How can an accountant help your beauty business?
A common theme across social media in the health and beauty sector is confusion about how to manage accounts, what records needed kept, and what they needed to do with HMRC. Although it can seem straightforward, there can be a lot of pitfalls and it can become quite stressful, especially when it’s coming up to having to file tax returns. No one (except accountants!) gets into business to deal with keeping books and records, so why keep that stress on your shoulders.
It is so easy to let bookkeeping tasks mount up in the background. When you are busy working flat out, you just want to get home and put your feet up, getting a minute to yourself. The more it is put off, the bigger the tasks seem, and it just mounts up. Over the last 18 months, the industry has seen a huge increase in qualified individuals setting up either nail or beauty salons, as people realised that working for yourself, on your own terms, was a real option. Unfortunately, although they get on great with providing their services, they have no experience of actually running a business. Plus, there have been all the additional stresses of working out if any government funding is available, all of which just becomes too much to deal with for so many people.
The biggest, and easiest area where you can help yourself , is to set up a separate business account. Without this, it gets so confusing to work out what was a business transaction and what was personal.
When self-employed, notifying HMRC and getting set up for Self Assessment scares many folk. For Limited Companies, payroll can be a huge source of stress, as many don’t realise that even if you are still working alone, as a director you are employed by the Company and are no longer self employed. Keeping organised with receipts and earnings records is another area where people worry, as it is so easy to lose these things.
We offer full accounting and payroll service. In practice, this means that we set clients up with an accounting system based on their business needs, and then all the client has to do is send in receipts and updates on sales etc. For some people we do this electronically, for others we are happy to get a bundle of receipts either sent by post, or if they are in Central Scotland, quite often pop by to collect them and have a chat. We send clients monthly reports on how the business is doing, and can highlight any potential issues before they happen in a lot of cases. Our clients can also get in touch at any time if they have worries or something pops into their heads. Although we might not be able to respond instantly, we always get back to them within a few hours.
For businesses with employees (even if it is just themselves), we can run their full payroll, issuing payslips, calculating holidays, and most importantly, reporting to HMRC and making sure all PAYE and National Insurance is paid on time.
In general, using an accountant will always work out saving professionals money in the long term. We keep a close eye on any deadlines for filing returns, paying bills and chase any money due to them. Time really is money in this industry, and if we can free up 2-3 hours of their time a week, that can easily allow extra services to be fitted in. If, as often happens, the client used to push admin tasks to the evening, we can take this off their hands, so they can actually relax and spend quality time with friends and family.
Clients can expect to have a truly personal service, from a professional who genuinely understands their industry, and can empathise with the difficulties they may come across.