before commuting to their quietly-prosperous vocations.

The post Business Predictions – Read The Signs appeared first on Blog.

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How To Sell A Product To A Customer

Here are 7 sales tips that anyone can use. You don’t need to be an extrovert or a wheeler-dealer; leave the cowboy hat at home!

Try these tricks next time you have to persuade someone to buy something.

1. Qualification

Can I reasonably expect this person to buy my product? If the answer is no, then you’re wasting your time and theirs.

You hear phrases like “I could sell refrigerators to eskimos”. What many people don’t know is that eskimos buy refrigerators to keep their food warm i.e. from freezing.

A better example would be selling a car to someone who can’t drive. It can be done, but it’s work and they may not thank you for it later, which will affect your word of mouth.

It’s far easier to sell to someone who can truly benefit from your product and not the competition’s.

Also, the person: Some people just aren’t interested in buying, or can’t afford the product or will nickel-and-dime you to death. You need to figure out who’s a live prospect.

And: reverse psychology. If you give customers the idea you think the product isn’t for them, it can stimulate the undecided to buy from you. You sound more like you care and you’ve given them a challenge.

2. Positive Attitude

This doesn’t mean nodding like an idiot at whatever the customer says. It means trying to help them get the best deal that furthers their goals.

You can be ‘positively negative’; if you think what they’re asking for is not in their long-term interests, say so, and offer a better idea, showing how you understand what they’re trying to achieve. They’ll love you for it.

3. Research

The more you know about your customer, the better you can get on their wavelength and connect with them. Check out their website, companies house listing, blogs, news stories, get a general idea of the nature of their own business and any particularly current nuggets of pertinent information.

Most people feel under-valued. If you can show the least bit of pertinent interest, that goes a long way, even with a curmudgeon.

4. Take An Interest

Most people are much more interested in themselves than they are in you. Their hierarchy of personal interest is:

– Themselves, their property and their desires first, then: – Family members; – Friends; – Neighbours; – Anything and anyone else (that’s you!)

This is natural and logical. You can call it selfish, but if you don’t take care of Number 1 you probably won’t be able to take care of anyone or anything else.

Therefore any pitch that doesn’t appeal to a person’s self interest had better be a work of art, to engage the subject and elicit the desired response.

You can easily find out what a person is interested in by simply asking questions and letting them talk. If what you’re offering overlaps with what they want, then the sale is half-way done.

Try not to talk over your prospect or overwhelm them with your wants. That will flag up that you’re a pushy salesman pretty quickly and the more worldly client will be repelled; they’ve had that before and didn’t like it.

Another ‘trick’: Most people never have a conversation where someone takes a genuine interest in what they have to say; everyone, including you, is self-focused!

So if you are a keen listener, you will stand out from the background noise of their daily communications.

5. Answer Objections

When you start with a new product or service clients will fire back questions you won’t be able to answer. Over time, you will develop responses to meet their objections.

You can save time by giving a natural sounding speech, with pauses, which answers objections before they make them BUT if they are itching to interject, let them; don’t talk over people, customers hate that and it’s a bit rude.

6. Get Referrals

Word of mouth is the best advertising. Get happy clients to refer you to their friends, families and colleagues, in return for a commission. This is called an affiliate program.

Figure out how to get other people to talk about your product or service; this is how big businesses became big; they have a remarkable product or service.

7. Closing

Guide the conversation through a series of positive responses (on both sides) culminating in a decisive commitment from the prospect; they’re at the purchase page of your website and you are taking them through the purchase.

That’s the great thing about the internet; you can ‘stand beside’ someone while they buy, even though they’re hundreds of miles away.

The post How To Sell A Product To A Customer appeared first on Blog.

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Strike Off A Company At Companies House

One closes down a company when the deficits outweigh the benefits. It’s not making money and it’s costing money to maintain. The business didn’t take off, you’ve got a new job and now the yearly government filings are starting to get annoying.

You lay off staff, sell off assets, pay outstanding debts and close down the bank account. What’s next?

Next is the formal ‘striking off’ of the company from the Companies House Register. This is also called ‘dissolution’, as the company is being ‘dissolved’.

– New clients: Change your registered office to us and get us to close your company down for you. – Existing clients: Log in here and buy the service from your account dashboard. – Then buy a new company formation from us!

Before that happens, you have to abide by the law. This requires that:

– You announce your intention to creditors and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC); – You make your employees redundant; – You deal with business assets and finances.

You then file an application to strike off and send a copy of it within 7 days to any unaware bodies or persons who could be significantly affected:

– Shareholders; – Creditors; – Employees; – Directors; – Pension fund managers.

The idea is that you don’t act carelessly or in a criminal manner i.e. evade your responsibilities, otherwise you can face a fine and possible prosecution.

You complete and send to Companies House form DS01, which must be signed by a majority of the company’s directors. Our staff can do that for you.

It costs £10 GBP to strike off a company, which is paid using a cheque drawn on an account that does not belong to the company you’re striking off!

With employees you give them their final salary/wage, pay outstanding National Insurance and PAYE and then inform HMRC you’ve stopped employing them.

Business assets are to be shared among the shareholders before the company is struck off. After striking off the Crown gets ‘bona vacantia’ any monies or assets still legally attached to the company. To get those assets back, you might need to ‘restore’ the company legally.

You then send final statutory accounts and a Company Tax Return to HMRC. You pay any outstanding taxes.

You must keep business documents like bank statements, invoices and receipts for seven years after the company is dissolved. You must also keep copies of the company’s employers’ liability insurance policy and schedule for forty years from the date the company was dissolved, if you had employees.

It is criminal offence to make a fraudulent application; you may be fined and prosecuted.

Companies House will then write you a letter to let you know if you’ve completed the application to their satisfaction. If so, the strike-off request will be published in your local ‘Gazette’.

If nobody objects to the strike-off (like HMRC), the company will be struck off the register after 2 months. Then another notice be published in the Gazette which will announce that your company has been dissolved.

Please note: Striking off is not an alternative to insolvency proceedings. A struck-off company can be restored by creditors or HMRC, so they can attach its assets.

The following circumstances disqualify a company from striking off, if they have occurred in the past 3 months (i.e. your company has to be totally dormant for 3 months):

– It has traded; – It has changed its name; – It has engaged in any other activity except that which is necessary for the purpose of closing down the company (e.g. seeking professional help in shutting down the company); – It is involved in insolvency proceedings; – It has bearer shares in issue.

It’s a legal offence if you contravene these restrictions.

For the small businessman: a solvent company (one which has no debts), and which has no assets, can be easily struck off.

Once a company has been struck off, it can’t make payments, trade, sell assets, or engage in any other business activities. Its listing at Companies House shows as ‘dissolved’.

– New clients: Change your registered office to us and get us to close your company down for you. – Existing clients: Log in here and buy the service from your account dashboard. – Then buy a new company formation from us!

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When And How To Update Your PSC Register

When And How To Update Your PSC Register At Companies House

A person with significant control (PSC) of a company is someone who:

– Has more more than 25% of the total shares of the company and/or – Has more more than 25% of voting rights in the company and/or – Has the right to appoint or remove the majority of the board of directors.

– Existing clients can add or remove a Director or Shareholder via their account dashboard. – Existing clients can buy an update to their PSC register via their account dashboard. – New clients can buy an update to their PSC register as part of their registration with RegisteredAddress.co.uk

Even a ‘shadow’ controller can’t really escape this definition. The old name for such a person is a ‘beneficial owner’; someone who has significant control of the company and gets benefits in cash or in kind.

The historical background to this new record is so that criminals can’t hide so easily who actually benefits from a company.

Those who wish to hide money offshore are very happy to use company registers which do not list a company’s shareholders. The UK still has a certain touch of class which the Seychelles does not. Its use as a register of a company is reassuring to investors.

This has attracted dirty money from other countries, to the embarrassment of the UK government. The PSC register is a partial answer to this concern.

A PSC register for a person contains the following information:

– Personal name; – Date of birth (the full D.O.B will not be displayed publicly); – Nationality; – Country of residence; – Service address (this will be displayed publicly); – Residential address (Not publicly displayed); – Date they became a PSC in your company; – Date they were entered into into your PSC register;

Also:

– Their shares and voting rights, in these proportions:

— Over 25% and up to and including 50%; — Greater than 50% and less than 75%; — 75% or more.

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The PSC register is updated in an ongoing fashion i.e. you don’t wait until your annual Confirmation Statement is due to inform Companies House who has significant control of your company. You may file as many confirmation statements as you want throughout the company accounting year (but only pay the Confirmation Statement fee to Companies house once during that year).

Companies need to report PSC changes to Companies House at the time they happen. Companies are required to maintain their Register of People with Significant Control.

Companies and LLPs have 14 days to update their PSC register after a significant personnel change occurs, and then a further 14 days to submit that change to Companies House. Companies still have to file at least one Confirmation Statement per company year.

Certain PSC information, such as the day of a PSC’s date of birth and usual residential address, is accessible only by specific public authorities. PSC information held on the public record is available to law enforcement agencies, with no exceptions.

– Existing clients can add or remove a Director or Shareholder via their account dashboard. – Existing clients can buy an update to their PSC register via their account dashboard. – New clients can buy it as part of their registration with RegisteredAddress.co.uk

Please note: If you did not form your Ltd company on RegisteredAddress.co.uk’s platform then we will need to first get authorisation from Companies House to do filings on your behalf. This process can take 14-28 days to complete as you have to email us the authentication code (which we will apply for) once you receive the letter from Companies House.

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How To Start A Startup

Introduction

Here are some articles we’ve crafted over the years which take you step-by-step through the process of starting a startup and then maintaining it.

Beginner businessmen sometimes dive headfirst into starting a business without researching first, and thus they do not stand on the shoulders of those that have gone before them.

Should you start a startup at all?

Being an entrepreneur has a certain glamour but there are hard facts to take into consideration before you quit your day job.

– When NOT to start your own business. – Employment vs. Entrepreneurship.

Personal attributes of a starter businessman

What qualities should you have?

– 7 things a businessman needs.

How to come up with a business idea

Come up with a worthwhile idea for your business before you commit time and money.

– How to come up with a business idea (6 part series.)

Get a postal address for your website

– Buy a mailing address for your website today.

What can you sell?

How to narrow down what you can offer the public.

– What you can sell to make some money.

Starting a business: 30 tips

Some simple ideas to get your business going without making basic mistakes.

– 30 tips on starting a business (3 part series.)

Limited Company – Pros and Cons

Should you set up a limited company, or not?

– Advantages & disadvantages of setting up a limited company.

How to create a business plan

Financiers will need to see one of these before they invest in your company.

– How to create a business plan.

How to get a business bank account

Your clients will often want to pay you direct to your business bank account. If you use a personal one, it can create accounting and image problems.

– How UK residents can get a business bank account.

– How non-residents can get a UK bank account.

Keeping proper accounts

How to keep track of your income an expenditure in a way that will please your accountant and HMRC.

– Small business accounting tips: an overview.

How to avoid going bankrupt

Sometimes businesses show warning signs that all is not well. Here’s what to do.

– How to avoid going bust.

Gone bust? No problem!

Dust yourself off and start again.

– So your business has failed, so what?

• Register a company today

The post How To Start A Startup appeared first on Blog.

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When Returns Are Not Filed

This article will deal with UK corporate annual returns, to Companies House and HMRC.

To answer the question posed by the title, what happens when returns are not filed is that you get penalties and fines. Companies House fines start at £100 and go up to £1500. Ultimately your company may have its assets appropriated by court decree, or be struck off.

Simply put, the state can ultimately instigate court action against the company to retrieve any tax monies it believes it is owed. It may also strike uncooperative companies of the national register, if they do not send in their annual returns.

If returns to HMRC are not submitted after a grace period, HMRC may ‘determine’ what you owe and you will not be able to dispute it. You can only change the amount owed by submitting your tax return.

If a company is struck off, its assets become the property of the state.

That is to say, the UK practices light-touch regulation, but if you do not feed the bureaucratic beast, it will devour your company in quite a mechanical way; nothing personal, just business!

The fines and penalties by HMRC increase in cost over time.

HMRC and Companies House want to keep their databases clean and Her Majesty’s Government wants to get the tax revenue it needs to maintain the state. Cheeky little companies who can’t be bothered to keep proper accounts and pay their dues create an administrative headache and a revenue loss which the state grinds down on, over time.

A bad mistake new companies make is that they think that because they are not trading, they don’t have to do any returns. This is wrong.

Dormant companies still have to do annual returns, which are not much different than if they had been trading and making money. The state still wants to know what you are up to.

One way to not submit returns on time is to miss the reminders that HMRC and Companies House send by letter.

– Make sure that your address provider has your correct forwarding address; – Make sure that your payments to your address provider are up to date; – Make sure that your listing at Companies House looks correct.

HMRC ‘pulls’ the latest company address information from the Companies House database. If the address is wrong on there, or you can’t get access to that address, you will not get the important notification letters both HMRC and Companies House send when returns are due.

They also send login codes to get access to their respective websites. If you don’t have these digitally, you have to request them by mail. They will only post them to the registered office of the limited company.

There are 3 yearly returns a company has to do:

1. A Confirmation Statement, to Companies House.

This is the one that is due after you’ve traded for a year. It’s basically an affirmation that what Companies House has in its database about your company is correct.

It’s simple to do and you can do it online. If you fail to do it on time, however, you get a small fine which increases in value the longer the return is not done.

In this way Companies House keeps its database clean and up to date and maintains minimum oversight of UK limited companies.

We offer to do this return for our clients, for a small fee, which includes the fee payable to Companies House.

2. A financial return, to Companies House.

After a year of trading, you have some months for your small company to submit a basic financial return (called Abridged or Micro-entity accounts) to Companies House.

TIP: Sign your company up at HMRC to submit your returns there, as they allow you to submit your finalised return to Companies House at the same time.

This is a huge saver of time and trouble. It also means that your HMRC and Companies House returns will match up!

Keeping accurate financial records can be a headache for a newbie businessman. Mastering two different financial submissions even more so. Making them tally is why people employ accountants. Someone who has reasonable financial knowledge can attempt do their own returns if they have established login access at HMRC for their company.

3. A financial return, to HMRC.

See above.

In this return HMRC will not only collect your financial accounts but also issue you with a tax demand. A mistake new businessmen often make is that they don’t realise the last filing date is also the deadline for the payment of any tax owed!

So it’s smart to prepare and do your returns in good time. As well as the likelihood of getting increasing fines, the emotional stress is unpleasant.

If you are not confident with administration, you should hire a competent accountant to do these returns for you.

Basic, simple returns are not hard for a qualified accountant to do. You can make it easier for him by keeping good financial records, preferably in a spreadsheet.

Read more about simple accounting for small businesses.

The post When Returns Are Not Filed appeared first on Blog.

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RegAdd Vs Regus – Which Is Best?

RegisteredAddress.co.uk is one of the largest providers of mailing addresses in the UK, but there are other large companies, who have been in business longer.

One of these is Regus.

Regus focuses mainly on providing flexible office space.

Many small businessmen quickly realise that paying for an office you hardly use is financially stupid. Many others realise that, as they are travelling all the time, having an ‘office away from office’ is a smart move.

• Get a cheap mailing address quickly

When you touch down in a major city you’re happy to have a base you can call into, to collect your thoughts, sort through your paperwork, check your emails, dust yourself down and then head out to land your next big deal.

For most people, just having someplace away from home in the same city they live in is very useful. It’s hard to operate in business mode at home, when the children are screeching and the wife is wondering why you can’t help her with the housework more.

It’s also good to mix with other businessmen, small or large, as they may know something your don’t. You get a feel for what’s going on in local business, generally.

So far, so good.

The problem with shared office spaces is the pricing structure.

– How much is the flat monthly fee? – How much does it cost to have a mailing address there? – How long is the contract? – How much does it cost to exit the contract? – How much are extras like printing, wifi, telephony, meeting rooms etc? – Are there any hidden charges?

Regus is currently not ‘getting good press’: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=regus+reviews

Some of this can certainly be attributed to their clients not reading the small print and not having a clear idea of what they are getting for their monthly fee and, more importantly, what they are not.

When you rent office space, you don’t just need a box to work in. You need printing, telephony, internet, kitchen space, administrative assistance, cleaning, reception, coffee, tea, a chill-out space …

If these things are not specified in your contract, you can’t then complain if the provider then charges you extra for them.

Likewise, exiting a contract. It’s up to the provider if they want to be easygoing and let you off with 30 days notice, but if the contract says 90, they can legally enforce that.

We live in an era of instant gratification, cheap Chinese imports, instant publishing and a push-button culture. This is bad news for any firm which tries to upsell clients in a less than transparent manner, retain their money in a way they perceive as unfair, or send them large, unexpected bills.

In the case of Regus, there does not appear to be a simple price list or calculator on their website. You are asked to email them for a quote. Personally, as a cheapskate, this writer is afraid of websites that offer to put together a quote for you.

One suspects that the fee might be quite large, or arbitrary. Sure, business is business and, as a vendor, what you don’t ask for, you don’t get, but, conversely, it’s possible to code ‘shopping cart’ software that lets one mix and match options quite easily, saving your staff lots of time in dealing with customers.

For example, bespoke laptop manufacturers. Clients can mix and match parts to come up with specification they like, online, very quickly.

We do the same on our registration page.

Clients, especially small businessmen, can be very cost-conscious, down the the last penny. If you seem to be overcharging them or failing to provide a service, they can quickly become annoyed. Setting up and running a business is stressful, unless you’re Richard Branson or a trust fund baby.

To such clients it can seem quite normal to be able to drop a contract with 30 days notice, but the office space provider may think quite differently, and what is actually written in the small print of the contract is what will apply if a dispute goes to court!

• Get a cheap mailing address quickly

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How To Deal With Bad Clients

When you’re starting out in business, you’re a little unsure of yourself. This is a new game without a written rulebook.

You are keen to make sales, so you take on clients who, in your gut, you know you probably shouldn’t.

That is because your subconscious is analysing incoming information better than your conscious mind can, and, based on available data, it knows that the client who mainly wants to gripe about fees is going to a problem when you send him your invoice.

→ Set up your company here

And sure enough, he wants constant changes made to a spec already agreed on and then takes his time paying you.

One thing to be aware of in business is: If people aren’t forced to pay you, then they probably won’t.

Here are some signs of a bad client:

1. They’re always asking to pay less.

Someone who wants a fat discount on something that’s already competitively priced should not be taken on board at all. They have an obsession with cost rather than quality, or else they’re skint. Either way, they’re of no use to you.

Want a free trial? Don’t want to pay a deposit upfront? Ask someone else sir, and good day to you!

Someone who is successful, with a thriving business, is concerned with quality and speed.

If a client you take on can see you can do the work well and in fact you even thrown in a bonus but they’re still quibbling all the time about fees you agreed upfront, you need to put that client on the B list, pronto.

2. You can’t find much about them online.

No website, no contact details anywhere, free email address, they only have a mobile phone number but they’re representing that they have a substantial business? Those are red flags right there.

Such people can hire a plumber for a one hour job but no one should offer to do long hours or expensive work for them without a substantial deposit up front.

3. They won’t sign a contract.

They don’t need to, because the say you can ‘trust’ them, right? Wrong! A loser who is used to exploiting remote workers via online platforms reacts to a contract the way a vampire reacts to garlic.

A good contract simply states the obligations of the signatories and should be easy to read and understand. If a potential client gets scared by this, it’s a sign he probably wants wiggle room to welch on your deal.

4. They’re bugging you all the time.

Phone calls, emails, texts, question after question … time is money and someone who’s living in your ear all the time should be put on the B-list.

5. They take ages to come back to you.

This means, at some level, they don’t care about the work you’re doing or they have a current Big Problem in their life which is taking priority.

If they don’t tell you what the Big Problem is, then put them on the B-list.

6. They constantly change their mind.

‘What, you wanted it in white, and now you want it all in black?’ Put them on the B-list!

7. They disparage what you do.

These are the worst. They can’t do what you do, so they hired you, but they run down your work or tell you ‘X shouldn’t be a problem to do, it’s easy, I could do it myself!’ Sure, buddy, then why don’t you?

Again, put these clients on the B-list and read on.

8. They say they’ve hired a series of bad workers.

Guess what, you’re next on the list! They’ve had a series of bad experiences because of their own inadequacies, either personal or financial. You don’t need to be the No. 6 hire on their NeverEnding Project.

So what to do with bad clients?

1. Trust your instincts.

Your subconscious is monitoring your environment constantly. It’s very good at spotting inconsistencies. Your conscious mind tends to overrule it either by being too positive (‘I need the money, so this guy is okay’) or too negative (‘This guy has bad breath and poor taste in clothing, I must flee!’)

On a lower level of consciousness, you know that Mr. Angsty who wants to pay you chump change and has a spec written on a fag packet is someone you should not take on board.

Contrariwise, Mr. Energy who’s quite at ease in his own skin but is sitting in a plush office getting underlings to do complex tasks, efficiently, is someone you can take on board.

2. Stick to your guns.

You’re a pro and the knowledge you have didn’t come cheap. Be polite but firm with clients who demand too much.

3. One you get enough good clients, drop the B-listers.

Be polite. Say, ‘sorry, I can’t take on any more work’, or charge them extra for the hassle they bring, including getting larger upfront deposits.

These tactics will wake up any B-lister who can be salvaged and the rest will scour the free classified ads to find someone else’s time to waste!

4. Build up savings for the lean times.

No money makes you desperate. Desperate people take on jobs they shouldn’t. Having 6 month’s rent in the bank will make negotiating contracts much easier and more pleasant for you.

5. When it comes time to say goodbye …

– Be polite when you explain the situation; – Focus on what they’re interested in; – Tell them what’s going to happen next; – Don’t burn your bridges; you may run into those people again in the years to come!

→ Set up a limited company here

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