http://www.hippey.co.uk/blog/ The latest Blog feeds from www.hippey.co.uk en-us Fri, 24 Apr 2026 01:10:38 +0100 Rocketspark http://www.hippey.co.uk/blog/post/26296/be-tax-aware/ A very common request we get from new clients just joining us, and to be fair a comment we sometimes get from existing clients too. Michaela gives us some pointers to help discover why tax seems so high and what could be done. But first, in a lot of cases you'll being paying tax because you've taken the money from your business. As business advisors, we prefer clients to talk to us first when they need to extract more money from the business. We can explore tax-efficiency and need firs... Fri, 10 Apr 2026 10:54:10 +0100 http://www.hippey.co.uk/blog/#post26296 http://www.hippey.co.uk/blog/post/25844/from-free-to-fee/ Crezco, one of the last providers offering free bank-to-bank payment solutions in the UK, has announced the end of its free product. For many small businesses and charities, this could be a big change and an even bigger cost.What’s Changing?Crezco’s Account Receivables feature allowed businesses to add a simple “Pay Now” button to invoices, enabling customers to pay directly from their bank account—fast, secure, and free. Payments were processed via the UK Faster Payments system, meani... Mon, 15 Dec 2025 14:00:20 +0000 http://www.hippey.co.uk/blog/#post25844 http://www.hippey.co.uk/blog/post/24778/acsp/ A really big change for Limited Companies and others is coming in 2025. From the Autumn all Directors & PSC will be required to verify their identity with Companies House. The process aims to cut down of fraud, shell companies and unscrupulous agents. No matter how long you’ve been a Director or Person of Significant Control, you will need to verify your identity and address before any changes are made to your Company or filings – this includes your annual accounts.One side effect of the... Tue, 15 Jul 2025 14:36:49 +0100 http://www.hippey.co.uk/blog/#post24778 http://www.hippey.co.uk/blog/post/24604/whyxero/ We’ve been a Xero practice for over 10 years, and we still genuinely love it. Why? Because when it's set up properly — with the right categories, rules and connections — it becomes the heartbeat of your business. You can see what’s coming in, what’s going out, and how things are really going, all in one place.We pair Xero with Dext, which takes the pain out of the paperwork. Snap a photo of a receipt or email in an invoice, and Dext will do the hard work — reading the details, matchi... Mon, 16 Jun 2025 15:59:30 +0100 http://www.hippey.co.uk/blog/#post24604 http://www.hippey.co.uk/blog/post/22450/hiring-your-first/ So, you're on the brink of expanding your business by hiring your very first employee. It's a thrilling milestone, no doubt about it.But as you gear up to welcome a new member to your team, there's something important you need to wrap your head around: Payroll and PAYE costs. Yep, it's time to roll up those sleeves and dive into the financial nitty-gritty.Let's talk numbers for a sec. When you hire an employee, it's not just about their salary. There's a few other costs and regulations to consid... Tue, 30 Jul 2024 13:23:33 +0100 http://www.hippey.co.uk/blog/#post22450 http://www.hippey.co.uk/blog/post/22089/have-i-got-the-energy-for-this/ There’s been loads of interest over the last few years about energy prices, certainly since the Ukraine / Russian conflict energy prices rocketed. Whilst domestic consumers suffered some of the largest price increases since the 1970’s, most were cushioned from the volatile wholesale costs.Businesses however, suffered the most with energy costs sometime going up as much as ten times previous prices! And whilst the Government had some support for businesses, there has been no price cap like do... Mon, 10 Jun 2024 16:21:02 +0100 http://www.hippey.co.uk/blog/#post22089 http://www.hippey.co.uk/blog/post/21971/going-solar/ With the rising energy prices in 2022 we decided to look at fitting solar panels to our home, it’s fair to say we’ve learnt a lot along the way both in terms of planning the system, using it and things you’re often not told or explained; I’ll try and break down our experience here so you can make up your own mind if it’s actually worth it.... Sun, 19 May 2024 12:37:37 +0100 http://www.hippey.co.uk/blog/#post21971 http://www.hippey.co.uk/blog/post/21953/satr/ Let's talk tax!It’s that time of year again, you’ve had that email from HMRC asking you to complete a tax return this year.Tax time can be a bit of a headache, right? But hey, understanding and getting through it is super important. So, grab a cuppa, and let's dive into the why, how, and what-ifs of this whole tax return thing, in a way that's easy to understand and maybe even a tad enjoyable.Why Should I Bother with a Tax Return?Okay, so here's the deal: If you're self-employed, running a b... Thu, 16 May 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.hippey.co.uk/blog/#post21953 http://www.hippey.co.uk/blog/post/13236/when-is-80-not-80/ The answer is simple – furlough pay, but the reason is definitely not simple! We’ve been running payroll services for years now, but the last 10 months really have been the most testing period ever. 20 years ago running an employer payroll was difficult, it was generally a very manual process of written ledgers & tax tables to calculate an employee’s wages, only large employers would have some sort of software to do this and it was still a very manual process of inputting data and printing... Tue, 23 Feb 2021 09:14:09 +0000 http://www.hippey.co.uk/blog/#post13236 http://www.hippey.co.uk/blog/post/10889/The-New-Normal/ April is usually a busy month but this year it was just crazy, a day doesn’t go by without some mention of Covid-19 and new phrases such as social distancing are now normal. We really didn’t know what to expect at the end of March when the lockdown came in, many clients shut up shop and laid off workers and in many cases pinning hopes on the government paying at least some of the bills. Fast forward to the end of April and we started to see some clients finally getting the financial help the... Wed, 27 May 2020 22:24:54 +0100 http://www.hippey.co.uk/blog/#post10889