Blog

Sleep your way to success

Posted 5th August 2020 at 8:19 am

sleep

Business leaders are often prone to insomnia, with all those ideas buzzing around in their heads all the time! But in order to stay productive and healthy, the NHS recommends that you get between 6 and 9 hours sleep every night. If you suffer from insomnia, or just want to supercharge your sleep routine, here are some tips!   Keep regular sleeping hours Going to sleep at the same time every night will programme your body clock to get used to a set routine. This will make it more likely that you will fall asleep quicker each night, rather than... Read more

UK Economy – Post Pandemic Predictions

Posted 29th July 2020 at 8:37 am

economy

With lockdown lifting, the government’s focus is now fully on repairing the damage from the Covid-19 pandemic to our economy. In this blog we look at three possible five-year economic scenarios outlined by the treasury.   Best-case scenario Under this scenario, economic activity will rebound quickly, with GDP falling by 10.6% this year, but then returning to its pre-pandemic peak by the end of March 2021. Unemployment will reach a peak of 10% during this next quarter, and as many as 1.9 million people would be out of work next year. The government’s budget deficit will be 13% of GDP... Read more

School’s Out! What now for working parents?

Posted 21st July 2020 at 11:35 am

working parents

Normally at this time of year, working parents are heaving a sigh of relief about not having to juggle school runs with early morning meetings, and class assemblies with weekly team briefings! However, thanks to our good friend Covid-19, the arrival of the summer holidays is just another source of stress for many families.   Parents were able to adapt to working at home whilst looking after their children to a large extent because they were kept amused by the work being set for them by school to complete at home. Some secondary schools have provided full, online timetables, allowing... Read more

HMRC Enquiries – Could you be next?

Posted 14th July 2020 at 8:34 am

enquiry

HMRC compliance activity in 2018/19 yielded £34.1bn, a whopping 12.5% increase on 2017/18. You may think that you’re not at risk from a tax enquiry as you’ve done nothing wrong or are too small for HMRC to worry about. In fact, any individual or business of any size can be selected at random for an investigation.   HMRC continue to expand their data sources, and have access to data from merchant acquirers, banks and building societies, property-based information, land registry, letting agents, mortgage applications, DVLA, foreign data from overseas tax authorities, not to mention the tax evasion hotline which anybody... Read more

Essential Skills for the Workforce of the Future

Posted 7th July 2020 at 10:44 am

skills

As the DfE set out its plans for welcoming all children back to schools in September this week, there was concern amongst the education community at their plan to ‘suspend’ non-core subjects for two terms so that pupils could ‘catch-up’ on English and Maths. Perhaps because of the furious backlash that this leaked announcement caused, the government quickly rowed back on this plan and confirmed that the full curriculum is still to be taught, albeit with the ‘non-core’ subjects being adapted to include more English and Maths content. This got us to thinking, what are the key skills that our... Read more

Specialist Tax: Capitalise on your assets

Posted 29th June 2020 at 11:44 am

capital allowances

Over half of UK businesses will not have claimed their entitlement to Capital Allowances which could be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. In this second of a series of specialist tax scheme blogs, we look at how you can claim capital allowances.   When can you claim capital allowances? You can claim capital allowances when you buy assets that you keep to use in your business. In most cases you can deduct the full cost of these items from your profits before tax using annual investment allowance (AIA). If you sell the item after claiming AIA you may need... Read more

Specialist Tax: Rewarding innovation in science and technology

Posted 13th June 2020 at 11:57 am

specialist tax

It’s fair to say that the last few months haven’t exactly been great for business, and most of our finances could do with a bit of a boost! It’s possible that individuals and businesses are missing out on claiming tax benefits for specialist tax areas, just because they are little known or not well understood. In this first of a series of blogs, we look at some of the different types of specialist tax schemes that your business might be eligible for.   Research & Development (R&D and RDEC) Companies carrying out qualifying R&D activities can claim significant corporation tax... Read more

The Rise of Automation after Covid-19

Posted 10th June 2020 at 10:30 am

automation

The business world has been preparing for increasing use of automation for decades now. As technology advances at a rate unseen in any other century, the potential to automate processes and even entire roles, offers an opportunity for businesses to cut costs and save time. While the Covid-19 crisis has stopped many businesses present and future plans in their tracks, the one thing that hasn’t been negatively affected is automation planning. In fact, with the need for social distancing and hygiene, and the prospect of a recession on the horizon, many businesses are bringing their automation plans forward. Pre-pandemic, the... Read more

Package Holidays after Covid-19

Posted 1st June 2020 at 3:29 pm

package holiday

For many of us, a cheap and cheerful getaway to sunnier climes is a major highlight of our year. Unfortunately with non-essential travel currently banned, a week or two of all-inclusive fun with no worries except nabbing the best positioned sun lounger doesn’t seem to be on the cards any time soon. Travel operators are currently planning towards restarting operations in July, but even then a holiday would be followed by a 14 day quarantine period when arriving back in the UK. Some countries such as Spain have also introduced quarantine for overseas visitors, meaning that you could need 6... Read more

E R Grove & Co named Mayor’s Community Champions

Posted 30th May 2020 at 1:40 pm

The West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) Mayor’s Community Champions initiative recognises individuals and organisations who have acted as ‘community heroes’ during the Covid-19 crisis. We at E R Grove & Co are delighted to have been recognised for our work keeping the business community informed about government support systems for businesses and individuals feeling the impact of coronavirus. You can read more about why we were chosen as Mayor’s Community Champions here.