Another sigh of tax relief

Last week we reported on how we helped one of our clients organise Cyclescheme but if you’re less bikes and more babies then you too can breathe a sigh of tax relief as now we want to tell you about Childcarescheme.

This week one of our clients came to us for advice on Childcarescheme and we said it’s a brilliant idea.

Just like Cyclescheme (and brought to you by the same people) Childcarescheme offers employers the chance to help improve the lifestyle of their employees while enjoying tax based incentive. It works by allowing employees to obtain childcare vouchers to pay either all, or a percentage of, their childcare costs tax-free through salary sacrifice payments.

In short, childcare payments are deducted before tax which saves the employee money. Employers can save up to £402 per year per member of staff involved in the scheme too. If you want to know more about the scheme then visit the Childcarescheme website or call us for advice on this and any other scheme you might have an interest in.

In other news this week we are continuing our crusade to make accounting more efficient for small business owners. You might have previously read on our website that we are big fans of Xero which brings accounting software into the twenty teens by putting it into the cloud.

This week one of our senior accountants visited one of our clients to show them how to run financial reports using Xero. The financial reports function is excellent as you can see how your company is performing at any one time and how many dividends you can take out.

You can find out more about this accounting software in our article There’s Nothing More Beautiful Than Xero.

Now when Accounts and Legal first began we inadvertently specialised in Estate Agency, our knowledge of the industry and our new insight reports were attractive and while we have branched out into other industries since those early days we haven’t forgotten our roots.

Last year we commissioned a survey which showed that 44% of estate agents in London were overpaying on property portals so with new portal Agents Mutual just about to go live we thought we would put it to you again and the results were very interesting; they were even picked up by Citi reseach and you can view them here.