The Autumn Budget 2024 made the headlines for many reasons. It’s great that you’ve taken notice and you’re thinking about how these changes may impact your business in the future. Although we can’t offer personalised advice via this blog, we can give you some additional ‘food for thought’ and guidance to help you evaluate where you are and where you are planning to be.
If you like what we have to say, why not book a discovery call with the team to see how else we can support your business to grow and be profitable in 2025?
- First things first – stop and think.
Whenever there are changes to tax rates or legislation, it’s important not to make any rash decisions – certainly not based on the headlines you’ve read. The devil will be in the detail.
The best thing you can do is speak to your accountant or another trusted advisor. If you’re the sole director of a company, it can be difficult to deal with the day-to-day running of the business AND create time and space to think strategically. Working alongside someone you trust (and who has the right knowledge to share) is a wise move when the decisions could impact the future of your business. Whether you plan a day away from the office or simply have a relaxed conversation with others away from distractions, make sure you prioritise this thinking time.
- Scenario plan.
When you are considering making significant changes to your business, like changing its legal entity, build a picture of what the alternatives look like. A great way to do that is to scenario plan. This is where you can use forecast reports to show the impact on areas such as turnover, costs, and profit as you hypothesise different scenarios – increasing prices, changing suppliers, taking on a new member of staff for example.
The changes to tax rates, particularly employer’s NI contributions, have been a concern raised by many business owners over recent weeks. Forecast reports will help them to visualise the impact of these changes and enable them to make informed decisions.
- Factor in your personal circumstances.
The biggest drawback with generalist advice (from well-meaning sources and friends) is that it fails to consider your personal circumstances. That’s why you can’t compare your business to someone else’s because you don’t have the finer details ‘behind the scenes’ about their finances. They may have entirely different goals from you and as a result, will structure their business in a different way.
Following the Budget announcements, we’ve had several business owners ask us whether their business should remain a limited company or would being a sole trader prove to be more tax-efficient. There are lots of factors to consider when choosing the right legal entity for your business, and it may change over time – it’s such a popular question we wrote this blog about it!
Time to get the answers you need.
We’re already working with businesses like yours to evaluate and implement changes that will help the business grow and be more profitable in 2025. We can help your business too!
Call us on 01252 612484 or email gillian@accountingclarkes.com to get a date in the diary.
