Designed for non-VAT registered businesses, we'll do your bank reconciling so you can relax knowing it's done right, and on time.

Bank reconciliation - non-VAT registered companies

A 12-month plan designed for new business owners who may want some extra guidance around business structure, accounting software setup and training, and more.

We will provide you with guidance and support on what you'll need to do to establish and commence running your new business

We can provide advice on the best business structure for your needs and take care of establishment and registrations

Set up your Xero file so it's optimised for you and give you initial training so you start off in the right way

Preparation of a budget tailored to your business and input into Xero so you can track how you're going

Starter Pack

We will help get your business officially incorporated

Company formation

Designed for sole trader businesses, we'll do your bank reconciling so you can relax knowing it's done right, and on time. Take one less task off your plate.

Bank reconciliation - sole trader businesses

A 12 month plan designed for established businesses. Additional support in the form of management accounts and time with your accountant

Completing quarterly management accounts tailored to your business requirements and aligned to your VAT quarters

Quarterly meetings with your accountant to chat business planning, strategy, or questions about your management accounts

Success pack

The initial setup of your Xero accounting software tailored to your business's needs, plus a one hour training session where you'll learn the best practices for bookkeeping and financial tracking.

Xero setup & training

We prepare your quarterly VAT returns ready for you to review and pay.

Prepare VAT

Discover the most important changes for business owners from the 2026 Autumn Budget.

Learn how the 2026 Autumn Budget impacts you and your business from tax relief changes to tax-free mileage, extended parental pay and more.

What the 2026 Autumn Budget means for business owners

On 28 October 2026, Chancellor John Healey presented the UK's Autumn Budget.

There’s quite a bit to unpack from the budget so we’ve summarised the key points relevant to UK business owners and what they could mean for you in the months and years ahead.

Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax remains on track, but the budget confirmed a soft landing for the next group joining. Sole traders and landlords with qualifying income over £30,000, who must join from April 2027, won't receive late submission penalty points for their quarterly updates in the 2027-28 tax year. You'll still need to send your quarterly updates before you can submit your tax return.

That gives you some breathing room, but the requirements themselves haven't changed. You'll still need to:

A penalty-free first year is a chance to get comfortable with the new process, not a reason to delay. If you're still keeping manual records, now is the time to make the switch.

National Living Wage increases from April 2027

The budget confirmed an increase to the National Living Wage from 1 April 2027. For employees aged 21 and over, it will rise by 3.9% to £13.21 per hour.

If you employ staff on or near minimum wage, your payroll costs will rise from April 2027.

Now is a good time to build these increases into next year's budget, review your pricing where needed, and check that any hiring plans still stack up.

Business Asset Disposal Relief (BADR) halved to £500,000

The lifetime limit for Business Asset Disposal Relief (BADR) will be halved from £1 million to £500,000 for qualifying disposals made on or after 6 April 2027.

BADR reduces the Capital Gains Tax you pay when you sell all or part of your business. With the limit now lower, owners planning a sale or exit could face a larger tax bill on gains above £500,000.

If you're thinking about selling, passing on or restructuring your business in the next few years, it's worth reviewing your plans and timing with your accountant.

New Founders' Relief for high-growth businesses

A new Founders' Relief will give eligible founders of high-growth, innovative companies a reduced 10% rate of Capital Gains Tax on up to £10 million of lifetime gains, for qualifying disposals from 6 April 2027.

The aim is to encourage founders to scale their companies in the UK and reinvest in new British businesses when they exit. Alongside this, the government will:

Expand tax-advantaged employee share schemes to help growing businesses recruit and retain staff

The main rate writing down allowance will be cut from 14% to 12% from April 2027. This slows the rate at which you can claim tax relief on equipment and other assets that don't qualify for full expensing or the Annual Investment Allowance.

On the other hand, the main rate first-year allowance will rise from 40% to 50% for qualifying spending from 1 January 2027, giving more upfront relief on new plant and machinery.

If you're planning a larger asset purchase, the timing and how it's claimed matter more than before. It's worth talking it through before you commit.

The government is simplifying access to R&D tax reliefs. From 1 April 2027, companies will no longer need to submit a Claim Notification Form before making an R&D claim, and the Additional Information Form will be simplified from autumn 2027. Together, these should make claiming more straightforward for growing businesses that invest in innovation.

Savings and property income tax rises, Cash ISA limit stays

From April 2027, tax rates on savings and property income will rise by a further two percentage points across all bands. The government says most taxpayers won't be affected, but business owners with sizeable savings, rental properties or investment income alongside their business earnings may see higher bills.

The good news is the Cash ISA limit will stay at £20,000 for everyone, following a u-turn by the Chancellor. Using your full allowance is one of the simplest ways to shelter savings from tax.

Rules on company distributions will be modernised to stop complex arrangements being used to take profits out at lower tax rates. If you use anything beyond a standard salary and dividend mix, it's worth checking how this could apply to you.

Tax-free mileage rates permanently increased

Tax-free mileage rates are being permanently increased, supporting around 2 million employees and 1 million self-employed people who use their own vehicles for work. From 6 April 2027, the rate for business mileage above 10,000 miles a year will rise from 25p to 35p per mile. This applies to employees' mileage allowance payments and to self-employed people using simplified mileage rates.

Parental pay will be extended to more than 160,000 additional parents, including self-employed dads and partners who have previously missed out.

All retail, hospitality and leisure properties in England will see their business rates frozen in real terms, reduced or cut to zero. A higher Small Business Rates Relief threshold will take around 70,000 more of these businesses out of business rates entirely, and the government says half of all retail, hospitality and leisure properties will now pay nothing.

Not everyone benefits though. Vape shops and adult gaming centres will no longer qualify for certain business rates reliefs.

The budget includes support on energy costs for both businesses and households:

For industrial businesses: from April 2027, the British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme will cut electricity bills by up to 25% for over 10,000 eligible businesses in electricity-intensive Industrial Strategy sectors and their supply chains

For households: a £100 Household Energy Payment will go to properties in council tax bands A to D in England in 2027, and Ofgem will be asked to abolish gas standing charges and move them to unit rates

If you work from home, the household changes may also ease some of your running costs.

Online marketplaces to collect VAT from October 2027

From October 2027, online marketplaces will be responsible for collecting VAT on sales by UK VAT-registered businesses, and by other UK businesses selling above a minimum threshold on each platform (£90,000 a year is proposed). Personal sales, second-hand goods and business-to-business sales are excluded.

If you sell through Amazon, Etsy, eBay or similar, this could change how VAT shows up in your payouts and how you record sales in your accounts. Expect more detail from HMRC and the platforms before the change takes effect, and make sure your bookkeeping can separate marketplace sales from direct ones.

What these changes mean in practice for small business owners

This budget offers some breathing room in places, but it also tightens the rules around selling a business and investing in assets. The common thread is that planning ahead pays off.

Review your exit or succession plans in light of the lower BADR limit

Rethink the timing of larger asset purchases now the writing down allowance is lower

Use the penalty-free first year of MTD to get your digital records properly set up

Make the most of your £20,000 Cash ISA allowance ahead of higher savings tax from April 2027

Build the April 2027 wage increase into your payroll budget

Check how marketplace VAT collection will affect you if you sell online

Business owners who plan early will be in a far stronger position than those who leave it until the last minute.

Read the full rundown of Budget measures from GOV.UK.

For the detail behind each tax measure, see HMRC's Budget 2026 Overview of tax legislation and rates.

Beany Resources delivered straight to your inbox.

What the Autumn Budget 2026 means for small business owners

Industry news

Discover what questions your balance sheet can answer about your business stability and financial health.

Learn what questions your balance sheet can answer about your business's financial health and stability.

What your balance sheet can tell you about your business

Reading financial statements is not the most exciting exercise on the planet, but for a business owner they can surface important information.

Understanding the numbers in your balance sheet can help you spot risks and make growth decisions as well as prove your financial stability to potential lenders or investors.

In this article we breakdown the questions your balance sheet can answer about your business.

The actual cash on hand figure separated from the expected future revenue that you haven’t actually received yet.

If your accounts receivable is high, you have money tied up in unpaid invoices. It may be worth checking that your collections process is working as expected.

How much cash is sitting in unsold stock?

Money sitting idle in the form of unsold stock (or raw materials) is money you don’t currently have available to pay upcoming bills.

What’s the value of all the property, equipment, and intellectual property the business owns?

This is useful for understanding the value of all the underlying assets that power your day-to-day operations and keep your business running.

How much do we currently owe our suppliers?

Keeping an eye on your Accounts Payable helps you strike the right balance between holding onto your own cash as long as possible and keeping your supplier relationships on good terms.

Tracking what liabilities are due in the next 12 months ensures you’re not caught off guard by an upcoming tax bill, credit card payment or short-term loan.

What does our long-term debt look like right now?

Understanding your long-term liabilities is useful for knowing exactly how much of your future revenue is already accounted for.

A business’s net worth is essentially the same as equity i.e. total assets minus total liabilities.

How much are we reinvesting into the business?

By looking at retained earnings, you can see how much profit you’ve kept in the business to fund future growth.

As well as looking at each section of a balance sheet in isolation, it’s also useful to look at how they work together.

They can answer broader questions such as:

By comparing current assets (like cash and accounts receivable) to your current liabilities (like credit card balances, supplier bills, short-term loans), you can assess the business’s ability to cover its short-term obligations.

If your current liabilities are growing faster than your current assets, you could be getting close to a cashflow crunch.

Keeping an eye on this is essential for ensuring you always have enough cash (or assets that can be quickly converted to cash) to keep the business running.

Is the business heavily funded by debt or mostly funded by owner investment and retained earnings?

Reviewing total liabilities against equity indicates how the business is financed. Whichever number is higher tells you where more of your funding is coming from.

Using borrowed funds for growth can be fine if some of the revenue gain is being used to repay that debt, but if it’s just covering day-to-day running costs, then it could be a sign that you’re relying too much on borrowed money.

If the business is heavily funded by debt (i.e. total liabilities is significantly higher than equity), it can become high risk when interest rates rise or the economy slows down.

Is the business heading in the right direction?

Since a balance sheet is just a snapshot at a point in time, comparing balance sheets month-on-month or year-on-year is useful for spotting trends that a single statement won’t show.

Is your cash reserve growing or shrinking?

Are your liabilities increasing or reducing?

Are unpaid customer invoices and unpaid supplier bills increasing or decreasing?

Trends provide a good gauge of whether your business is getting healthier, maintaining the status quo (or close to it) or facing challenges that need to be addressed.

While a balance sheet is a great indicator of financial stability, it won’t tell you how profitable the business is.

A business can have a strong balance sheet and be losing money. Alternatively, a business could be highly profitable and have a weak balance sheet if too much of the business is being financed by debt.

This is why balance sheets and profit and loss statements are often read together since they answer different questions.

We recommend making a habit of reviewing these numbers regularly, so you can move from guessing how your business is doing to knowing where it stands. If you’d rather have an expert keep you accountable, then consider whether regular check-ins with your accountant would be beneficial. Quarterly or monthly meetings can turn these numbers from a chore into someone highlighting the ‘you should probably be aware of this’ and guiding your next steps.

 What your balance sheet can tell you about your business

Financial literacy

Tired of waiting on unpaid invoices? Discover actionable tips to streamline your invoicing process, reduce payment delays, and get your small business paid faster.

How do I get customers to pay faster?

It’s one of the age-old questions. You’ve done the work and are now waiting for payment. For UK small businesses, that wait is longer than most would like with Xero’s Small Business Insights placing the current timeframe between invoicing and payment as 29.1 days on average.

This delay can feel like a long time when you have your own costs to cover. The good news is that some of the delay is within your control. Small changes to how you invoice, how customers can pay and how you follow up can take days or even weeks off the time it takes for money to land in your bank account.

This may sound obvious, but you’d be surprised how often people don’t invoice straight away. The payment clock can’t start until your customer has the invoice and every day you wait to send it is an extra day added to your payment time.

Send invoices on completion of work not at the end of  the month

For ongoing work, invoice at agreed milestones or on a regular schedule

Use templates or repeating invoices in your accounting software to speed up the process

Always include a description of the work, due date, payment details and a reference to avoid any follow-up questions

We recommend invoicing within 1-2 days if not immediately, while your work is still fresh in the customer’s mind.

Offer a few options so that customers can pay in a way that suits them:

Direct debit for regular or recurring work so payments come out automatically on the due date

Card payments, including a mobile card reader if you work on site or in person

Online payments with a pay now link on the invoice

The easier you make it for clients to pay, the better. It’s also worth weighing up the payment processing fees against the time you’d otherwise spend waiting and chasing payment. While it might cost you a fee to provide certain methods, it can save you time in the long run that would be better spent on revenue-generating activities.

For large or long-running projects, a deposit upfront or progress payments along the way can keep cash coming in and reduce the risk of a big unpaid bill at the end.

For this kind of payment structure, make sure the expectations are laid out in any quote and engagement terms so your clients are aware of when payments will be due.

If you have quite long payment terms, many customers will take that time (or longer) to pay. Shortening your terms to 7 or 14 days sets a quicker expectation from the beginning.

This might not work for everyone so check what’s standard in your industry before making any drastic change to your default timeframes. If you do decide to go ahead with the change, make sure you give existing clients a heads-up if you plan to do a blanket change across everyone and not only to new customers.

Life gets busy and sometimes a friendly nudge is all it takes to get your invoice paid. The majority of late payments come down to forgotten invoices rather than someone not wanting to pay.

You can set up automatic reminder emails in your accounting software, both before the due date and at set intervals once it's overdue. This is quick to turn on and means you don’t have to manually chase every invoice.

If an invoice is overdue in a big way, make a quick call. Phone calls are much harder to ignore than an email and can surface any issues that might be holding up the payment. It can also be the difference between an invoice eventually being paid and one that you end up having to write off.

Late fees can be a great deterrent. Whether you actually choose to apply them or not, simply mentioning them in your terms and on your invoices can be enough to encourage timely payment. If you do apply them, make sure it’s consistent so that customers know you’re not messing around and are taking your invoicing and payment process seriously.

The importance of getting paid as fast as possible

Faster payments can be a game-changer for how your business is run both financially and operationally.

Steady cashflow means you can pay your own bills on time and keep a good track record with your suppliers. It also removes some of the stress if you know that money is coming in when you expect it to rather than constantly worrying about your bank balance and whether you’ll have enough cash at any given point in time.

Timely payments can also mean less unproductive time spent chasing. When you’re not constantly managing cash flow gaps or the admin of following up with customers, you can put your time and effort into your business goals or more useful tasks.

Getting paid faster starts with a few small changes

You don’t need to overhaul your business to speed up payments. Start with one or two of the suggestions above and build from there. Each change might only bring payments forward by a few days, but together they can make a real difference to your cashflow.

Business advice

Explore how to pull the right levers to improve cashflow and extend your business's runway or safety net.

Actionable strategies for extending your cash runway through increased revenue, expense reduction and additional capital.

3 ways to extend your cash runway

You’ve probably heard the phrase “cash is king” a million times and that’s probably no truer than in business. While it might not look like physical bank notes in the pure sense of the word, having cash in the bank is what helps keep your business running.

This is why understanding your cash runway/buffer and the levers you can pull to extend them are important. Your cash runway is how long your business could survive on current cash reserves, assuming revenue and expenditure remain unchanged. Meanwhile, your cash buffer is the safety net of how long you could keep going if revenue stopped altogether.

Businesses that are facing challenging or uncertain times often consider extending their runway or buffer so they’re well-equipped for any hurdles that may come. There are three ways to do this: increase revenue, reduce expenses and/or inject capital. Most businesses look to do a combination of all three.

Improving your cash inflow isn’t just about generating more sales. It can involve freeing up liquidity and exploring other opportunities to earn more income or change how you’re collecting that income.

Speed up your accounts receivable: This can be through early payment discounts, tightening payment terms or even improving follow-up on unpaid invoices.

Reduce inventory: Sell off stock that’s collecting dust. Even if you sell it at cost, that’s cash that’s now in the bank rather than on a shelf.

Sell redundant assets: If you have equipment or tools that aren’t needed for core operations, selling them can inject much-needed cash into the business. Consider it spring cleaning for your business.

Increase prices: If costs keep climbing and you haven’t increased your prices in a while, it might be time to consider it.

Drive more sales to existing customers: Upsell additional services, cross-sell complementary products or increase order frequency.

Consider new business or payment models: Explore alternative revenue streams or pricing structures. This could be a subscription model instead of one-off sales, a service tier you didn’t have before, or finding ways to still generate sales during off-peak periods.

Focus on high-margin offerings or markets: Not all revenue is equal, so consider letting go of revenue streams that aren’t pulling their weight and refocus on ones that are.

Cutting costs to extend your runway or buffer doesn’t mean your business needs to suffer. It just means being more deliberate with what you’re cutting or adjusting.

Reduce nonessential spending: These are expenses that don’t directly affect operations.  For example, travel, conferences, or team celebrations.

Downgrade or cancel software subscriptions: Most businesses have software tools that are no longer being used or are costing them more than it should.

Pause major hires: Hiring freezes or even a redundancy (which may be a difficult decision) can have a dramatic impact. While not always the easiest decision or conversation to have, these decisions are sometimes necessary.

Renegotiate supplier terms: Extending payment terms by 15-30 days or negotiating volume discounts on fast-moving products can make a small but useful difference.

Review fixed costs: Are you still paying the best rate possible for your insurance, internet, and power? In the same way you typically audit these in your personal life, it’s a good idea to periodically review these for your business too.

Delay planned purchases: Postponing non-urgent purchases or equipment upgrades can free up some short-term cash and give you additional breathing room. You can always reassess priorities once your runway is more comfortable.

Sometimes extending your runway or cash buffer requires external capital. This can include:

Owner injection: If you’re able to, putting some of your own money back into the business can buy you some breathing room without the complexity of outside financing.

Crowdfunding or capital raises: Consider getting additional funding via a crowdsourcing campaign or from angel or venture capital investors.

Grants and subsidies: See what government or local support is available. Sometimes there is industry-specific funding available or grants for particular types of projects.

Bank finance or alternative lending: Lines of credit or loans can help you in the interim while you focus on improving your runway through some of the other areas we’ve mentioned. You could also consider invoice financing (finance based on unpaid invoices) as a short-term measure.

We won’t lie and say extending your runway or cash buffer is easy. It can take some serious effort and sometimes difficult conversations with team members, suppliers or creditors. However, the payoff can be significant. Any move that makes you feel less stressed about surviving the short-term and more confident that the business is ok and can weather any storm is a win in our books.

If you’re unsure which levers to pull, your accountant is a valuable resource to help. They can model different scenarios and provide advice on which actions will have the biggest impact.

Understand the difference between cash runway and buffer to better prepare for unexpected events.

Understand the difference between cash runway and cash buffer to better prepare for unexpected events that may occur in your business.

Cash Runway vs Cash Buffer

It’s a known fact that many businesses fail due to poor cashflow. That isn’t new knowledge and unfortunately is a statement that will likely always ring true. This means that any metrics that provide insight into cashflow are vital for staying afloat and knowing where you actually stand. That’s where cash runway and cash buffer come in. Both are surprisingly simple to calculate and help you prepare for the unexpected.

Cash runway measures your survival time i.e. how long your business could operate for at its current burn rate before it runs out of cash.

Cash runway = current cash balance / net cash burn
Where net cash burn = monthly cash outflows - monthly cash inflows

Example: You’ve got £100,000 in the bank. Your monthly cash inflow (revenue) is £10,000 and your monthly cash outflow (expenses) is £35,000. Your net monthly burn is £25,000. That’s 4 months of runway at the current burn rate.

Cash runway is commonly used by businesses that are spending more than they're earning. These are typically startups or growing businesses that have received investment and can afford to burn cash while they build up enough revenue to be profitable. Their runway is an estimate of how long the business can keep running for without generating any new revenue to offset the higher expenditure. The shorter the runway, the more urgently businesses need to either increase revenue, reduce expenses or secure additional funding.

Cash buffer measures your safety net i.e. how long your business could operate for if revenue dried up and you had to survive purely on cash reserves.

Cash buffer = current cash balance / monthly cash outflow

Example: You’ve got £100,000 in the bank, and your monthly operating expenses are £10,000. If your revenue disappeared overnight, you’d have roughly 10 months before cash ran out.

Cash buffer is typically used by businesses that are cashflow positive. For these businesses, the runway is technically infinite (since they’re earning more than they’re spending each month), so buffer is the more useful metric. It's a helpful gauge of how long the business could operate for in a worst-case scenario where you’ve stopped generating any revenue. It's also a simple way of evaluating if your cashflow is worsening, expanding or staying steady. If your buffer shortens over time, the difference between what you're earning and spending is closing. If your buffer is getting longer, then your cashflow is strengthening and you're building a larger safety cushion.

A startup or high-growth business might be comfortable with only 3 months of runway because growth and fresh investment are imminent. On the other hand, a mature and stable business would probably aim for at least 6 months. Most healthy businesses sit somewhere between 6 and 12 months.

You could also think of these metrics a bit like you would an emergency fund. If your runway or buffer is 2 months, you’re not in crisis just yet. However, you’re definitely playing close to the edge and might be feeling the pressure to bring in more money or cut costs. If your runway or buffer is 18 months, you’ve got quite a bit of breathing room and you won’t be feeling like there’s any kind of current cashflow emergency.

Why they’re an important business metric

When you understand your runway/buffer and how they’re trending over time, you’re in a better position to make decisions and weather any storms.

Spending lots of cash in order to grow is fine if you know you have time on your side. Likewise, a healthy buffer provides reassurance that you can cope with any setbacks (such as a delayed customer payment or slow quarter), as well as confidently invest in growth (such as hiring or expansion).

These metrics can also help with forecasting. When you know where you currently stand, you can forecast where you expect to be in 3 months or a year's time, and even model different scenarios. What if revenue grows 20%? What if a major customer disappears? What if we hire another person? What if the economy weakens?

Having this understanding of how much breathing room you have helps balance your business goals with actual financial stability.

The great news is that if you’re using accounting software like Xero, you don’t even need to calculate these metrics manually. You can access it directly in the software.

Reviewing the number and keeping track of how it changes each month is the first piece of the puzzle. The next is working out what that means for your business specifically. That’s where regular check-ins with your accountant come in. They can spot where cash might be getting stuck or help you understand which levers to pull if you need to extend your runway or buffer. On the flipside, they could also make recommendations of what to do with your cash if you feel like your runway or buffer is too long.

Learn the key causes of profit erosion and how to optimise for sustainable business growth.

Discover why increasing revenue doesn't always lead to profit growth. Learn the key causes of profit erosion and how to optimise for sustainable business growth.

Why growing revenue isn't the same as growing profit

Many business owners assume that growing revenue automatically means profit will grow at the same rate. More customers, more sales, more money. The logic makes sense but it’s not always the case.

It can often feel frustrating. You're working harder, revenue is climbing, and things seem like they're going really well, but your bottom line doesn't reflect that.

This is because revenue and profit are two very different metrics. A business can generate significantly more revenue and still see profit stagnate, shrink or even disappear entirely. Beneath the surface of revenue growth are often inefficiencies or other problems that quietly erode profit margins. When this happens, the business ends up in a weaker financial position even though it seems more successful from a revenue perspective.


What causes the gap between revenue growth and profit growth

Pricing

What is your revenue?

Add Ons

Services

Company

Support