Latest Business Support

Anglia LEP: Offering £1/2m grants towards business expansion. The New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership is calling for local businesses wanting to grow and create new jobs to apply for grants up to £500,000 through the Growing Business Fund. Businesses across Norfolk and Suffolk may apply for a grant of up to 20% of the total cost…

Farm Accounts: Reached the Cloud? As technology has advanced in Agriculture and more bespoke equipment is being used day in day out, is it time for farmers to reach for the cloud? Can farm accounts software meet this challenge…..Yes they can! Over the past few months we have been working closely with Quickbooks Online to…

Making Tax Digital: Prepare or man the barricades! HM Revenue & Customs have just published their second webinar on their Making Tax Digital (MTD) project, including a plethora of questions and answers. While the tone was very touchy-feely, as the presenters talked about the HMRC’s “customers”, the underlying iron fist could clearly be sensed: Yes,…

Cambs LEP: Current loans and grants on offer. The Greater Cambridge Greater Peterborough Local Enterprise Partnership is the Government’s flagship vehicle to stimulate economic growth in our area. Grants and loans currently on offer include: Signpost 2 Loans: Loans of between £50k and £1m to SME’s for start-up and growth (Inc: CapEx, infrastructure, training and…

R&D Tax Relief: Claims rose by 38% in 2014-15. The latest data from HMRC indicates that there has been an increase in both the number of companies making R&D tax relief claims and also that companies are increasing their R&D spend. The fact that there are a significant number of companies making claims for the first time…

Reclaiming Input VAT: Keep proper VAT invoices. A recent Upper Tier tribunal case has reiterated the importance of obtaining and maintaining VAT invoices to support your business transactions. You must keep VAT records for at least 6 years (or 10 years if you use the VAT MOSS service). In the case of Zipvit Ltd Vs…

Builders: Problems obtaining CIS refunds from HMRC ? Over recent years many limited company subcontractors working in the construction industry have experienced problems and delays in obtaining their CIS refunds from HMRC, due records not matching, i.e. the contractor who made the deduction has not correctly reported this on their monthly CIS returns. Subcontractors who…

Business Grants: For East Anglian SME’s. Growing Business Fund– grants of up to £500,000 for companies that are expanding and creating jobs. BEE Anglia (Business Energy Efficiency) – provides grants of up to £20,000 at an average of 28% intervention rate to implement next-phase technology to reduce carbon emissions or save costs. The Employer Training Incentive…

CIS: Big administration changes. With effect from 6 April 2016, a lot has changed within the CIS processing sector: The abolishment of the paper return, Amendment to the nil return obligation, Changes to the Compliance and Turnover tests when applying for Gross status. Paper seems to be a thing of the past and so HMRC…

Updated: 9th July 2025   Business Credit Rating: Poor rating hurting your business?   If there is one positive that has come out of the UK’s double-dip recession, then it is reminding businesses of how important their credit rating is. In many sectors, both suppliers and customers have now re-engineered their processes to routinely look at…