This weekend was the Netball World Cup Final. I’ve been a keen netball player since 1992. I love it. I play in two local leagues. As England were in the final - for the first time ever - my netball Whatsapp groups were busy with chatter. I noticed that some of the passes between the player were very short - almost handing the ball to each other. Last season you had to have the distance between a pass that would enable a person to get in between to intercept it. The rule was changed this year that the distance would allow only a hand. So we moved from a person, to a hand. Quite a change. I had to google the rule change. Only a few people on the Whatsapp group knew about the rule.
This got me thinking about why we pay umpires to officiate our games - they have to keep up to date with rule changes.
This is exactly the same for business. If you employ a bookkeeper who is regulated by the AAT, IAB or ICB, those bookkeepers are mandated to keep up to date with legislation changes. If you do your own bookkeeping, on top of running your business, my guess is that you’ll be doing it in the evening, or at the weekend and that your main priority will be raising sales invoices and credit control.
Do you know how to classify capital expenditure and the changes in rules around what is allowed and isn’t? Did you know that the minimum wage changed in April? Do you know the changes to self assessment which could affect your year end date?
Guess what? I do. And if I don’t know now, I will know at 2:45pm today because I am attending a webinar today run by Croneri called ‘Finance Act - Capital Allowances’. This is part of my CPD (continuing personal development) which I do as part of my trading licence.
Doing your own basic bookkeeping is fine - of course it is, but you could be missing out on valuable tax savings. Lots of bookkeepers and accountants now run ‘Power Hours’ where you may be able to pay a one off fee to have someone check over your work. Even better would be to invest in a bookkeeper each month and spend your evenings watching the netball instead.
