Bizpro Ltd – Virtual Assistants

by guest blogger Phil Hendy of Moore Stephens Chartered Accountants.

THE END OF PAPER VAT RETURNS?
HMRC’s VAT Notes 4 warn that the phasing out of paper VAT returns starts in just over a year from now. From April 2010 all businesses with annual VAT exclusive turnover will have to file their VAT returns online, and any business registering for VAT will move straight to electronic returns. Businesses making their returns online will also have to pay their VAT by direct debit, but this facility allows extra time for payment, so that the VAT is not paid until at least the 10th of the following month.

One of the biggest things that separate big companies from their small competitors is the level of support enjoyed. Large companies are typically better staffed, which means they have the personnel necessary to perform a number of services that simply make big corporations look more professional to clients. Small business owners typically have to do all the work themselves or most of it. This leaves them scrambling and often looking less professional than they could. When it’s time to gain a big business advantage, even a company staffed by one can enjoy an edge if a virtual assistant is relied upon for help.

Well, much of England is covered in snow and for many businesses this means a complete slowdown and sometimes a stop as far as productivity is concerned.

Why?

Because they are not geared up to cope without staff in their offices. When their staff aren’t able to make it in because of traffic chaos or rail disruptions their business could grind to a halt. It’s that serious, but it needn’t be a problem, and it needn’t be expensive to resolve. In fact, quite the opposite!

Making real use of suspension files….

A lot of people have suspension file holders in drawer units in their desks, and they use them for a myriad of different things, but right now I’m going to give you an idea of how to use them to organise your time more effectively by setting up daily & monthly rotating files. It’s a simple idea but it works well, and you can use this same philosphy on emails too.

Treevestors.com defines Carbon Footprint as “A measure of the amount of carbon dioxide emitted through the combustion of fossil fuels. A carbon footprint is often expressed as tons of carbon dioxide or tons of carbon emitted, usually on an annual basis”

A recent BBC documentary, Britain from Above, quoted various statistics regarding Britain on the move. In any 24 hour period the documentary stated 36 million people are on the move, between 7.00am & 10.00am, almost 1 million of those are on the trains, and 15 million in private motor vehicles. The impact this has on Britain’s carbon footprint must be astounding. These figures do not include the daily flights going in and out of every airport, or the ferries travelling in and out of our ports. Public transport isn’t sufficient enough to keep our vehicles off the road, rising fuel costs and taxes isn’t really having a great effect either. So what is the answer?