Business Matters

Paper VAT returns deadline

Businesses with a VAT exclusive turnover of under £100,000 that registered for VAT before 1 April 2010 will be required to file their VAT Returns online and make electronic payments for periods beginning after 31 March 2012.

However for the second time in as many months HMRC will be out of action on the critical days of early April due to an upgrade to IT systems and so you should register early to make sure there are no problems with the registration process.

Latest: HMRC targets Home Improvements traders

HMRC has announced the focus of its campaigns to be implemented later this year.

The latest targets for HMRC activity are:

Latest: HMRC targets Home Improvements traders

HMRC has announced the focus of its campaigns to be implemented later this year.

The latest targets for HMRC activity are:

mad!

Just about everyone who knows me would say that I'm a bit unusual. My friends and family would go one stage further I think!

But I need to start at the beginning...

Faced with the usual dilemma of where to go for Christmas lunch, I asked the team. We had had a tremendous offer of joining one of our clients for a Mediaeval Banquet because they were doing something different this year - you could dress up in mediaeval style clothes or go "as you are" - seemed like a great opportunity for some bonding (not bondage) and have excellent fun at the same time. The other alternatives were to join another of our clients in Invernesshire for some time in the great outdoors or to go traditional and have the usual "turkey" lunch at a ridiculously overpriced venue. Or anything else they could think of. The outdoors option was most popular and that's what we did. There was no snow then.

Entrepreneurs?

Love is....

You know the kind of thing: a cherub like image with a big red heart...

Half empty

“Wilderness is where one feels oneself to be in a wild place” – Aldous Huxley.

Optimism is a much required characteristic in business and is found in varying degrees. From complete abandonment of reality at the one extreme to the faintest expectation of a good result at the other. Please note that I do not see pessimism as the opposite just not very much optimism (now THAT's optimism for you!)

We had seasons in the sun...

Having spent a lot more time in the great outdoors this year than in every other year out of the last 50, I've become very conscious of the changes that take place in the world.

When I was young the seasons used to be more marked or at least I think they were. But I have noticed the gradual changes as the year has gone from April, through the progressively warming days of May into the dry days of June and July including a mountainous achievement in climbing Ben Nevis and then the sudden (almost) rush into darker nights and cloud-laden skies and the leaves falling brown and dry onto the muddy wet ground. Winter is just round the corner (it starts astronomically on 21st December incidentally and culturally, it started on 1st November!) and it will not be too long before we have deep frost, snow and ice to contend with.

I've discovered as the months have gone on that there are particular times of the year when certain activities are more sensible. We discovered, Drew (my climbing buddy) & I that starting to climb even a small (985m) Munro at 3.15pm in August is touch and go to ensure you are back down before dark. And as the year has progressed, to maintain some degree of fitness, long distance walks and ordinary bike runs and sub-2000ft hills have replaced mtb-ing on what are now dark and extremely muddy trails and climbing satisfying hills.

Permanent Way

Blog posts cannot be written to order. Perhaps that's not entirely true but what is true is that the quality and relevance of them when forced may suffer a little without some real inspiration.

Inspiration shows itself in curious ways and often the challenge is recognising what it is and what it is pointing to.

In these dark days when walking and climbing time is sorely limited, I've taken to walking the dog for a good 8-9km early in the morning at Drumpellier Park. The walk takes me along past the old Monkland canal or what is left of it and by the main Glasgow to Airdrie (and now Edinburgh) railway line. As I passed between the two transport routes, inspiration arrived.

Simulator

A very recent trip to Iona – on business I should add – made me appreciate another aspect of life and consequently of business. For those who’ve not been beyond the mainland in Scotland, you may appreciate less than others the real practical difficulties of running a business in Scotland’s islands. Practical difficulties like, generally speaking you have no control over how many customers reach your shop or how long they have to look around. These factors are controlled exclusively by two powerful forces – Caledonian Macbrayne Ferries and our Scottish weather, the former being at the mercy of the latter too. Ferries simply don’t run when the weather is too bad. The ferry company also dictates, by its timetables, when your customers must depart and how long they have to browse in your shop which of course may not be the reason they come to your particular island – that is certainly the case in Iona. In those circumstances you have to work even harder to attract their attention and their decision on how much to spend and on what. Margins too are under some pressure because distribution costs are significantly higher and in Scotland, of course the tourism season lasts only from April to October rather than the whole year.

All of these – and many other factors – lead to a certain stoicism which we townies might interpret as a laid back islander approach but in fact is a recognition of a certain powerlessness to control some of the key levers of business. That stoicism and “laid back” appearance is in fact on the one hand a recognition that an urgent response which requires a physical action is often not practicable: if you miss the last ferry there’s no point in fretting about it for the next twelve or fourteen hours as you can do nothing about it. Or if you run out of stock today, it may take you a week or more for fresh stock to reach you. The laid back sense we get is simply an outward sign that islanders are more organised about deliveries, that they plan in advance to restock so that things arrive on time, and generally that everything is under control.

Sort of like the traditional perception of the duck: no activity on the surface and frantic paddling below the surface – at least some of the time. Maybe if we all had an island simulator for our businesses we too might be less stressed by the hurly burly of town life, be better organised and – because we have the advantage of a full 52 week season, make more profit than before.

Shut your mouth!

Don't speak till you're spoken to!

Children should be seen and not heard!

Shut your face!