Your very own admin department for a fraction of the cost of hiring full time staff

Do you run a small business? How often could you have done with a ‘virtual’ office?

A virtual office is basically background support that makes it look like you have a team behind you answering your calls, dealing with enquiries, maintaining your files, producing letters, quotes and invoices, keeping your paperwork up to date and basically allowing you to portray the impression of a professionally run company.

What happens when you go on holiday? You can’t let your business stop running just because you have! With a virtual office, your calls will still be taken, e-mails and post dealt with and invoices sent. You can relax, safe in the knowledge that your business will still be going strong when you get back and if anything urgent did arise that couldn’t wait, you would be contacted.

My bookkeeping company expanded into offering admin services because our clients are sole traders and small businesses and they realised they couldn’t do everything. If you want to get on with your work and concentrate on bringing in the money, we can relieve the burden of admin tasks that often stop this happening.

The following is just a small selection of what we do for our clients:

· Take incoming telephone calls
· Handle sales enquiries by telephone or e-mail
· Produce letters, estimates, invoices and statements
· Prepare high quality presentations and proposals
· Manage the filing
· Deal with incoming post and e-mails
· Handle expense claims and payments
· Order stationery and other office sundries

If you run a small business in Essex or east London and feel you would benefit from professional assistance with your admin tasks, contact Office Assistants.

Do you know how your staff are spending your valuable time?

Surfing the net for personal use – an employee perk? Or a serious drain on an employers’ resources?

Research shows that whilst some companies are happy to allow their staff ‘tea-break time’ to browse non-work related websites, others see it as highly detrimental to their business and some have even sacked staff where usage has overstepped the mark.

Statistics show the average employee spends more than an hour and a half surfing the internet for personal use over the course of a week; that is ten days per year and is costing the economy some £10.6bn during that year.*

So what can be done to eliminate the problem? Restricting internet access and putting monitoring in place is not always an option; employers have to be careful where monitoring is concerned and employees generally need internet access to carry out their jobs, so taking it away could be counter-productive.

One way of ensuring those you employ to conduct important tasks within your business are concentrating on the job in hand is to outsource to external providers that are paid on a set fee per project or a time recorded hourly rate, which means they have to get the job done within a set timeframe.

In my opinion, bringing in outside help rather than employing accounts, payroll and admin staff will give companies access to a higher level of expertise as well as scrupulous time management.

The staff we supply to our clients would probably be out of their price range if employed on a full time or even part time basis, plus our clients are not likely to need assistance throughout the entire month or year, so they only pay for what they need. Additionally, they will usually pay a set fee or hourly rate for the work which means the person doing that work will concentrate on the task in hand and not stray off and surf the internet!

If your business is suffering because employees are not dedicating their full working day to their jobs, why not consider outsourcing? Buying in services as and when you need them will give you access to a higher level of expertise than you may be able to afford otherwise, and will also guarantee a much better use of your valuable time!

*Source: CBI.Org (June 2008)

Budget News for Small Businesses

Although the news on the budget front can’t really be considered all bad for businesses, it appears from internet reports that small business owners and business support groups, such as the Federation of Small Businesses, feel Alistair Darling could have done more to soften the blow of the economic crisis.

It was hoped that the Budget would prioritise addressing the short-term issues faced by businesses, so why was there no reduction in business rates?

Better news though for loss-making companies which can claim back taxes paid on profits from the last three years in a programme predicted to wipe out the losses of some 100,000 businesses. It runs until November 2010 so if you qualify, take advice from your bookkeeper ASAP to get your claim started.

There is also a new credit insurance scheme to help protect your business against crippling late payments. If your private insurer reduces or withdraws cover, which is unfortunately common practice of late, the scheme will provide you with cover for six months.

Radical change comes where tax avoidance is concerned with HMRC set to make public the names of any businesses that purposely understate their taxes. Care will of course be taken not to humiliate those who have simply been confused by the complex tax system. Taking professional tax and accounting advice has never been so vital.

Here are some useful budget resources:

HM Treasury: Budget 2009
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/bud_bud09_index.htm

Direct Gov: Newsroom - Budget 2009
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Nl1/Newsroom/Budget2009/index.htm

BBC News: Budget Documents
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8012222.stm