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Strictly Surprising

Social media is abuzz following last nights Strictly Result show. Controversial couple Seann Walsh and Katya Jones have been making more headlines for their activities off the dance floor than on it. and their quickstep on Saturday failed to impress the judges leaving them near the bottom of the results table. The public vote failed to save them from the dreaded dance off and it was left to the judges to decide between them and fellow contestants Vick Hope and Graziano Di Prima. 3 of the 4 judge...

Spring Fever.

Spring Fever is defined as 'a feeling of restlessness and excitement felt at the beginning of Spring' and 2019 is promising a larger than usual outbreak.The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have announced that they are expecting their first baby in the spring. There will be much suspense amid the royal baby fever as to what Harry and Meghan will call their baby, who will be seventh in the line of succession. Will they opt for a traditional name or go for something more unusual?  Bookies are alrea...

Farah as Long as it Takes.

Congratulations to Mo Farah on winning the Chicago Marathon this weekend and for setting a new European record in the process. Now speculation is rising that he could be a contender for the gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. This would be an unprecedented achievement and one that would solidify Mo as the most outstanding distance runner ever. Also giving rise to speculation; Philip Hammond has announced that he will be presenting his Autumn budget to Parliament on  Monday 29th October. ...

Food for Thought.

In a recent survey of supermarket shoppers 4 out of 10 people reported they were concerned about the cost of food. A concern which in recent years has seen a rise in the number of discounted retailers, most recently 'Jacks' a 'value-orientated' chain' launched by Tesco.Statistically, Britons only spend an average on 8% of their total household income on food to eat at home. This is lower than any other country apart from the US and Singapore according to data from market research firm Euromonito...

Winds of Change

Two topics continue to dominate the news headlines this week - Brexit and the weather. Both seem to be equally unpredictable and depending on whose forecast you listen to, both promise to have devastating consequences. Jaguar Land Rover Chief Exec, Prof Speth has been the latest industry boss to go on record warning that a hard Brexit would result in the 'worst of times' for the UK and predicted the cost to Jaguar Land Rover would be more than £1.2 billion a year. Prof Speth is not alone in his...

Not so Serena.

Serena Williams was far from serene at the final of the US Open on Saturday. Williams was issued a code violation for what the umpire deemed to be coaching, and a point penalty for racquet abuse led to her branding the umpire a thief and a liar. She was then docked a game after which she called for the match referee, alleging that she was being treated differently to the male players.Not only did Serena lose the match to Naomi Osaka she was also fined $17,000 for her mis-conduct.Serena is not al...

Evans Above!

Chris Evans has announced that he is leaving his Radio 2 Breakfast Show in December.Chris joined Radio 2 in 2005 and has a weekly audience of more than 9 million, making the show the UK's most listened to radio programme. BBC figures produced in the summer revealed that the broadcaster is earning between £1.6m and £1.669,999 for his show, making him the second highest earner on the BBC list, after Match of the Day presenter Gary Lineker. At the age of 52 and with this level of success mos...

GDPR the reality.

In the build up to the introduction of GDPR in May, businesses were urged to ensure that their systems were in place to comply with the new regulations. Whist larger organisations undoubtedly had teams of experts implementing these changes, many smaller businesses struggled to determine exactly what was required and either ignored the topic altogether or at best 'copied and pasted' some privacy notices hoping this would be sufficient to be seen as satisfying what many perceived to be simply a pa...

Is it time to stop working?

According to the Child Poverty Action Group, low earning parents working full time are still unable to earn enough to provide their family with a basic, no frills lifestyle.The definition of a no frills lifestyle is based on the Minimum Income Standard, a set of criteria drawn up by the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University. It calculates the income required for a minimum standard of living based on essentials such as food, clothing and accommodation as well as other co...

Strictly Amazon

The build up to this year's Strictly Come Dancing has begun as the names of the first contestants have been disclosed. However as thoughts begin to turn to all things sequins, revealing outfits and fancy footwork, another disclosure hit the headlines this week as Amazon revealed that their UK Corporate Tax bill fell by £2.8 million last year despite the company seeing pre-tax profits nearly treble. Amazon UK Services Ltd accounts show their UK tax bill came in at £4.6 million last year, down f...

Bermuda Triangle Explained.

Scientists believe they have solved the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle.  They claim that the reason for the disappearance of so many ships and planes in this area is nothing to do with the supernatural but is actually due to massive rogue waves. These waves which could be up to 100 feet tall are as a result of storms from the north and south meeting additional storms from Florida.  As any bookkeeper would agree, many clients seem to have their own personal Bermuda Triangle into which ...

Tour de Force

Britain continues to dominate the Tour de France as Geraint Thomas became the third British winner of the event when he crossed the finishing line in Paris. Thomas follows Sir Bradley Wiggins and four times champion Mark Cavendish as Britain celebrates a sixth win in seven years. What an incredible achievement.Another achievement worthy of celebration is the introduction by Xero of automatic tax code updates. So how does it work?  HMRC sends tax code notices (eg P6 notices) when an event ch...

Amber Alert

As temperatures continue to rise across most of the UK, the Met Office have issued an amber 'heat health watch' warning as the South East of England braces itself for the hottest day of the year so far. The amber warning is issued when temperatures are predicted to hit 30C during the day and 15C at night for at least 2 consecutive days. People are urged to avoid being in the sun when it is at its strongest between 11 am and 3 pm in addition to taking the usual precautions in the sun, including c...

Perfect Imperfectly

The Oxford Dictionary defines the word 'perfect' as 'free from any flaw or defect'  It therefore seems an unlikely word for Donald Trump to use to describe his visit to the UK in a recent interview.  A visit which saw hundreds of thousands of protesters taking to the streets across the country and a giant Trump baby blimp flying over the Houses of Parliament. A visit in which he insulted Mrs May, disparaged Brexit, disrespected the Queen, branded the UK media 'fake news' and was photog...

Victory for Europe?

Europe has once again asserted its dominance in the world of football as for the fourth consecutive time a European national team will lift up the World Cup trophy this weekend.  But whilst Europe may be united over football, in the world of politics Theresa May faces a leadership crisis over her cabinets approach to leaving Europe. David Davis has resigned as Brexit Secretary opining that 'the general direction of policy will leave us at best in a weak negotiating position and possibly an ...

Set Fair for Wimbledon

The hot weather looks to be continuing for the foreseeable future and as Wimbledon opens its doors for the 2018 championships, forecasters are predicting that stoppages due to rain are extremely unlikely.Sadly Andy Murray will not be enjoying the Wimbledon sunshine as he has had to withdraw from the competition following his hip surgery. Meanwhile Roger Federer will begin his bid for a record breaking ninth singles title but will face stiff competition from Rafael Nadal and Marin Cilic. British ...

New post

English flags are flying high today following the dramatic 6- 1 defeat of Panama last night. Also hoping to be flying high are supporters of Heathrow's 3rd runway as MP's vote later today on the expansion plan.  Despite cross party opposition the plan is expected to be approved with the Government making the the following 5 pledges: * No cost to taxpayers. * An economic boost providing 100,000 jobs. *Guaranteed benefits for the whole country including internal flights, rail links and 'globa...

New Post

Seismic sensors in Mexico City detected what was reported to be a small earthquake late Sunday morning. However experts were quick to confirm that the sensors had been triggered in an artificial manner probably because of 'mass jumping' as the population celebrated the shock 1-0 win over Germany in the first round of the football World Cup. In contrast, Osaka, Japan was rocked by a strong earthquake this morning killing 3 people and injuring more than 200, whilst Guatemala was hit by a quake mea...

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Nobody enjoys paying their taxes and with the deadline for the introduction of Making Tax Digital (MTD) for VAT less than a year away, many businesses are concerned that the process is set to become even more painful. However the good news is that Xero customers are already able to submit VAT returns using Xero now, and Xero are building a whole new VAT returns experience and workflow to support the changes HMRC introduces. This is already in testing with HMRC to ensure it works as expected...

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Microsoft have dropped a huge data centre at the bottom of the ocean off the coast of Orkney. This may seem a fishy idea but data centres use a staggering amount of energy to power them and to keep them cool. Microsoft believe they have solved this environmental problem by using the cold ocean water to keep the centre cool and by powering the centre with local renewable energy - solar and wind.   Also extremely fishy is a new bogus email scam.  HMRC have advised customers to look ...

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This weekend the UK experienced extremes of weather with some parts of the country hit by severe storms and flooding, whilst others basked in glorious sunshine.Equally varied has been the response to the new GDPR regulations which came into force on May 25th. Whilst consumers have been flooded with correspondence from companies confirming that their Privacy Policies have been updated, the Federation for Small Businesses has warned that many of it's members are still not fully compliant. In respo...

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All eyes were glued to the Royal Wedding on Saturday. What an amazing day. The whole event ran like clockwork and even the weather was perfect.In complete contrast was the chaos of 'Meltdown Monday' as commuters tried to get to work following the introduction of the largest rail network change for decades. According to Thames Link Twitter account the new time table meant a lot of staff and stock were in the wrong place meaning some services were altered / cancelled whilst Control worked to get e...

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Peaky Blinders won Best Drama at the BAFTA TV Awards last night. Congratulations to all concerned in the making of this amazing series.Any business can have its own peaks and troughs but with Xero accounting systems you have all the information you need at your finger tips to play your own blinder and reap your just rewards without the drama....

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Mark Williams celebrated his 3rd World Snooker Championship title by turning up to a post match press conference in the nude. Almost as revealing is the new Small Business Insights recently launched by Xero. Updated monthly, Small Business Insights is a snapshot of the sectors health based on anonymised, aggregated data from hundreds of thousands of Zero subscribers. The result is a picture of business conditions that is more accurate than most private surveys and it is hoped that with this...

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Great news for HSBC customers.  They can now link their Business accounts to Xero via Business Internet Banking. So simple to set up - simply select 'Manage Bank Feed' and follow the on line prompts. Once this has been set up HSBC will automatically send statement data to Xero.  No more manually downloading bank statements.  This reduces manual bookkeeping time by automating parts of the accounting and reconciliation process plus the daily reconciliation  with Xero impro...