Developing a business

Once you've started your business you'll want to develop and grow so your company stays successful. We've outlined here a few of the key issues you might want to consider when developing your business:

1. Strategy and planning

If you were incredibly organised when you first started your company, you'll have written a business plan within which may be outlined a long term strategy. If however, you're like the majority of entrepreneurs who start in business, there might not be a business plan to refer to! If this is the case, think about where you want to business to be in a years time. Do you want to increase the amount of clients you have, increase your profit's or simply increase your business reputation? Whatever your business objective, work out the best way to get there and stick to it. For instance, if you want to increase you client base, think about marketing and sales strategies you can use to do this - then make sure you follow these through. With a brilliant strategy it'll be much easier to achieve your business goals. One hot tip is simply to write all your ideas down, just the act of writing something down forces your brain to slow down and consider things far more carefully.

2. Employing staff

If you want to grow your business, it might be necessary to employ some staff. Think about the staff you actually need and how you'll utilise their time - will they be worth the investment? That is, will the increased staff cost yield the same business value. Don't rush into this kind of a decision as it can influence your tax payments as well as the structure of your company.

3. Tax planning

This is probably not something you were looking forward to thinking about....however, it's crucial that you plan for tax payments.If you don't, it will end up costing you far more. Speak to an accountant about tax planning for the next financial year so you can minimise the amount of tax you have to pay.

4. Managing business process

By now, you've probably got a network of suppliers and business processes set up, however, in order to develop your company, you'll need to think about streamlining your procedures in order to reduce your costs. If you order stock, could you buy in larger bulk so as to receive discounts? Are you turning over stock quick enough? If you're a service based firm, are you spending too much time on administration? You could make your life easier by setting up report templates and emails as well as hiring a financial advisor and accountant.

5. Financing growth

If you need investment in order to grow your business, there are a number of options to consider. You could look to an angel investor (dragons den style), get a business loan, re-mortgage some of your home etc - all of these should be carefully considered before a decision is made. Speak to an accountant and financial advisor in order to optimise on the options that are available to you.

We've put together some of out top tips in this section - have a look around for more advice. If you'd like to speak to Easy Accountancy about your business or the services that we offer, Ask us a question, call us 0500 234111 / 01442 275767 or email nikki.hanlon@easyaccountancy.co.uk

Easy Accountancy

Easy Accountancy is the UK’s only national specialist accountancy firm for freelancers, sole traders and small businesses

If you’ve just started out as a freelancer or run a small business, you’ll definitely need a small accountant and there are plenty of options out there! However, most accountants will charge you every time you get in touch with them; for every phone call, email or meeting.

We don’t want our clients to be scared to contact us and potentially lose out on valuable tax saving advice. It's even more important when you first start out as you really need to set your business up in the best way possible. As a start up you’ll probably have loads of questions and will really appreciate the fact you can call your accountant as many times as you like without the fear of racking up large bills.

Our low cost, all-inclusive fixed-fee accountancy service includes unlimited access to your own accountant throughout the year, so you never need to worry about picking up the phone and then receiving a bill afterwards for the privilege, and covers all your business and personal tax affairs needs. All clients additionally receive: 

We’ve saved our clients up to half on their accountancy bills – if you’d like a quote, click on the quote me button to the right of this page. Alternatively, call us on 0500 234 111 / 01442 275 767 or email nikki.hanlon@easyaccountancy.co.uk

We also have a money-back service guarantee - all of your telephone calls and emails will be answered on the same day, or we will refund your monthly fee (another first within the accountancy world).

To appoint us as your accountants, please fill in our Client Agreement Form online.

If you are a contractor working through a limited company then visit SJD Accountancy (our sister company) who specialise in providing tax advice and accountancy services for Limited Company contractors.

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