Bhav seamlessly became a part of the Charterhouse family back in December 2023, transitioning from the bustling world of FX in Farringdon, where, in her role as a Talent and Engagement Co-ordinator, she excelled, to her new role as our Office and Administration Manager, keeping the ship sailing smoothly.

But there is so much more to Bhav, when she’s not conquering administrative mountains, she’s on epic adventures with her mini-me, her daughter. Together, they’re a dynamic duo, exploring every nook and cranny of London. Despite hailing from the north, they’re still uncovering hidden gems even after a decade in the big city. With their sights set on global domination, there’s no stopping this unstoppable pair!

And there’s a hidden gem that makes Bhav an even better fit for Charterhouse: her love for all things green! With a passion for environmental sustainability, she was able to make an immediate impact, helping the team to achieve the prestigious Gold CSRA Accreditation. Bhav’s commitment to a greener world aligns perfectly with our values, making her an invaluable addition to our family.

There’s one more thing: when Bhav first joined, she expected a sea of boring accountants, but oh, was she mistaken! The fun, relaxed, and friendly environment at Charterhouse took her by surprise, and she’s been loving every moment since.

Hear what Bhav and other new starters had to say about the firm and what it is like to work here.

 As far back as 2019 Making Tax Digital (MTD) has been mandatory for all VAT registered businesses with a turnover above £85,000 and at that time we were preparing for all our affected client’s businesses to complete their VAT, corporation tax and income tax for self-assessment (ITSA) returns online, hopefully reducing the reliance on HMRC resources and reducing any delays.

Over the past few years HMRC have been requiring more businesses to switch to digital platforms and now it is the turn of Landlords and Sole Traders.

But don’t panic, the requirements do not come into force until 2027, although it is worth starting the transition process now.

As of April 2027, HMRC will extend MTD to landlords and sole traders with income over £30,000. However, whilst one of the main reasons for introducing MTD was to streamline the process there are now concerns that the extension of MTD for the self-employed will only exacerbate delays.  

The next step for HMRC will be to move all self-assessment returns online, with MTD for Income Tax Self-Assessment (ITSA) set to replace the current system, meaning landlords and the self-employed will also need to submit statements quarterly too.

Before April 2027, HMRC has confirmed that all businesses and landlords earning over £50,000 will have to join MTD for ITSA from April 2026. This threshold will then fall to £30,000 from April 2027.  

According to a recent article in The Telegraph HMRC expects that around 780,000 people with business or property income over £50,000 will join MTD for ITSA from April 2026, with a further 970,000 people joining from April 2027. Rather than saving people money as first muted, the article suggests that the total amount landlords and business owners will have to pay to join the MTD club is around £196m a year, equating to £110 per business on subscriptions and software in order to comply with HMRC’s digital tax drive. There is also likely to be a one-off transitional cost, approximately £350 for each business as well.

Richard Wild of the Chartered Institute of Taxation said the latest figures are “evidence of a growing recognition by HMRC that the ongoing financial costs of MTD to business are much higher than they originally estimated, and those now in scope should expect to incur ongoing costs rather than generating efficiency savings.”

Wycombe Homeless Connection’s vision is to see South Buckinghamshire transformed into a place where no one is homeless and that there is suitable homes and housing security for all.

As we enter the winter, their services are changing, not least as despite everyone’s best efforts, more people are sleeping rough in the south of Bucks than anyone hoped would be. Their support centre in Wycombe and their homelessness helpline is open daily and due to an increase in need they have just doubled the amount of help they are offering in Chesham as one in six of the people they help already come from the town.

Find out more about their work and how you can help them.

We hope you had a wonderful festive season and are looking forward to the New Year.

For businesses across the world, Christmas is a time for us to all enjoy a little light-hearted relaxation and enjoy the company of others, whilst at the same time making sure that everyone in our community is healthy and safe during the festive period.

We have supported a number of charities over the years and it is at these times when it is even more important to remember those who are in less fortunate positions than us that we do what we can to help these charities and in particular St Luke’s Hospice Harrow and Wycombe Homeless Connection.

It may surprise some of you but even accountants like to have a bit of fun. Each year we celebrate the festivities with our Small Christmas, including the “Jumper of the Year” award and our Christmas Party where everyone gets a chance to relax before our focus is shifted to completing and finalising tax returns for our clients. This year’s jumper of the year winner was Julie, it will be a tough act to follow next Christmas.

This year has been another good year for us with many changes and let us take the opportunity to say thank you to the whole team and our clients as we look forward to the challenges of 2024. 

Economic Crime is a significant issue with fraud and tax evasion at the forefront of the issues that the government is looking to address. As part of their drive to reduce economic crime new legislation is being introduced to ensure that the correct information is held and processed for every business each year. As a result, there are some changes that you will need to incorporate in the financial management of your business.

The ECCT is part of the government’s response to the need to tackle economic crime in the UK and received Royal Assent on October 26th 2023.  The ECCT is multifaceted and includes for example, provisions related to crypto assets and new intelligence gathering powers for law enforcement amongst other things, but for SME companies, the most significant change will be to the role and powers of Companies House. Companies House will be given significant extra powers which will directly affect how all individuals and companies interact with them.

Read More

Wycombe Homeless Connection’s vision is to see South Buckinghamshire transformed into a place where no one is homeless and that there is suitable homes and housing security for all.

As we enter the winter, their services are changing, not least as despite everyone’s best efforts, more people are sleeping rough in the south of Bucks than anyone hoped would be. Their support centre in Wycombe and their homelessness helpline is open daily and due to an increase in need they have just doubled the amount of help they are offering in Chesham as one in six of the people they help already come from the town.

Find out more about their work and how you can help them.

Shelley Vincett

Shelley joined Charterhouse in 2004, where she now definitely feels part of the furniture. 

Having originally joined Charterhouse as an Outsourcing Co-ordinator to make sure that work being sent abroad was done with care and precision, when this side of the company took a different route, Shelley remained with Charterhouse and moved into finance, often assisting the admin department.

Shelley already had previous experience in this field so was able to take on the role, like a duck to water. She has been in this area ever since, working her way up to Finance & Credit Control Supervisor. One of her favourite parts of the job is being able to speak to clients.

When not working, she is a supporting wife and mum to 2 teenage children. They all love to ski each year and travelling to different destinations. When they can’t ski, they head for the water to be able to take on the waves, body boarding.

June Wiltshire – Office and Admin Manager

June joined Charterhouse in November 2011 having previously been Fleet and Office Manager for a high security company, where she was responsible for the day-to-day running of 2 offices and a warehouse and also for the leasing of all company vehicles.

June has always viewed admin as the backbone of any company as it provides support and assistance to other departments and ensures the smooth running of the organisation,, allowing each department to concentrate on their role within the business. 

When she is not working, June enjoys green bowls and is a member of a club where they play in the local league.  June has 3 sons and 2 grandsons and another one due imminently, who she enjoys spending time with.  She keeps telling friends they are creating their own football team.

With continued pressure on borrowing from higher interest rates, buy-to-let investors are, understandably, concerned about the profitability of their investments and businesses. This challenge is soon to be compounded by the proposed changes to minimum energy efficiency standards which could also incur significant costs for landlords. These two factors, combined with the increase in other costs are putting more pressure on landlords.

In a recent article in the Daily Telegraph, Chris Etherington of RMC discussed what landlords can do to minimise their tax burden when facing the different financial legislative changes. The article seems to present a picture of doom and gloom, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

There is some hope for landlords, as we have highlighted in previous articles, typically there are many ways in which landlords do not have the most efficient set up for their property business, including the long term impact on inheritance tax (IHT). However, there are ways to ensure that your business is set up in the best way to ensure you are only paying the correct amount of tax and benefitting from all the opportunities available to you as landlords.

There are many other ways that a business can become more tax efficient and Charterhouse will discuss these with you to ensure you are in the right business structure. In particular Charterhouse has been working for the past ten years and has now developed a process that allows a property business to be set up in a unique way to minimise the tax burden and ensure the business is still running profitably.

For more information have a look at our website.

All businesses are different and the long-term objectives of the owners will be different from looking to make a short term profit to wanting to build a business that can be passed down to children as part of their inheritance. This is where our team of experts come in. We will look at your business and your individual aims and advise you on how to best set up the business to ensure you add the most value.

To find out how we do this please contact us.

Outsourcing is often seen as a double edge sword, it may save you time but what is the real cost?

To be able to truly understand the benefits of outsourcing your payroll function, it is essential you speak to an expert to ensure your business will maximise the benefits of adopting a ‘best practice’ approach to remain compliant.

That is why Charterhouse are offering a free consultation with our payroll expert, to allow you to understand how the process could work and bring benefit and value to your business.

As a business, there is often pressure on the time of all members of your team, so trying to find ways to minimise time spent on daily administrative tasks to allow the team to focus on managing their business tasks is essential.

Often, running payroll for the business, be it weekly, monthly or chosen pay production frequency can be time consuming.

As a business we strive to help our clients improve the efficiency of their business and one way we do this is to manage the payroll duties for them. This has now been made more efficient having adopted Paycircle as our payroll platform.

In selecting a payroll service the guide for employers is to ensure the payroll software is compliant and adheres to legislation. We have already done this for you to ensure the accuracy of processing your payroll and provide the expertise needed to ensure any issues are minimal, thus saving you time and money.

Outsourcing your payroll duties to Charterhouse means:

• All your payroll and/or pension production will be handled
• We will produce and issue standard or bespoke reports for your accounting and HR purposes
• Our online portal will provide you access to your payslips/P60s
• The system produces BACS files for your records

Read more about Paycircle and the benefits it can deliver for your business here.

To speak to our team to discuss outsourcing your payroll please contact us.

Julie joined Charterhouse in 1985 and was given the opportunity to learn and develop her skills from an early stage. Her role is primarily focused on corporate compliance and governance, assisting clients with all manner of company secretarial work, such as incorporations, dissolutions, share transfers and allotments as well as event driven annual compliance filings and ad-hoc transactions. She assists the tax professionals with a variety of corporate restructures and reorganisations.

Julie has seen many changes over the years especially with the advent of the Companies Act 2006 and with the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill currently going through Parliament this will result in more important changes shortly coming into effect.

With a passion for travel, Julie has been lucky enough to have visited some truly amazing destinations, and although too many highlights to mention, the most memorable were being charged by an elephant whilst on safari in South Africa and standing at the edge of Lake Tekapo in New Zealand watching the Milky Way travel overhead.

Do you ever feel that the number of different roles you have to take on to ensure your business operates smoothly is too much for you?

From advertising and selling your goods or services and managing your team, to dealing with suppliers and ensuring your finances are up to date, it can feel like a never-ending task.

The modern, technology-driven world undoubtedly brings huge demands but also great opportunity to grow your business, increase accuracy, and bring in efficiencies that can save you valuable hours. Think about the minutes or hours you spend on any particular task in your business and it is almost certain that there is a way in which the time spent can be reduced without impacting negatively on the output.

Often, finance becomes the secondary skill set of someone in the office, but that doesn’t have to be the case.

The Charterhouse Business Support Unit was set up to support businesses at all stages, from start-up to expansion, who could benefit from extra resources and expertise to run the financial side of the business but don’t necessarily want to recruit anyone.

With a team of skilled accountants able to manage all your financial needs, we can specifically focus on:

• Business reporting needs
• Credit control and scoring
• Making tax digital
• Payroll

Our aim is to become your finance team and finance director rolled into one at a fraction of the cost of recruiting a team.

To find out more about how we can help your business grow please contact Rob Ward in the BSU team.

To make it easier to understand what the BSU can do for you and your business we have filmed Rob Ward and Cem Soydaner discussing how it works and how it can support you. To listen to the video click here and follow our LinkedIn profile and we will be posting soundbites from the video over the next few weeks.

As a business, over the past five years, we have established a CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) framework in the business that ensures that we focus on people, our staff, our clients and the community around us. Included in the community work we do is our support for local charities and over the past few years we have adopted a charity each year as our “Charity of the Year”. Over the past two years MIND in Harrow has been our chosen charity and this year the team voted to change charity and have chosen St Luke’s Hospice, Harrow, to support.

Several members of our team have long been supporters of the charity, meaning the decision was a relatively easy one. As a charity, their values closely match ours and the partnership will provide us with an opportunity to not just support them with financial help, but to provide volunteer support as well. This comes at a time when charities across the country are increasingly struggling to find volunteers to help them support the services they provide.

Hospices provide an invaluable service and St Luke’s describe their service as “helping people in Brent and Harrow to have the best possible quality of life despite living with serious illnesses, which are no longer curable.”

To find out more about our work with St Luke’s and other charities please visit our website or please contact us.

The new Chancellor’s first budget (he emphasised that the autumn statement was not a Budget, not a kamikaze one anyway!) didn’t present many surprises, maybe one surprise was the number of MPs in parliament given the number of strikes taking place on the day!

The Chancellor was buoyant announcing that the Office for Budget Responsibility predicts that we will avoid a recession in 2023, BUT the economy will shrink by 0.2%. Growth is predicted of 1.8% next year, 2.5% in 2025 and 2.1% in 2026.

There was much in the way of good news delivered today! Thee main points covered;

• ‘Experienced Workers’ and Pensions
• Parents
• Business
• Workers
• Energy

But What might he have done differently – our view?

To find out what the changes are and how they will affect you read more here

If you would like to discuss the changes and how they will affect you and your business, please contact us.

As a small or medium business owner, one of the questions you will need to ask yourself is which cloud accounting software you should choose. There are so many options available, with different USP’s and price points, that it can seem overwhelming, and often easy to be swayed by the lowest price or current offer, on the assumption that they will all do the same thing. At Charterhouse our strong recommendation is to use Xero, who we have worked with for over 8 years as a Platinum Partner, meaning it is what we know best, which in turn allows us to give our clients the very best advice to help them understand their financial information, resolve queries, or advise on decisions that will shape the future growth and success of the business. To ensure this continues, all of our team in the Business Support Unit are Xero Certified Advisors and undertake regular training and attend product updates to stay on top of the latest developments in the Xero world in order to give the best service when it is needed the most. Much of today’s world is centred around having everything at our fingertips and not waiting for results, and we believe that should apply to your business’s performance too, rather than only seeing these results several months after the activity has occurred. Xero helps with that proactive approach. Some of the key features of Xero are: Raise and send invoices to your customers through the software; see when they’ve been viewed, and follow up with automated reminders. Connect with payment services such as Stripe and GoCardless to get paid quicker. Integrate data capture apps such as Dext to ensure supplier invoices and receipts are captured and categorised correctly in an instant, by uploading pictures taken on your phone. With a copy of the document saved as an attachment, you have no need to keep the original document and can free up physical space. Pay bills through Xero’s Pay with Wise add-on.

Bank feeds which connect Xero to your bank and credit card accounts, pulling in transactions on a daily basis allowing for easy and frequent bank reconciliation Full compliance with HMRC’s Making Tax Digital, Xero calculates VAT returns and connects with HMRC for submissions. A free mobile app allows you to work on the go and view your business activity, including creating professional quotes and raising invoices. A huge number of pre-created reports enabling you to see what’s important to you, but with the ability to create custom reports if needed. Free 24/7 support through the Xero Central hub, which gives you articles and tips to solve any queries, and access to a community of other Xero users around the world. As you can see from the above inexhaustive list, Xero provides a single end-to-end solution for your business covering all the major bases of its record-keeping requirements. There is a strong focus on automating as many processes as possible, which frees up your time while increasing the accuracy of the data, and opening up avenues for collaboration with us as your accountants, allowing us to analyse the real-time information and give the proactive advice you need to help you make decisions, or simply to know how the business is really performing and what tax liabilities may be building up. Why choose Xero over Quickbooks or Sage? The answer to this question is that in our view, Xero has the edge due to its user-friendly nature, modern design, online support, and overall functionality. Both of those above named options, in particular, are established brand names and were market leaders as desktop solutions in the age before cloud accounting. However, time waits for no accounting software, and Xero was created with the important and ever-evolving cloud aspect in mind, while the others are now playing catch up.

Charterhouse can provide you with one-off or ongoing training and support to get the best out of your Xero experience, and are happy to assist you on your journey with the software.  Click here to receive 50% off your first six months subscription to Xero. To find out more about our services please contact us.

As an organisation, Charterhouse has always been keen to support local people, causes and groups and we have encouraged our team to do so as well. In the past this has meant some of the team giving up their own time to provide advice to individuals and organisations that would not otherwise be able to access the level of expertise we provide.

However, we have always thought we could do more, as a result in 2019 we decided to establish “The Charterhouse Foundation, its aim was to be a vehicle through which we can provide our expert advice in the areas of accountancy, tax and other professional advice to individuals who have financial challenges but cannot afford to pay for expert advice. It was planned that the foundation would work in partnership with other charities and community interest groups in meeting its aim, providing both time and financial support to these organisations. The Foundation provides specific services for those people who are being supported by our partner charities, including; Free financial surgery where they can get advice on how to work through their financial challenges Work with them to help manage any potential tax issues

The Foundation is able to support the members of the charities we support as a business, including our Charity of the Year. Due to COVID we have not been able to provide as much support over the past few years as we had hoped, therefore the objective for the foundation for 2023 is to reignite the aims of the foundation, providing an opportunity for those people who might not otherwise be able to access the financial advice they need, whilst also giving our team the opportunity to give back to the community. All of our team are encouraged to give some of their time to the Foundation and this will ensure that we will be able to support as many people and charities as possible.

The foundation provides a formal structure to further the charitable work Charterhouse has been involved with over many years and one which we hope to grow to be a well-known resource in the local area. To find out more about the Foundation and the charities we help, click here. If you are interested in donating to the Charterhouse Foundation to enable us to provide further support to our partner charities and community interest groups please contact us. The Charterhouse Foundation is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO), the foundation’s Charity Commission registration number is 1188367