I often get questions from clients who hold retainers on account in Xero and then need to refund part or all of that retainer. The worry I hear most is: “If I refund this, will Xero create a ghost liability or leave my contact with a strange credit balance?” I’ll walk you through practical,...
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Tax Tips
I often get asked by clients how to reclaim fuel and mileage when a car is used...
Tax Tips
I regularly help small retailers untangle questions about capital allowances,...
Bookkeeping
I often see small business owners get stuck reconciling Stripe payouts in Xero...
Software & Tools
I know how tempting it is to rely on revenue as a vanity metric. As a...
I often see small business owners get stuck reconciling Stripe payouts in Xero because the numbers on the bank statement don’t line up with the sales recorded in their accounting system. Stripe bundles sales, fees, refunds and transfers into a...
I know how tempting it is to rely on revenue as a vanity metric. As a freelancer, you can have healthy income one month and still be losing money on the clients that take the most time. That’s why I built per‑client profitability scorecards...
I remember the first time a client told me they’d failed an HMRC digital links check — they were genuinely surprised. They were using a modern cloud accounting package, had a trusty spreadsheet or two, and yet their VAT return was rejected...
Running a small company means directors sometimes need to borrow from their business — it’s common, practical and often harmless when handled correctly. But get the paperwork or timings wrong and that friendly loan can turn into an unexpected...
I’ve seen it too many times: a business owner opens their accounting software the week their VAT return is due and finds a nasty surprise — sales that weren’t recorded, bank fees that ate into the cash needed, or invoices paid into a personal...
I’m going to walk you through a practical, no‑nonsense approach to negotiating supplier credit terms when cashflow is tight. I’ve helped many small business owners in the UK do this — sometimes under pressure before payroll or a VAT bill —...
I migrated payroll records for several micro‑employers when clients asked me to move from Sage to Xero, and the thing that worries people most is losing payroll history. I get it — that payroll history is a legal record, it feeds annual...
I want to walk you through how I record and manage a director’s loan account (DLA) so it stays clean, compliant and free from unnecessary personal tax charges. I’ve seen more than one small-company owner land in a tangle because a few personal...
I used to see the same problem over and over when I was bookkeeping for small UK businesses: invoices sent, friendly chase emails ignored, and then a gap of frustrating manual work to recover the cash. Implementing a payments flow that combines...
Selling on Amazon FBA and Etsy is a brilliant way to scale a small business fast, but VAT can feel like a trapdoor if you don’t plan for it. I’ve helped lots of UK sellers untangle VAT headaches — missing registrations, lost VAT on fees,...