5 Books Small Business Owners & Entrepreneurs Should Read
One thing nobody tells you when you start a business is that the growth of the business is directly related to your growth as a person. But when you’ve got your head down in the (often all consuming) process of...
4 things your accounting practice should consider when moving to the cloud
There are loads of good reasons to switch to a cloud based accounting system for your accounting practice — using one can save you time, you can get great value for money, your information is secure, you’re constantly getting the latest...
7 Reasons Why Your Small Business Should Have an Active Blog
It seems like there’s always a million things to do when you’re running a small business … and somehow, writing that next blog just doesn’t seem to make your priority list. After all, how much good can a blog do,...
How to Choose an Accounting Practice for Your Small Business
So you’ve come a long way from keeping a hodge podge of receipts in a box under your desk. You know that you need to take your accounting to the next level by working with an accountant, but do you...
Partner Spotlight – Stephanie Pettitt of Equation Accounting
Today we catch up with one of our certified partners, Stephanie. Let's see what makes her practice "Equation Accounting" a successful accounting practice. 1. Who are you and what is it you do? I’m Stephanie Pettitt, Managing Director of Equation...
MTD consultation documents – The results!
On 31 January 2017 the Government published the responses to the six consultation documents on Making Tax Digital (MTD) and incorporated links to draft primary legislation, for this year’s Finance Bill. There was an unprecedented 3,000 responses directly to the...
Development priorities for the year
Much of the last 12- 18 months have seen the development team focussed on “back end” improvements, with the move to a new hosted environment and changes to the look and feel of the product to improve responsiveness and make...
New starter spotlight – Ian and Michal
As we continue to grow our product and service, we are delighted to welcome 2 new starters into the Clear Books team. Meet Ian Stewart and Michal Olejarski. Ian Stewart With our partner programme expanding we have hired an additional...
What is amortisation?
Amortisation definition Amortisation is the process of reducing the value of an asset in order to show how its worth has reduced over time. It is therefore similar to depreciation, though it can be used to refer to the reduction...
What is accrual basis accounting?
Accruals basis definition The methodology behind accrual basis accounting is to make a record of revenues when they are earned - as opposed to recording them when the cash is actually received. Likewise, when using this method of accounting, any...
What is an accounting period?
Accounting period definition An accounting period is a set period of time for which financial statements are prepared, in order to show clearly what has happened during the period in question. Companies may choose to set their own internal accounting...
What are accounts?
Accounts definition Broadly speaking, there are four main types of financial statement you need to know about. These statements, or accounts, are prepared at the end of a set period of time to reflect the profits and losses recorded during...
What is accounts receivable (AR)?
Accounts receivable definition The term accounts receivable, or 'AR', relates to payment(s) that one company expects to receive from another. When a company purchases something from another company but doesn't immediately pay for it, the selling company will record this...
What is accounts payable (AP)?
Accounts payable definition The term accounts payable (AP) relates to goods or services that are received in advance of payment. This means the company that received the goods didn't pay for them in cash up front, and therefore acquired them...
VAT MOSS what next? Changes to VAT on cross border online sales
On 1 December 2016 the European Commission released its proposals for changes in the way VAT is applied to cross-border online sales within and into the EU. The current situation Since 1 January 2015 any business (whether VAT registered or...
Certified Partner Spotlight – Maitland Limited Chartered Accountants
Clear Books interviews Andy Maitland of Maitland Limited Chartered Accountants. It's always great to catch up with our partners to learn what makes their practice successful. Name & Company Andy Maitland, Maitland Limited Chartered Accountants Who are you and what...
A chat with Martyn Keates of Keates & Co.
Today we have another catch up with one of our certified partners Martyn Keates, principal of Keates & Co. let's take a look at how he runs his successful accounting practice based in Camberley and Fleet. Who are you and what...
A chat with Jane Swain of Lymm Tax Services
Today we have a chat with one of our newly certified partners Jane Swain of Lymm Tax Services. Let's take a look at how she runs her successful practice using Clear Books. So what do you and your practice do? Chartered Accountant...
Changes to VAT Flat Rate Scheme (FRS)
In his Autumn Statement of November 2016 the Chancellor announced changes to the FRS designed to combat perceived abuse; predominantly by labour only agency workers. It will however affect many other service sector businesses. The announcement was followed by HMRC...
Thanks for registering your interest!
Thank you for registering your interest in participating in the Making Tax Digital (MTD) pilot testing programme! While you're here, why not take a few minutes to check out some of our other blogs? Such as... 5 ways you should...
Product Update – December 2016
Aside from the performance and hosting projects, we’ve also been busy addressing a number of issues raised by customers and partners. Dividends Fixed a rounding error on the dividends report Search Improved the search functionality to look for entire strings...
What we’ll be working on from January 2017
Many of you will be aware that we have a product roadmap that covers planned product improvements and enhancements over the next one to two years, and we review this twice a month to check that the priorities are still...
Top 3 Reasons Why You Should Always Chase for Payment – From The Liquidation Advice Centre
Are you constantly chasing your customers for payment? Chasing for payment can be awkward and time consuming. Whether it’s a brand new customer that you’re trying to build a relationship with, or a long standing customer that you speak to...
Clear Books a year on… An explanation on change management and where we’re at
If you are curious to read about a major change process we have been through please check out Tim’s quarterly investor updates. The summary is that we’ve returned to our roots to make our core business solid. The benefit to...
Update to invoicing on Clear Books
We are delighted to announce a new a design update to our invoicing module. We improved the layout of the invoicing tool to better follow our intuitive style guide. The only additional feature is the customer/supplier selector, which was previously...
Creating Direct Debit mandates in Clear Books is changing
Our GoCardless integration automates the process of setting up direct debit mandates with your customers. This feature simplifies the process of getting your customers to pay on time, and from 2nd November 2016 we will be making the process even...
5 Bookkeeping myths from the IAB
Running a business of any size it bound to have its difficult points. Be it that you’re struggling to get to grips with employment law, or that you’re spending a lot of your time looking for more spacious office spaces....
Future Product Development
Although it may seem as though not much has changed with the product over the last year or so, the development team have been busy optimising the product performance and responsiveness, moving the entire system to a new hosted environment...
Clear Books customer feedback – the results!
Over the last 8 weeks we’ve been working with Enquir3 who’ve been interviewing our accounting partners and getting feedback on what we do well and what we don’t do so well. The positive feedback has been hugely encouraging for the...
Introducing the new Clear Books theme
As part of an ongoing plan to improve our product, Clear Books is pleased to announce that its New Theme will go live on 31 October 2016. This has been available in Preview, to all users for several months and...