Drowning in paperwork

[carollewis]

Hello, I'm writing a piece for The Times Small Business Insights series on paperwork. I wonder if anyone would be willing to chat (on the phone) about the topic for inclusion in the article. Ideally I'd like to talk to people this week or next - to avoid the whole Easter/Royal Wedding holiday period.

Thursday 28th April: Drowning in paperwork
Very small companies spend a disproportional amount of time on administration - What are the tips that could save business people time and money when they don't have the economies of scale enjoyed by larger companies? A look at when it is sensible to pay for expert help and advice and when it is better to do it yourself.

Many thanks
Carol Lewis
Business Features Editor
The Times

[PropertyCrashUK]

I am swamped by the amount of government forms that come through my letterbox from HMRC on a regular basis.

I never read them. Do not have the time. Often they are an entire booklets. I imagine it would take the best part of a few hours to read each one.

I simply shred them but I imagine that through the course of a year I spend a few hours of my life shredding and binning HMRC guff that I never read. I simply pick it up from the letterbox and put it through the shredder.

The stuff never ends.

It is obviously that there are entire armies of civil servants churning this stuff out. What a waste of time and money.

Such people clearly have never done a day's work in their lives as if they had they would know no hard-working person has time for their rubbish - and that is what it quickly becomes as soon as I bin it.

The only way this can be stopped is to fire all the civil servants. But it won't happen as Government Ministers' egos are dependent upon how many people work in their departments.

[2BIT]

I am swamped by the amount of government forms that come through my letterbox from HMRC on a regular basis.

I never read them. Do not have the time. Often they are an entire booklets. I imagine it would take the best part of a few hours to read each one.

I simply shred them but I imagine that through the course of a year I spend a few hours of my life shredding and binning HMRC guff that I never read. I simply pick it up from the letterbox and put it through the shredder.

The stuff never ends.

It is obviously that there are entire armies of civil servants churning this stuff out. What a waste of time and money.

Such people clearly have never done a day's work in their lives as if they had they would know no hard-working person has time for their rubbish - and that is what it quickly becomes as soon as I bin it.

The only way this can be stopped is to fire all the civil servants. But it won't happen as Government Ministers' egos are dependent upon how many people work in their departments.

hmm started off ok but then kind of lost it

[craig1]

I get three government letters per year addressed to my company. One to remind me to do my annual return, one for my annual accounts and one to remind me to do my partnership tax return. I get no government spam or forms to complete and do my VAT online by copying a few boxes from my accounting spreadsheets into the online tool.

As a LLP, I have no PAYE or CT to mess about with. I'm actually happy at how little the government bothers me with forms and paperwork.

On the OP though:
The only real admin overhead we have is doing accounts and invoicing as there's only two of us in the LLP and it'd be silly having someone else do them for two invoices and a handful of receipts per week. Not a burden really considering I do it on the train on the way home on a Friday night! One weekend a year doing my annual accounts and one other day doing the partnership tax return.

On time spent doing my company overhead stuff, including all the other little stuff like renewing phones, insurance, etc, I'd be surprised if I'm doing more as a percentage of time than any of the medium to large companies out there. For example, having 4% of staff doing "IT" is acceptable for a large professional services firm but I'd be seriously narked if I had to spend even 1 day per year of my time doing IT (1 day / 220 day working year = 0.45%).

I know it's a hugely imprecise comparison but it highlights to me that I'm happy with the admin burden of having a small company. It's only when I have an issue where I have no experience that I bother with outside, paid-for help, even then I'll try to learn so I can do it myself next time.

(2 person LLP doing 50/50 consultancy/PM contracting)

[DaveB]

This is possibly not the right place to ask as most contractors are one man bands. It's once you start employing people that the paperwork begins to stack up. Otherwise it;s 30 mins a month to do the accounts/VAT and a couple of hours a year to do the company accounts, CT, and SA.

[xchaotic]

This is possibly not the right place to ask as most contractors are one man bands. It's once you start employing people that the paperwork begins to stack up. Otherwise it;s 30 mins a month to do the accounts/VAT and a couple of hours a year to do the company accounts, CT, and SA.

Totally agree with that.
I have a first hand experience of running a business in three other EU countries.
UK is no heaven, but much better than those two.
In fact UK is one of the very few countries where you can run a small business without an accountant and not risk life in jail.

This still doesn't mean thing couldn't be simplified.
For example Corporation Tax should be abolished to boost the economy - money retained this way in companies would certainly be invested (thus boosting the economy and simplifying paperwork) and the equivalent tax can be recovered via other taxes.
There are also risks for small Ltd's like the activity of HMRC in regards to IR35 and 'husband and wife' companies.
I think they're trying to undermine the lifeblood of the economy - small, one person or family companies by taxing too early.

[SueEllen]

I'm definitely not drowning in paperwork.

Partly because I refuse to employ anyone even though I have subcontracted bits of work out in the past.

In regards to paperwork it's not much as I use an accountant to calculate PAYE and corporation tax, and do my Self Assessment. The other bits VAT, expenses, invoices, etc works out at about 15 minutes a week if I keep on top of it.

The worse parts for small businesses and in fact properly everyone in the UK whose income isn't just from a PAYE basis is that HMRC tax laws and regulations tend to be as clear as mud.

So if you want to find anything out there is no black and white answer so it's a case of asking your accountant (and anyone else you know with suitable accountancy or tax law qualifications) then trying to read and understand the booklets/pages yourself. Some people don't bother which means it's easy to land up in trouble.

[Ignis Fatuus]

I'll just point out for the benefit of the OP that Craig1's comments are not relevant to most of us. He refers to working through a LLP, but most of us are not able to do this, since the agencies who are our usual contractual partners will only contract with a Ltd Co.

[craig1]

I'll just point out for the benefit of the OP that Craig1's comments are not relevant to most of us. He refers to working through a LLP, but most of us are not able to do this, since the agencies who are our usual contractual partners will only contract with a Ltd Co.

[Completely off topic rant]
Now there's a bit of downright idiocy from the agencies who won't. That includes one of the top-end sized agencies.

A LLP is identical to a limited company in all aspects that are relevant to agencies. It is a legally independent individual capable of making contracts with limited liability.

One very large agency's "legal department" insisted that a LLP contractor had to go through an agency's PAYE system and, as such, they couldn't use me. They insisted that I couldn't have a certificate of incorporation or VAT certificate as that's only for "limited companies". It got to the point that the agent asked me if I'd like to change my answers about my limited status. If that's the standard of their "legal department" then I despair for the quality of law graduates these days.

I've been contracting through my LLP for years now. Not one of the competent agents or agencies I work with have any issues over me contracting through a LLP structure.

These days, I see it as a sign of whether the agency has even a part clue and is worth working with. If they won't accept LLP status then I mark them as idiots and snake-oil salesmen not worthy of the cut from my day rates.