We are pleased to announce that Alan Su has joined Alexander Knight & Co as an assistant accountant.
Alan qualified with a first class honours degree in Accounting & Finance from the University of Huddersfield in 2018. He has also worked in the accounting and admin team at Lip Hing Metal Manufacturing, the international wholesale business in Trafford Park.
Alan will play a key support role to the wider team in delivering audit, accounts, bookkeeping, payroll and VAT.
Alan was born in Guangdong province in China and speaks fluent Cantonese. He arrived in the UK aged 6 and attended Xavierian College in Manchester.
Murray Patt, founder of Alexander Knight & Co, said:
We are delighted to formally welcome Alan to our team. He is a very welcome addition and he has already accrued good experience client side. He showed great initiative in contacting us directly and we are always keen to hear from good people in the accountancy profession. We look forward to him continuing his journey, securing his professional qualifications here at our practice and enjoying a career with Alexander Knight & Co.
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We are delighted to welcome Alan Su to our team as he begins his internship programme at Alexander Knight & Co. Since we launched our practice in 2012 we have always invested in the next generation of accountants.
This summer, in 2019, we have introduced a more formal internship programme for people who wish to launch or progress a career in accountancy in Manchester and Cheshire.
If you are in college, sixth form or university and you are trying to get a foot in the door in the finance industry then you’ll know how challenging it can be.
The competition is intense. However, there are some things that you can do to stand out from the crowd. Here are some of our key tips:
Polish your CV
First things first, you need to have a clean and clear CV – with no spelling mistakes. Make sure that you proofread your resume for any spelling errors. Correct any spelling, style, or grammatical mistakes. Then, check it again. It is better to get someone else to proof read it too.
Be truthful and realistic on your CV. Don’t stretch the truth. That time when you worked in the school tuck shop doesn’t count as “financial management”. Don’t be tempted to exaggerate the roles you have played in organisations or it will surface in interview.
Think outside the box
Be alert to internship and work experience opportunities all year round – not just during the summer months. Getting experience at anytime of the year in a good accountancy firm is always worthwhile.
Get advice – and go direct
Careers advisers at schools, colleges and sixth forms are normally pretty good these days at guiding students on the availability of internships. Don’t just rely on them though.
To uncover really good internship opportunities, check the websites of accountants because many of them will have a careers page which offers details of their work experience or internship programme. Even if some of them don’t list one, the chances are they might have one, they just don’t advertise it. Don’t be shy to pick up the phone and speak to people to find out who the correct person to send your CV to is.
Apply on time
More formal internship programmes have strict deadlines for applying. Make sure you submit your application on time. Pay close attention to the submission process and don’t miss anything out. If anything is ambiguous, double-check with the employer so that you are fully clear on what is expected. Many applications get rejected because candidates don’t complete their application properly.
Prep for your interview
Going to an interview unprepared almost certainly guarantees that you won’t land the position. Obviously, you should be well presented, smart and arrive on time for your interview. Find out as much as you can ahead of time who will be interviewing you so that you are familiar with their role in the company.
Be proactive in asking questions about the company you are applying for – what is their growth strategy? How do they go about finding new talent? What is their range of clients?
Some of the more popular open-ended interview questions posed by employers include:
Where do you see yourself in five years?
Why did you choose the A-levels/degree you did?
Why are you interested in becoming an accountant?
Tell us about a time when you resolved a problem.
Alison perhaps add some better ones!?
Be flexible!
Internships offer a varied range of duties and learning opportunities. Whether your task is to input data into a spreadsheet, support an audit team or attend a client meeting, make sure you do it enthusiastically and professionally. Employers are always on the look out for new talent to enhance their organisation. If you follow these simple tips you could be the next superstar they are looking for.
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Alongside launching a company, buying an existing business usually ranks as one of the most exciting times of an entrepreneur’s career. It’s worth remembering that a successful acquisition takes patience, effort and plenty of homework before the deal is agreed.
When our entrepreneurial clients acquire a business, we take great care to make sure that the deal makes sense financially, practically and culturally. After all, it’s not for the faint hearted.
Buying a business
In our experience there are usually some common reasons why it makes sense for business owners to make an acquisition.
Geographical expansion. Rather than creating a new physical infrastructure to sell your services or goods and hiring new staff in a new location, it may be less risky and more profitable to acquire an existing business in your target location.
‘Bolting on’ new services, skills or technology. Creating new products and services to add to your business can often be done more efficiently through acquisition than trying to build them in-house. If another company has expertise in an area you want to operate it can make sense to ‘bolt’ them on to your existing business.
Growth and exit. It could be that you and your boardroom colleagues are on a growth mission for your business and a strategic acquisition can add value to your position. If you have one eye on an exit (i.e. selling your business) you may be able to create more value in your business by growing it with a suitable acquisition.
Buying a competitor. It may be that you feel that your business and a rival business are in the same marketplace, fishing in the same pond for the same type of business and that you come up against each other all the time in pitches and tenders. By teaming up together you may be able to create a more successful business.
Getting presented with an opportunity too good to miss is common. Sometimes, you will see an opportunity to radically reduce costs, improve margins and cashflows in a target business. Good professional advisers will present opportunities to you where you might not ordinarily come across them. This strategy is where private equity firms excel.
Succession planning. Retirement, handing a family firm into new hands or undergoing a management buyout (MBO) are popular routes to acquiring a company.
If you are thinking of acquiring a business you need to make sure that you finance the deal appropriately, structure the deal correctly legally and ensure that a thorough due diligence process takes place. That’s where lawyers and accountants will be able to help you and add tremendous value.
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If you run a business there’s a good chance that you’ll be exasperated by the way the Brexit process has unfolded. Whether you voted to leave or remain, the one thing we are sure most entrepreneurs agree on is that stability and certainty is better than prevarication and procrastination.
It’s for that reason that we are recommending that clients stick to the things that they can control in their own business. Being brave, creative and agile are the hallmarks of good entrepreneurs but being focused is also a key attribute.
At this stage, Brexit has already been delayed and we still have no idea what our relationship with the European Union will look like – but getting the basics right will stand you in good stead, whatever happens.
Focus
Focus on what you do best as a business. Don’t worry about what everyone else is doing – just stick to what you know you are good at and keep your management team and colleagues around you positive and motivated to keep delivering a good quality service and product.
Cashflow
Cash is king. Businesses that have a clear view of their cash position will be able to respond better to issues out of their control. If a fresh injection of working capital is required, you can predict it well in advance and find sources in good time.
Learn
If you want to know more about preparing your business for Brexit, you can find this guide published by the UK Government, which offers some guidance. The ICAEW has also produced some excellent guidance here.
Both of these sources will give you ‘food for thought’ and enable you to be equipped with a decent level of knowledge about many of the Brexit factors at play for business owners and employers.
If you want to discuss the impact of Brexit on your business, you can speak to our team on 0161 980 8788.
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Are you a newly qualified (or part-qualified) accountant?
A fantastic opportunity has arisen for a newly qualified – or part-qualified accountant – to join our growing practice in Hale, Greater Manchester.
Alexander Knight & Co is based at modern Grade A office space in the heart of Hale village. We have an entrepreneurial culture and work with some of the brightest and fastest-growing businesses in Greater Manchester and Cheshire.
Working in a supportive and friendly environment you will be involved in a wide variety of accountancy services for our client base.
This is a fantastic opportunity for someone who is Chartered, Certified or AAT qualified/part-qualified and looking for ongoing personal and professional development and support.
We are proud to be the first accountancy firm in the region to make use of drone technology in audit work for clients.
We have introduced a fleet of drones to undertake verification work for our audit clients who have large or dispersed sites where traditional auditing methods prove difficult or very labour intensive.
Our team is now being trained to fly the drones and the benefits of this approach for our clients are significant.
Drones for audits
We have been testing the use of drones in the audit process for several months now and the results have been successful. Many clients can benefit from the use of this innovative technology. Clients are increasingly seeing them as less of a novelty item and more of a useful business tool.
They are also proving extremely helpful in assessing physical risk before completing audit work in tricky locations.
We hope that by using technology like this, as well as testing other forms of Artificial Intelligence (AI), we can pass the benefits on to both our staff and our clients.
Murray Patt flies one of the drones we are using for some of our audit clients.
Artificial intelligence
Accountants have been using technology for many years to improve what they do and deliver more value to clients. However, it is important for our profession to keep exploring new methods of working as technology, particularly Artificial Intelligence, develops at such a rapid pace.
Drone technology is under the spotlight and new legislation due to be introduced in November 2019 will give police officers the power to land and seize drones. It will also require users to produce a licence.
We firmly support this new legislation to make sure that drones are used in a safe and responsible way. We are confident that these policies will continue to enable businesses to derive the benefits from this emerging technology
If you are looking for new accountants to audit your business – speak to our team now.
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From 1st April 2019, if you are VAT registered and have a turnover of morethan £85,000 then the making tax digital (MTD) scheme for VAT will be mandatory.
If you are eligible you must join the scheme and if, for whatever reason, your turnover falls below the £85,000 threshold you must stay on the scheme and cannot revert to the old way of submitting returns – unless you deregister or become exempt for MTD.
If you qualify then you will need to change the way you file your VAT return with HMRC starting for your VAT period starting after the 1st April 2019:
If your VAT quarter end is March then your first MTD submission will be June 19
If your VAT quarter end is April then your first MTD submission will be July 19
If your VAT quarter end is May then your first MTD submission will be Aug 19
The new regime means that HMRC will receive the same VAT return information as before, but it needs to be sent by an API (electronic) link to HMRC and can’t be typed in manually via online services.
VAT frequency and payment deadlines will remain the same as will eligibility for VAT special schemes.
When filing your return, the transactions that make up the return need to be kept digitally, this can be done using an accounting software package or by using spreadsheets.
Some software accounting packages that are up to date will have the API link required already in (SAGE ONE for example) so you will just need to send your return via the software package.
However, some older versions and spreadsheets won’t have this capability and therefore two options are available:
Upgrade your software for the latest version with the API link. This may not be practical, or possibly cost prohibitive.
Use our software to send the data to HMRC. We have already invested in the new software to enable our clients to maintain their existing VAT return process in a compliant way.
If you have any questions about ‘making tax digital’ and what it means for your business, speak to Jane Marquez in our team and she will help you make the transition.
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We are delighted to have boosted our team of accountants in Hale with the appointment of experienced tax specialist Clare Bradbury.
Clare is an experienced tax specialist and will advise our SME clients on tax planning issues as well as guiding company directors on tax issues during and after a corporate transaction. During her career she has worked at EY, KPMG and Mazars in Manchester.
There is high demand for specialist tax advice in the region and we are delighted to have appointed Clare to our team. We are confident that our clients, who range from fast-growth businesses to seasoned entrepreneurs will be well served by her specialist tax skills.
Clare Bradbury (pictured above with our founder Murray Patt) said:
I’m delighted to join the team and I’m looking forward to working with our clients to make sure their tax position works effectively for their business at whatever stage it is at in its lifecycle.
Today’s headlines are all about the ‘end of austerity’, income tax cuts and the Chancellors ‘sense of humour’ from the dispatch box – but we’ve done a breakdown of the key things you need to know as a business owner following yesterday’s budget.
There were some interesting changes to the tax regime which we feel are worth highlighting, including some that were somewhat of a surprise:
The upsides:
The annual investment allowance (AIA) has shot up to £1m from £200k with effect from January 2019. Provisionally for two years, this is a great improvement and will facilitate lots more tax planning and investment for our clients with plant and machinery and other capital-intensive businesses.
A 2% tax allowance on the cost price of commercial buildings will (hopefully) stimulate more owner occupier acquisitions so if you are looking to buy commercial premises there is a clear incentive to do so under the new regime. If you are thinking of buying your commercial property, talk to us about the effect of this allowance.
The uplift in personal allowances and the higher rate tax threshold from 6th April 2019 are modest, but greatly appreciated by all our clients and their staff. Put simply:
The personal allowance threshold, the rate at which people start paying income tax at 20%, to rise from £11,850 to £12,500 in April – a year earlier than planned.
The higher rate income tax threshold, the point at which people start paying tax at 40%, to rise from £46,350 to £50,000 in April.
The downsides:
R&D tax relief is to be restricted for loss making businesses and will be linked to three times the PAYE/NIC paid by the company. This may stifle investment in creative industries in particular. We’ll be keeping a close eye on the impact of this for our growing portfolio of creative and digital clients.
Entrepreneurs’ relief will be subject to a holding period of 2 years (currently 1 year) for disposals made after 6th April 2019. This means that careful planning should be undertaken by those businesses considering an exit in the future. Some of our clients who are seeking to exit their business should pay close attention to this and make sure they speak to our team about the impact of this.
And finally…
In summary, we will be working with our client base of entrepreneurs to ensure that the changes introduced in yesterday’s budget work positively for them and where there are downsides, working to minimise the impact.
For a more detailed breakdown of all the issues from Budget 2018, you can see our detailed budget summary page here.
If you have any concerns with anything you have read about the budget and what it means for you or your family, don’t hesitate to contact Murray and the team.
We are very pleased to reveal our new video. It features some of our brilliant team, our office and gives you an insight into our culture and approach to working with our clients. We hope you like it.
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