Home Furlough

End of an era

So as many of you are already aware; furlough ends this month.

For many they will have already prepared but for some, we appreciate there might still have been a degree of uncertainty/hope that the Government might have something up their sleeve.

It certainly appears that unfortunately this is not the case and there is nothing to our knowledge in the pipeline.

If you remain concerned about this please do get in touch and schedule a call with your client account manager.

What else you might have missed?

  1. The Super Deduction Tax Relief came in earlier this year so don’t forget to take advantage of this in light of the pending budget announcements where we are expecting to start feeling more of a pinch again. More information about this can be found here.
  2. In case you missed it from April 2022 tax on dividend income will increase by 1.25% to help support the NHS and social care.
  3. The Autumn budget is currently scheduled for October 27th so we are expecting to find out a lot more then.

Again if you have any concerns regarding either of the above points or want to schedule in advance a call following the budget announcement schedule this with your client account manager there now.

Is it worth continuing in business in light of all of this?

Whilst you might think this a fairly blunt and negative question to ask, let us be honest, many people have felt that way at least at some point over the last 18 months or so.

So many have now though come out the other side and are even; in light of pending tax rises, repayment of Government-backed loans, fighting back and doing really well with some working towards an exit valuation figure they never before dreamed of that they would be over the moon with and which would see them nicely into retirement.

We will share more insights around exit strategies in our mid month newsletter next month but there is certainly lots to think about so please do get in touch if any of the above is something you want to discuss further.

The Chancellor extended the support

The Chancellor extended the support available once again there yesterday which further reinforces the fact that the battle against COVID-19 is still far from being over and based on his extended timescales it would be reasonable to expect at least some form of disruption into April/May and most likely for at least the first 6 months of next year though there are plenty of positives signs.  

The three key announcements yesterday were:

  1. the extension of furlough payments to 30 April 2021
  2. businesses will now have until 31 March 2021 to access the Government-backed loan schemes
  3. the budget announcement will be on 3 March 2021 whereby further support packages are expected to be announced including there being mention of new loan schemes that will replace the current Government-backed loan schemes

For the full release and to read more please click here.

Lockdown 2 Government Support Summary

This email takes you through the announcements and what it means for your business.

On the one hand it is great to see the government making available this help. But this probably means we will see fairly strict lockdown conditions between now and March 2021. We hope we are wrong about this, but in your contingency/scenario planning, particularly in regard to cash, please extend this 4-week lockdown until the end of March. If you need help with your business planning, please get in touch.

Here are the full details from the Government’s announcement.

The Self-Employed Income Scheme
On 30th November you will be able to claim a grant for up to 80% of your profits, to cover you for Nov – Jan 2021. This is capped at £7,500. They also declared there will be one more grant which will cover the period Feb – Apr 2021. Details are yet unknown of when this will be paid or for how much.

To receive these grants, you need to have received the previous grants and it is currently anticipated that this portal will open towards the end of this month.

The ‘Furlough scheme’
This has now been extended to the end of March. Which in effect means that we are unlikely to see the Job Support Scheme operational… You can Furlough any member of staff, as long as they were on the payroll before Oct 30th 2020. And the government will pay up to 80% of their wages, capped at £2,500 per month.

As a result of extending the Furlough scheme the planned Jan 2021 ‘Job retention bonus’ of £1,000 for any employee you Furloughed who you still employed has been deferred. Until when? Who knows?

Help with cash flow
If you haven’t taken a Bounce Back Loan or didn’t take the maximum amount available to you, you can now top this up. And you will be able to take out a CBIL or Bounce Back Loan now until the end of Jan 2021.

Mortgage payment holidays for those who haven’t taken a payment holiday will be available for 6 months, without this being noted on their credit files.

As with everything these days the above is all subject to change but this looks like what we will be working with for the weeks ahead as a minimum.

Additional grants???

There are meant to be more local authority grants coming but more details are yet to be released and these may be discretionary rather than automatic but watch out for updates from respective local authorities over the coming weeks and hopefully within the next 10 days or so.

We have also got a fantastic link below to what grants you could perhaps access but which are not so widely known which can be accessed here so please feel free to follow this link here to see what you could access.

Some inside information perhaps?

We have heard on the grapevine; though not confirmed, the following:

  1. The Government are allegedly working on a new support package which is currently going through the EFG and may mirror the current CBILs scheme but be more easily accessible but please note whilst we have heard this on good authority this is not guaranteed.
  2. Following on from the above the second BBL opportunity for some; it is widely known that the first bounce back loan was never intended to cover the lengthy period of uncertainty that we now face.  There are also now rumours of a second bounce back loan opportunity exceeding the original 25% of turnover/£50k limited to reflect the increased term that the original loan was never designed to cover.

Watch this space but we thought we would share these with you as they came from a source well connected within the Bank of England.

Job Support Scheme Update

This may have crept under the radar for some last week but there was a subtle very positive tweak by Rishi Sunek in an announcement last week that we wanted to highlight.

The Job Support Scheme; as you all know, comes in from 1 November to replace the current furlough scheme and will run for six months.

The change is that the minimum hours required for employees to work has dropped from 33% to 20% and the employer contribution for non-worked hours has dropped from 1/3 to 5%.

The full and updated summarised factsheet can be found here along with the eligibility criteria and we have attached the more detailed guidance here also.

Business Update.

Making sure our support continues to be fit for purpose

We continue to seek ways in which we can exceed all client’s expectations as we look for ways in which we can improve the service we deliver to you and even more so in the current climate.

Improved Payroll Service Offering

The first thing that we have recently finalised is a strategic partnership that we have setup with a specialist payroll provider here in the UK that will mean that for those with a payroll subscription the current service will not only remain but you will also receive additional services on top of those received now including a personalised portal to access payslips and input timesheets among other things.

There is no additional cost for this service and if you have any further queries around this then please contact your client account manager.

The changes with regards to payroll will be staggered over the next three months as we gradually introduce this.

Postponed price freeze until 31 March 2021

At the start of the current pandemic we postponed any planned price increases and haven’t implemented any since then.

We now propose extending this price freeze until 31 March 2021 to all clients and in light of the current pandemic propose the following if you are in agreement:

  • For those that currently pay for us to submit their confirmation statements, we propose withdrawing this service as it is a simple task that takes no longer than 15 minutes but do instead propose putting a short video on our website to walk you through how you can do this yourself.
  • As many of you already know, we have for some time now been working towards going paperless and we’ve never demonstrated better than during lockdown.  We now propose to roll this out entirely so even paperwork associated with the sign off of your accounts will be provided to you in advance by way of a blank template and because they only need be kept by yourself we will again just provide a walk through video that can talk you through what needs to be put where.  The same will apply with dividends-and dividend counterfoils but these can be accessed through Xero for those that use this.

The above changes we see as a way in which we can protect the fee for you but not take any value away from the service bring provided.

We do however appreciate and respect that some clients may prefer for us to continue as we do and absorb any price increases and if this is the case then please let us know.

If we don’t hear back from you, we will be looking to introduce these changes as of 1 September 2020 but are more than happy to discuss any of the above with you also and again please contact your client account manager if you have any queries.

Again just to reiterate, by doing this it also allows us to offer the additional services below which we consider of significantly more value now and going forward.

Additional services (some new and some introduced as lockdown commenced)

  • Don’t forget that all clients on Xero do now all have access to:
  1. Cash flow software that will allow you to look three months ahead
  2. Credit management software

If you have any queries reference any of the above, please liaise with your client account manager or if you are not on Xero and wish to move across then please let us know.

  • We have recognised the changing needs of our clients and have the following dedicated e-mail addresses should you have any specific needs:

 

  • Creditors services offering – we understand and appreciate more than ever the fear of not being paid by a customer so have introduced a new service offering if you have any such concerns.  If you contact your client account manager with any such concerns, we can have a tailored report provided for you so that you can decide what action to take thereafter.

 

  • Finally, we know how important community is and we are now part of the Futrli Community where we are mentors and where there is a private group for our clients.  You can also get a significant amount of information across other areas including funding, marketing etc.

Hopefully from all of the above, you can see how we are adjusting our service offering internally to ensure that this is fit for purpose to help all clients with existing struggles and battles that they face and if we stick together we will be stronger for it.

Further Detail Behind Latest Government Announcement

Most of you will have already seen the headlines last week but we wanted to digest this and get a little more detail behind the proposals before we expanded on them and we still await some further details as of today.

In summary though:

  • Incentives to retain staff following the end of furlough
  • Temporary reduction, until 31st March 2021, in stamp duty so that houses under £500k are exempt
  • The Eat Out To Help Out Scheme across August for participating restaurants
  • Temporary VAT reduction
  • Incentives to help young people into the workforce through apprenticeships and traineeships (more information still to follow regarding this so contact us if you wish to discuss further)
  • The COVID-19 Job Retention Scheme or as most of us know it… Furloughing
    The Government is now incentivising companies to bring back their furloughed staff and keep them until at least Jan 2021. For every furloughed member of staff, you bring back to work, continuously employ and pay over an average of £520 a month for Nov/Dec/Jan, the government will give your business £1,000.The money will be granted once you have submitted your payroll RTI submission for January 2021. This could be a very welcome cash bonus for many businesses though in our opinion could have been better spent as we personally aren’t sure jobs would be kept open this long given the size of the grant.  A thankless task; we know and the Government have done a great job but we think this one will not hit the mark.More information is expected regarding this by 31 July and full guidance is going to be published in the Autumn we’re told.

    Stamp duty change
    An increase in the Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) threshold in England and Northern Ireland – increasing the threshold under which no SDLT is paid on the purchase of a main home from £125,000 to £500,000, with immediate effect until 31‌‌‌ ‌March 2021.

    The Eat Out To Help Out Scheme across August for participating restaurants
    during August, diners can get 50% off Monday to Wednesday on meals and non-alcoholic drinks, up to £10 per person, when eating at participating restaurants, bars, cafes and other establishments that have registered

    VAT changes for eat in/takeaway food, hospitality and leisure (just not alcohol)
    Of course, we wholeheartedly applaud the reduction in VAT to 5% for these categories from July 15th to 12th Jan 2021. The accountant in us would have preferred the reduction to take place at the beginning or end of a month, but that’s just life!

    The UK government will cut VAT from 20% to 5% on any eat-in or hot takeaway food and drinks from restaurants, cafes and pubs, excluding alcohol. This VAT reduction also applies to all holiday accommodation in hotels, B&Bs, campsites and caravan sites, as well as attractions like cinemas, theme parks and zoos.

Flexible Furlough Calculations

As you are all aware, we have submitted all furlough claims to date for no charge.

Following the introduction of ‘flexible furlough’ and the complexity of the calculations behind this, there will now be a charge for the calculation element of this if you wish to take advantage because of the additional time involved at our end.

If you wish to make these calculations personally, you too would then need to then make the claim as we professionally cannot make a claim for which we were not responsible for.

All other standard furlough claims will continue to be made for no additional charge.

Free Xero training

Xero are kindly hosting a series of free training sessions to a limited number of people so if this of interest then please get in touch as the topics are changing on a week to week basis.

Webinar

What to expect next (financially and operationally)
This week we are speaking at the North East Expo event which this year is naturally being hosted online so to register for this free event just follow this link here where I will discuss my thoughts and make this as interactive as possible for those attending to help people plot a route forward both financially and operationally.

Last; but by no means least, welcome three new additions

I’ve resisted any pictures but we now welcome Kate, Triveni and Fraser to the team who actually started at various times through lockdown but that is the end of our latest recruitment drive; for now, so we thought it a good time to introduce them and if you see an e-mail in your mailbox from them it is genuine.

Flexible Furlough

Yes we had another late Friday night update and a client with much greater HR expertise than us has kindly shared the following with us with regards to a number of questions that might be raised.

What is a flexible furlough?

From 1 July 2020, employers can bring furloughed employees back to work for any amount of time and any work pattern.

You will still be able to claim the furlough grant for the hours your flexibly furloughed employees do not work, compared to the hours they would normally have worked in that period.

How do I put employees on flexible furlough?

From 1 July 2020, only employees that you have successfully claimed a previous grant for will be eligible for more grants under the scheme.

This means they must have previously been furloughed for at least 3 consecutive weeks taking place any time between 1 March and 30 June 2020. For the minimum 3 consecutive week period to be completed by 30 June, the last day an employee could have started furlough for the first time was 10 June.

You should have a discussion with employees who you wish to place on the flexible furlough scheme because you will need to agree the arrangements of their part time work. The agreement should be confirmed in writing and you must keep a written record of the agreement for five years.

You do not need to place all your employees on furlough. In addition, you can continue to fully furlough employees if you wish.

How long can flexible furlough last?

Flexible furlough agreements can last any amount of time. This means that they do not need to last for a minimum of 3 weeks. However, the period that you claim for must be for a minimum period of 7 calendar days. Any flexible furlough period of less than this cannot be claimed for via the scheme.

Employees can enter into a flexible furlough agreement more than once.

What do I pay an employee on flexible furlough?

You will pay the employee for the hours they work, along with national insurance contributions and pension contributions for those hours.

The scheme will allow you to recover the remainder of wages to a maximum cap. Wage caps are proportional to the hours an employee is furloughed. For example, an employee is entitled to 60% of the £2,500 cap if they are placed on furlough for 60% of their usual hours.

The amount that the scheme will cover will begin to decrease from September 2020, and you will be responsible for all of the national insurance and pension contributions from August 2020, regardless of the employee being on flexible furlough.

Claims under the new scheme will be open from 1 July 2020.

When claiming for employees who are flexibly furloughed you should not claim until you are sure of the exact number of hours they will have worked during the claim period. This means that you should claim when you have certainty about the number of hours your employees are working during the claim period. If you claim in advance and your employee works for more hours than you have told HMRC about, then you will have to pay some of the grant back to HMRC.

What records do I need to keep?

You’ll need to keep records of how many hours your employees work and the number of hours they are furloughed during flexible furlough. For example, you will need to record that an employee who normally works for 37 hours a week is actually working for 15 hours and is furloughed for 22 hours.

Can my employees work for me during ‘down time’ in flexible furlough?

During flexible furlough, employees are not allowed to do any work for you or any linked or associated organisation during the periods that you record them as being on furlough.

Employees on flexible furlough can do training during the hours that they are recorded as being on furlough, but must be paid at least national minimum wage for those hours.

How do I calculate normal working hours?

If your employee is flexibly furloughed, you’ll need to work out your employee’s usual hours and record the actual hours they work as well as their furloughed hours for each claim period.

There are two different calculations you can use to work out your employee’s usual hours, depending on whether they work fixed or variable hours.

You should work out work out usual hours for employees who work variable hours, if either:

  • your employee is not contracted to a fixed number of hours
  • your employee’s pay depends on the number of hours they work

Where the employee’s working hours are fixed, or their pay does not vary with the amount of hours worked, the reference period for calculating their hours is the hours your employee was contracted for at the end of the last pay period ending on or before 19 March 2020.

Where an employee works variable hours, you will use the higher of:

  • the average number of hours worked in the tax year 2019 to 2020
  • the corresponding calendar period in the tax year 2019 to 2020.

 

Webinars (NOT TO BE MISSED)

One of the first and most important lessons that I have learnt is the time lost with family whilst I was working on the business and this is where Joe Laws of Joe Laws Photography will be joining us to discuss what he has planned to help people always appreciate this.  Already I have scheduled in our family photoshoot and these are memories that whilst might have in the past have been forgotten, but in the future, will always be remembered.

Family versus work versus you
Book here to join us at 11.30 on Thursday 18 June.

In our second webinar, planned for two weeks’ time on Thursday 25 June, I will be discussed what I think lies ahead and what we can potentially anticipate.

What to expect next
To join click here on Thursday 25 June at 11am where I will discuss my thoughts and make this as interactive as possible for those attending to help people plot a route forward.

Don’t forget that you can register for webinars previously missed by clicking on the links on past newsletters to access a recording, going to our website, or visiting our company YouTube channel.

Government Support Update

Rather than rush to get this out to you on Friday evening, we’ve taken a closer look at this and the detail then followed so can now summarise the latest announcements below.

Furlough changes
From 1 July 2020, businesses will be given the flexibility to bring furloughed employees back part time. This is a month earlier than previously announced to help support people back to work.

Individual firms will decide the hours and shift patterns their employees will work on their return, so that they can decide on the best approach for them – and will be responsible for paying their wages while in work.

The scheme updates mean that the following will apply for the period people are furloughed:

  • June and July: The government will pay 80% of wages up to a cap of £2,500 as well as employer National Insurance (ER NICS) and pension contributions. Employers are not required to pay anything.
  • August: The government will pay 80% of wages up to a cap of £2,500. Employers will pay ER NICs and pension contributions – for the average claim, this represents 5% of the gross employment costs the employer would have incurred had the employee not been furloughed.
  • September: The government will pay 70% of wages up to a cap of £2,187.50. Employers will pay ER NICs and pension contributions and 10% of wages to make up 80% total up to a cap of £2,500. For the average claim, this represents 14% of the gross employment costs the employer would have incurred had the employee not been furloughed.
  • October: The government will pay 60% of wages up to a cap of £1,875. Employers will pay ER NICs and pension contributions and 20% of wages to make up 80% total up to a cap of £2,500. For the average claim, this represents 23% of the gross employment costs the employer would have incurred had the employee not been furloughed.

Self-employment income support scheme extension
Rishi Sunak announced last week that the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme will be extended – with those eligible able to claim a second and final grant capped at £6,570.
Those eligible under the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS), which has so far seen 2.3 million claims worth £6.8 billion will be able to claim a second and final grant in August. The grant will be worth 70% of their average monthly trading profits, paid out in a single instalment covering three months’ worth of profits, and capped at £6,570 in total.

New Funding/further updates

Local authority grants:

It now appears that local authorities are gradually starting to drip feed out the discretionary grants that we mentioned on previous newsletters though they appear to each be operating at different speeds.  If you feel like you fell between the cracks then contact your local authority today for an update or keep an eye on their website.

There is also other financial support still out there that is not all directly related to COVID-19 with us including just a handful below:

General support for start-ups and those businesses looking to grow:

https://nbsl.org.uk/
https://www.rtcnorth.co.uk/

A great resource for finding grants generally:
https://www.grantfinder.co.uk/

The challenges we can expect next

The Easy Part Has Now Passed. Whilst we won’t deny the fact that the past few weeks and months have been challenging; as we fast approach a further announcement regarding the potential easing of lock down, more troubled times await us in the business world.

I have said on a number of occasions already that the business curve is most definitely behind the health curve and will be very different to it also.

We don’t say this to make people feel uneasy as we want to remain calm, but we don’t want people to grow complacent over the coming weeks and months.  To maintain this calm, we must retain control to the best of our ability and that means not letting up as we strike back against the current challenges that we have faced and those that still await us.

Let’s first start with some fairly obvious issues that lie ahead:

  1. These Government-backed loans will need repaying and whether they are 80% backed or 100% backed, if they are not repaid, it will impact your credit rating as a minimum.
  2. Aside from the loans, the Government has provided significant financial support such as local authority grants, furlough payments, self-employed grants etc.  These will all need to repaid but indirectly; in some shape or form, and we expect this to be via any or all of the following:
    1. Increase in personal tax rates
    2. Increase in company tax rates
    3. Increase in national insurance
    4. Increase in VAT

Some of these may come subtly through the reduction of some allowances and some may just be in terms of a hike in rates such as a jump in company tax from 19% to 30% would not be beyond the realms of possibility.  Whilst it would unreasonable and probably unlikely that these hikes will come immediately; we would be shocked if they don’t come at all, and whilst some industries might benefit from some respite such as hospitality, they may also not benefit at all nor may anybody be given any degree of leniency.

  1. Whether you have accessed any of the financial support or not, we cannot realistically see any way in which you will not be part of the repaying of it!

There are then the operational challenges that may await such as:

  • Suppliers reducing or revoking credit terms
  • Delivery timescales for materials being longer
  • Staff not wanting to return to work
  • Customers delaying orders, cancelling them or wanting extended credit
  • All of the above and more!

You might even think a lot of the above might not apply to you but it will impact you in some way or another as prices just in day to day life with regards to shopping are likely to rise!

Our key message and support

The support you have benefited from to date must continue in some shape or form to help you through the times we have ahead.  We encourage you to engage with us over the coming days and weeks to discuss this support in greater detail as we grow our team and other resources to be able to deliver this on an ongoing basis for you.

We know concerns will remain and cost will be a barrier for some if not many, but we have worked hard to find solutions to this that we can discuss at the same time.

Remember these two messages

  1. With the government support to date and the announcements made and pending, they may have whetted our appetite with regards to more positive times ahead, but it will not go far enough to quench our thirst.
  2. Finally, never forget – calm is the word but not complacency.

Webinars (NOT TO BE MISSED)

With us coming back of the bank holiday we have focused on just the one webinar this week that is ran alongside our software partner that assists with cash flow management.

Cash flow planning beyond COVID-19
Friday 29 May, Midday (book here)

Would you like to have the answers to all of the questions I have raised in the section above?

Join us for this webinar to hear how we as a business have adapted, how other businesses have adapted and how you too could to not just survive but really strike-back!

Furlough and Help for Self-Employed Update

The timing of our two webinars; links towards the foot of this newsletter, couldn’t have been timed better.  We’ve just outlined the headlines below together with the links to the full HMRC articles and will go through all of this in more detail this coming Friday.

Furlough Update
Thousands more employees will now be able to receive support through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) after the eligibility date was extended to 19 March 2020, the government announced today (full article can be found here).
Employers can claim for furloughed employees that were employed and on their PAYE payroll on or before 19 March 2020. This means that the employee must have been notified to HMRC through an RTI submission notifying payment in respect of that employee on or before 19 March 2020.
This change makes the scheme more generous while keeping the substantial fraud risks under control and is expected to benefit over 200,000 employees.
HMRC are aiming to have the scheme fully operational next week but anticipate issues and the system crashing when it first goes live.

Update for the Self-Employed
How the figures will be calculated has now been outlined in detail and the breakdown of which can be found here.It will be based on those figures declared on your tax returns covering the 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19 tax years as appropriate.

Any more queries around either of the above, please come along to our webinar on Friday where we will look to answer as many as we can.

COVID 19 Strike Back – Lets hit back and lets hit back hard!

Now that the dust has settled and we should have digested the support there and how we access this; though some finer details are still yet to be clarified, let’s hit back with all of this rather than feel sorry for ourselves and our business.  If you don’t, you more than likely won’t have a business to return to.

To start with we are ecstatic that we can now share our co-branded document that has been produced alongside one of our software providers that has a walk-through of how best you can do this.  This can be found here.

There is still time to jump onto our second 30 minute LIVE work-out webinar without the spandex this week where we will look at pivoting your business to bounce back (register here) REGISTRATIONS NOW CLOSED.

Following on from this I am opening up the diary for the team for the week commencing 20 April 2020 for you to have a 30 minute one-to-one free session to discuss anything we cover next week in more detail.

Just to stress, now is not the time to stand still, it is the time to strike back!

Further guidance

Following our previous newsletter and as referred to above, people have been asking for further guidance around:
  • Help for the self-employed (to book on click here) REGISTRATIONS NOW CLOSED.
  • Furloughing of staff (to book on click here) REGISTRATIONS NOW CLOSED

As a result of this we will be doing two separate 30 minute live webinars this Friday covering the above two areas and will add access to finance to each of them also.

To book on, click either of the respective links above.

Finally – Client Exchange (APRIL ONLY)

Don’t worry we are not exchanging any clients.

During such unprecedented times we are going to support one another and we won’t always be able to do this for free.

We can however help one another out in exchange for goods/services to the value.

In light of this; and only for the remainder of this month as a trial, if you need some assistance but are struggling financially, can you email what you need to enquiries@gtaccountants.com and we will try to see if we can match you up with another customer.

Please note this is not a free advertising tool but instead to help those clients in need so that we can be specific.

If you are looking to advertise, let me know and I will do a separate client-led newsletter with content provided by you so you can advertise your services but by way of a newsletter rather than direct e-mail as I don’t think any of us would appreciate being sold to in the current climate unless we were looking to buy.

Lee Richardson – Director of Coast Technology Limited

"Highly recommend anyone move to Tennick Accountants for a more well-rounded, supportive and proactive accountant."

Lee Richardson – Director of Coast Technology Limited
 

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