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Artificial intelligence (AI) has surged in popularity among business users over the past few years, with many small businesses now making AI a central part of their systems. But AI isn’t just about having some machine learning capabilities hidden away in the background. There are now full fledged ‘AI agents’ on the market. But what is an AI agent ? And how can adding these digital workers to your workforce help you scale, boost efficiency and become a more effective business operation? What is an AI agent? An AI agent is a digital entity that can carry out tasks to achieve specific operational or business goals. Unlike basic AI, which follows predefined rules, AI agents can learn, adapt and make autonomous decisions, mimicking our own problem-solving skills. Think of your AI agent as a digital member of the team. A worker that can be entrusted with a specific task – like answering your business phone, or completing your bookkeeping. Let’s take a look at five areas where an AI agent could be helping your business 1. Procurement and cost management AI agents can work in the background to automate selection of suppliers, negotiate contracts, and monitor inventory levels. This helps you optimise your pricing, find the best supplier contracts and reduce your overall procurement costs. GEP's AI agents help with supplier relationship management, automate your key procurement tasks and improve logistics, making your whole procurement process more efficient. 2. Client service and reception Customer service AI agents are available 24/7 to provide AI-driven support, handle routine enquiries and personalise the way you interact with your customers. They can manage appointment scheduling, greet virtual visitors and route calls to the most relevant person. HubSpot's Breeze Customer Agent can resolve routine FAQs, provide instant support and integrate with your CRM system to make those interactions seamless and personalised. 3. Sales and marketing Sales and marketing AI agents are designed to automate your lead generation and personalise the company’s marketing campaigns. They can even analyse customer data to spot likely sales opportunities, boost conversion rates and drive up your revenue. Salesforce's Agentforce can streamline your marketing operations in a number of different ways. Agentforce crafts campaign briefs, breaks down target audience segments and even generates initial drafts of marketing emails. 4. Finance and accounting Finance-focused AI agents can automate many of your basic bookkeeping tasks, including invoice processing, expense tracking and bank reconciliation. This is great for reducing human errors and giving time back to your finance team. They can also generate cash flow reports, assist with budgeting and improve your overall financial management. AppZen’s agent can automate manual accounts payable processes, optimise your financial decision-making and predict potential cash flow issues. It integrates with your existing financial systems to give you a completely transparent view of your financial health. 5. HR and people management AI agents can automate many of your basic human resources (HR) tasks. This can include onboarding new starters, training staff, processing payroll and benefits, and answering HR queries. This gives time back to your HR team to focus on higher value tasks. Leena AI provides an AI-powered virtual assistant that’s a central point of contact for employees. It can quickly answer HR-related questions, reducing the burden on your HR team. Talk to us about making AI agents part of your business Want to make the most of AI, but don’t know where to start? In this series, we’ll run you through the basics of AI, the main terms and the AI tools and agents that can transform your business. And if you’re hungry to know more, why not talk to our team about the AI agents and AI-driven apps that would be most appropriate for your industry, niche or business type. Give us a call on 01904 787 973, or book a call with Donald – we’re here to help.

It’s great to be the boss – you can work any hours you like, right? Unfortunately, for many business owners, that means long hours, plenty of stress, and very few breaks and holidays. Gallup reported that 39% of the owners they surveyed worked over 60 hours a week. Owners often report they are unhappy with their work life balance, and after the challenges of the recent years you might find yourself thinking hard about your priorities. Running a business and having a life Can you run your business effectively and still have enough time left over to do the things you love? You’re the best judge of how much time your business needs, but don’t neglect your wellbeing. If you would like to take back some personal time, you could consider: Delegating – don’t try to do everything yourself. Saying no – not every project is worth taking on. Investing in systems – to reduce time on admin or paperwork. Taking all your leave – find ways to have breaks and holidays. Maximising technology – making sure your systems are all integrated, and using AI where appropriate. Working towards a balance If you really can’t work less right now, try to build your business with a better balance in mind for the future. It’s important that you can step back at some point to take a holiday, travel, or spend time with family. Being tied to your business for more than 60 hours each week isn’t a sustainable way to take care of your health and higher profits aren’t worth that sacrifice. Also, any business that doesn’t allow the owner to step away is very hard to sell and worth far less than one that can run independently! We'd love to help Whether you want to improve your work-life balance now, or build your business to achieve it in future, we have ideas. We’ve worked with plenty of clients who need to reclaim their time, and we know it can be done. Give us a call on 01904 787 973, or book a call with Donald – we’re here to help.

Founding, managing and growing a business is a BIG commitment. For most business owners, it will take years to build a customer following, turn a profit and create a truly scalable business. We live in a golden age of business software. There’s an app for everything—task management, time tracking, team communication, invoicing, reporting, forecasting, and even apps to help you manage all your apps. It’s the digital equivalent of walking into a hardware store and buying every single tool, assuming that having them all will somehow make you a better carpenter. Spoiler: it won’t. Instead of increasing efficiency, software overload is quietly killing your workflow. It’s called app fatigue, and it’s the modern workplace’s productivity killer. The problem: too many tools, too little time At first glance, adding new software seems like the logical solution to business challenges. Need better project management? Add an app. Struggling with communication? Get a new messaging tool. Want better analytics? More software! The issue is that businesses often end up with a tangled mess of disconnected systems, each promising to be the magic bullet but ultimately creating more work, more confusion, and more logins (seriously, how many different passwords do you need?). Here’s what app fatigue looks like in real life: Constant context switching – You’re updating the CRM, checking Slack, answering emails, logging time, scheduling meetings, running reports... all before you’ve even started the work you’re actually paid to do. Notification overload – Your laptop sounds like an arcade machine with the sheer number of pings, dings, and pop-ups. Duplicate data entry – Entering the same information across five different platforms, all while wondering if you work for your software or if your software works for you. Integration nightmares – Half your tools don’t talk to each other, leading to manual workarounds, broken workflows, and the slow death of your patience. In short, more software ≠ more productivity. Often, it just means more complexity. The hidden costs of app fatigue Beyond frustration, there are real financial and operational costs to using too much software. Wasted time – Constantly switching between apps eats into your workday more than you realise. Instead of focusing on meaningful tasks, employees spend too much time jumping between platforms, searching for information, and re-entering data. The more tools you use, the more time gets lost in the shuffle. Higher costs – Many businesses subscribe to tools they don’t even use properly. SaaS subscriptions are easy to accumulate but hard to justify when no one knows what half of them do. Decision paralysis – When everything requires a different tool, decision-making slows down. Instead of working, people spend time choosing where to work. Employee burnout – Keeping up with multiple platforms is exhausting. When tech is meant to help but actually adds stress, employees disengage. The solution: simplify, integrate, automate The good news? You don’t have to scrap all your software – just be smarter about it. Here’s how: Audit your tech stack – Take a critical look at all your software. What’s actually being used? What overlaps? What’s creating more work than it’s saving? Kill the dead weight. Prioritise integration – If your software doesn’t talk to each other, you’re wasting time. Look for ecosystems that play well together (think the Xero add-on marketplace). Automate repetitive tasks – Tools like Zapier can bridge gaps between software, eliminating duplicate data entry and manual admin work. Choose multipurpose tools – Rather than five different apps for small tasks, try and opt for one platform that does more. Less jumping around means less lost time. Educate and train – Your team can only be efficient if they actually know how to use the tools. Training is just as important as choosing the right software. Less is more: focus on what works Software should be a solution, not another problem. If your workflow is buried under a pile of apps, it’s time to step back and simplify. Choose wisely, integrate where possible, and remember: the best tech is the one that actually makes work easier – not more complicated.

Founding, managing and growing a business is a BIG commitment. For most business owners, it will take years to build a customer following, turn a profit and create a truly scalable business. It's a journey that can sometimes be pressurised, stressful and risky. But when your plan really does come together, there is the chance of real success, a lasting legacy and a business that delivers on your initial dream. So, how do you know when you've truly achieved your goals for the business? Has the business met its growth targets and scaled up as intended? You’ll have seen your business idea grow from being a fledgling startup, to an established business and on to become a scaled-up, ambitious enterprise with a solid customer base. If you’ve met these growth targets, then you know you’re on pretty solid ground as a business. Your idea clearly has legs and you’re delivering a product and/or service that your customers see as valuable – and which they’re willing to part with their hard-earned cash to purchase. Are you running a profitable enterprise that's in good financial shape? Running a tight financial ship is crucial. You need solid revenues, positive cashflow and good liquidity to keep your business ticking over. In the early days of being a startup, cash will have been tight. And your own personal income as a founder and director will probably have been scarce too. But as the business has become more established, you should have found that your business revenue became more stable and predictable – and that your own personal wealth also followed this same reliable pattern. If the business has a solid balance sheet, great cash flow and meets your intended profit targets, you’re onto a good thing – and can be sure that your financial position is in good shape. Do you have a stable customer base who say good things about you? Without customers, you don’t have a viable business. Finding your first customers as a startup was probably a significant turning point in your journey. A good customer base brings with it the bonus of new sales, fresh revenues and a business that can actually turn a profit. When customers engage with you and buy your goods and services, that comfirms your original faith in your business idea. You’re providing something they value and want to purchase, and you’re also building a community of like-minded people who all think your brand is great. Do you have a team who can operate the business without you? In the early days, you’ll probably have become a jack (or jill) or all trades. You’ll have run the sales and marketing campaigns, taken care of all the main operational tasks and dealt with the many invoicing, accounting and bookkeeping tasks. Turn the clock forward, and you probably have a team of people around you to take care of these jobs – but could they function with you? This is really the acid test of whether you’ve scaled and succeeded. If the business is still reliant on you, personally, you have a problem. To be a saleable proposition, a business needs to function effectively without the founder. If not, you’ll never be in a position to sell up. To make this possible, you need a team of engaged and talented people around you – people who share your vision and talents and who can keep the ship on an even course, even once the original captain has set sail on fresh, new adventures. Do you feel you've achieved what you wanted to achieve? In your formative years as a founder, you’ll have sat down to draw up a startup plan. In that plan you’ll have outlined a clear vision for what this business was going to achieve. This vision might have been: To scale up over five years, sell-up and retire To deliver a new kind of technical widget and make it the global standard To help your target audience improve their lives, helped by your product/service To provide the income needed for you to live your desired lifestyle To plough your profits back into the local community and be a force for good. We all have different goals, and whether they are financial, personal or moral comes down to the individual. The important thing at this point is to assess whether you’ve actually met the vision that you set out to achieve. If your aim was to sell for a profit and then retire, are you ready to do this? If the goal was to become a household name and move your sector forward, do your customer engagement figures and market share stats reflect this? Deep down, only you and your fellow founders know whether you’ve truly met your intended goal. But if the general consensus is that you aced it, then it’s time to think about the future. What’s the next chapter in your business story? If you can answer yes to all five of these questions, then congratulations! You've built a successful, stable and profitable business. But what do you do now? Do you continue to plough this fertile furrow and live off the profits? Do you find a buyer for the existing business and start on your next business idea? Or do you sell up and look at retirement and enjoying the benefits of your money and lifestyle? It's a good idea to talk to us before you make what is, essentially, a life-changing decision. If you’d like to talk through your options, book a call with us or call us on 01904 787 973.

Your profit and loss statement (P&L) helps you understand your business performance and profitability over time. It’s sometimes called an Income statement and its main purpose is to list income and expenditure. Whereas a balance sheet is a snapshot in time, the P&L shows transactions over a specific period of time. This can be a month, quarter, financial year or any other period, and it can be a stand-alone report or a comparative period report. Together with the balance sheet, these two reports provide a comprehensive understanding of the financial position and performance of a business. The profit and loss statement has two main sections: income and expenses These may be further subdivided depending on the complexity of the business and reporting requirements. Income or Revenue Income primarily includes main business activities such as sale of goods or services. Other income such as interest received, capital gains or income from secondary business activities is also reported. Expenses Expenses are usually divided into two sections: direct costs, or cost of goods sold, and expenses. Cost of goods are those that are directly linked to the provision of services or sale of goods. For example, if you buy widgets from a wholesaler and sell them at a marked-up value, the cost of the widgets is a direct cost, not an overhead expense. Other types of direct costs might be importing and freight costs, contractor costs or certain equipment. Some direct costs are fixed, that is, they are the same from month to month, or they could be a fixed percentage of sales; others vary in value but are still related to the income producing activities. Overhead expenses are all the other expenses required to run the business, regardless of the level of income: for example, rent, utilities, bank fees, bookkeeping fees, professional development costs, vehicle costs and staff costs. Many of these costs form the basis of working out your break-even point, or how much it costs just to open the doors for business. There are some expenses which may be reported as a direct cost in one business but an indirect cost in another type of business, for example, merchant fees or contractor costs. The bottom line Total income minus total expenses results in the net profit (or loss), is often called ‘the bottom line’. Often business owners are just interested in looking at the bottom line, but a true financial picture requires an understanding of several reports and an ability to see the big picture that the reports are illustrating. The P&L is a vital tool to analyse for trends over time What does your P&L tell you about relationships and ratios between sales and expenses, seasonal changes and annual trends? Have all your direct costs been allocated correctly? Have you recouped all billable expenses from customers? Financial statements help you understand the big picture for your business. With deeper understanding of your business operations and performance you can make informed decisions about your business finances. Book a call with our team to examine your financial reports with our experienced business advisors.

You may love running your business. But in the back of every owner’s mind is the knowledge that one day you’ll need to sell the company and retire. But with global markets in upheaval and the future less certain than ever before, how can you guarantee that your business will be worth enough on the open market for you to retire? In this series, we’ll look at the core ways your business can be structured to deliver on your own personal, family, philanthropic and leisure goals, now and into retirement. Creating a business that will fund your retirement plans Your business has to be the nest egg that provides the equity for you to retire. But how do you secure that nest egg, the value of the business and your retirement plans? We’ve highlighted five strategies that will add to the value of your business – so, when you come to sell, you’ll get the return on investment (ROI) needed to retire comfortably. Build a business that can run without you You may be the boss, but your business needs to function independently of you to hold its value at sale. One way to do this is to systematise your operations, so the day-to-day procedures exist outside your own head and are scalable as the company grows. It’s vital to train up a strong management team that can keep the business trading when you’re no longer in the picture. This autonomy significantly boosts the value of the company, as potential buyers want businesses that won't collapse when the founder leaves. Focus on recurring revenue streams Recurring revenues give your business more stability. Think about focusing on subscription services and other predictable income sources to help build up value in the company. Recurring revenue dramatically increases business valuation multiples (often 2-3 times higher than transaction-based models). By creating a stable, valuable business, you can sell the company for a premium price, providing the equity you’ll need to fund your retirement. Invest in intellectual property and licensing Having valuable assets in the business boosts the potential price of the company. Your intellectual property (IP) and brand equity are two intangible assets that can have a significant impact on the value and asking price when the company is put up for sale. Think about developing products, processes or technologies that can be patented and then licensed to other third parties. This is a great way to use your IP effectively, boost your brand and create passive income – something that will appeal strongly to any potential buyers. Keep detailed records and keep finances healthy A viable business with a good financial health score is the holy grail for buyers. So keeping your financial health, company credit score and cashflow position under control is vital. It’s important to have rigorous financial tracking in place and to keep a close eye on your key financial metrics. Clean books with 3-5 years of strong profitability make your business significantly more attractive to buyers and can justify higher valuations and better ROI. Create a strategic exit plan well in advance of retirement The key to a successful exit is having an exit plan in place as early as possible. Work with your advisors to add value to the business, identify ideal buyers and find the most tax-efficient exit structures that will deliver the funds you need on retirement. Ideally, you should start this exit strategy at least 3-5 years before you intend to retire. This gives you time to think about succession planning, boosting the underlying value of the business and making sure you’ll have sufficient capital for your retirement needs. Helping you secure your income and lifestyle You deserve a restful and comfortable retirement after many years of leading and growing your business. But to do this, it’s important to start planning now and getting your exit strategy ready. Come and have a chat about your retirement plans and exit strategy. We can also introduce you to independent financial advisers who can offer personalised wealth management advice. To get our help, call us on 01904 787 973 or book a call with Donald Inglis .

Did you know that if you don’t pay your taxes on time, HMRC can charge you interest on your late payment? HMRC can use its powers to charge interest on late payments of tax and pay interest on overpayments you’ve made to them. And those rates changed from April 2025 How does interest on late payments work? If you’re late paying your taxes, HMRC will charge interest from the original due date of the payment until the date payment is received. So, the later you are paying your tax bill, the more you’ll end up paying overall. What are the current interest rates? From 6 April 2025, the rate on late payments increased to 8.5% p.a., an increase that’s in line with current rates of inflation and the Bank of England’s interest rate. Interest is charged at the Bank of England (BoE) base rate plus 400 basis points, credited at BoE base rate, less 100 basis points, with a minimum of 0.5%. If you overpay your tax bill, or pay early, HMRC will pay you interest on that overpayment. The rate HMRC will pay on refunds and overpayments of tax changed from 3.75% to 3.50% from 25 February 2025. What happens if I can’t pay on time? There may be times where you owe tax and simply can’t pay on time. As long as you agree a formal ‘time to pay’ arrangement with HMRC then the interest rate they charge is relatively low. Simply not paying, without having any agreement in place, is a bad idea. HMRC may charge you a penalty, on top of charging interest on your late payment. How can we help you manage these payments? As your current tax agent, we’ll give you plenty of prior warning of the tax amount that’s due and the payment deadline, as a matter of course. If we’re not already acting on your behalf, we can still help. You might be unsure of the deadlines for the taxes, or need help working out what you’ll need to pay. We’ll help you run projections to check if you have the funding to make these payments. We can also liaise with HMRC to put ‘time to pay’ arrangements in place. When it comes to tax, it’s always best to talk to us sooner rather than later. To get our help, call us on 01904 787 973 or book a call with Donald Inglis .

If you’re a small business with straightforward accounts, you may well be using HM Revenue & Customs’ (HMRC) Corporation Tax online filing service . It’s a straightforward way to file your corporation tax and company accounts and tick all those compliance boxes. But HMRC has just announced that the service will close from March 2026. So, what happens now when you need to file your return and accounts? What is the Corporation Tax online filing service At present, if you’re an unrepresented company with straightforward tax affairs, you can use the free HMRC online service to: Send your Company Tax Return to HMRC. Send your accounts and computations to HMRC in the correct iXBRL format. File your accounts to Companies House. send your Company Tax Return to HMRC and accounts to Companies House at the same time. Using the online service streamlines so many of your compliance worries. So, why is HMRC shutting down the service? Corporation Tax online filing service to close from March 2026 The Corporation Tax online filing service will close from 31 March 2026 . At present, you can still use the online service to file and amend your Company Tax Return with HMRC, and your accounts with Companies House up to and including 31 March 2026. But from 1 April 2026 onwards, you’ll need to use commercial software to file annual accounts and Company Tax returns with HMRC. Why is the online service closing? HMRC feels that the online service is no longer fit for purpose. The service was originally introduced in 2011, and the system doesn’t meet modern digital standards, or recent changes to UK company law. HMRC’s intention is that the small businesses that are currently using the free online survive will see the value in investing in third-party software that’s more in line with digital standards. Helping you set up a new software-based tax filing system There’s no immediate pressure to switch over to a new software tax and accounts filing system. But looking into the available software and doing your homework is a sensible move. We can help you decide on the best software for the job and make sure your accounting and filing processes are up to the job, ready for March 2026. To get our help, call us on 01904 787 973 or book a call with Donald Inglis .