Help for businesses: THP has got you covered

One of the biggest challenges in business is making sure clients are aware of your full range of services. I came across a good example the other day. I was talking to a business owner whose company offers two main services: commercial kitchen cleaning and commercial kitchen maintenance. He was frustrated by the number of clients who came to him for kitchen cleaning, but went elsewhere for kitchen maintenance – and vice versa. If more of those clients were aware of both services, he could help them save both time and money. In the same way, as accountants, we know that we can offer more help for businesses when they know about our full range of services.

Many of our clients first come to us when their businesses are just getting off the ground. As fledgling businesses, they’re looking for an accountant who can handle their compliance work. By this, I mean services like Self Assessment Tax Returns and potentially VAT Returns, Corporation Tax Returns and so on.

Help for businesses when they grow

However, as these businesses succeed and grow, they often need more specialist help. For example, they might need help sourcing corporate finance. Or help drawing up shareholder agreements. Or even help with weathering an HMRC tax investigation or compliance check.

We work hard to help our business clients understand our full range of services, but we’re not always successful. Part of the problem is that many people wouldn’t necessarily associate some of our services with traditional accountancy. That can result in wasted opportunities: as your accountants, we’re ideally placed to offer advice and help for businesses that’s firmly based on a deep understanding of their financial affairs.

Equally important, when businesses use more of THP’s services, it allows us to take a joined-up view of their situation and their goals. It can save them time and money into the bargain.

For these reasons, if your business is growing, it’s worthwhile familiarising yourself with the services we can offer you. To save you the trouble of scrolling through our website, we’ve summarised our less well-known business services below.

Business growth and structure

• Business structure. We can advise on the most tax-efficient structure for your business, whether you’re currently a sole trader, limited company or partnership.
• Business valuation. If you’re thinking of selling your business, buying someone else’s stake or trying to raise finance, we can value both your business’s tangible and intangible assets.
• Business exit. If you are planning to retire or move on from your business, our experts can help you create a robust exit strategy.
• Mergers & acquisitions. If you are planning to acquire or merge with another business, we can help guide you through the process (we’ve also merged with several accountancy firms over the last four decades!)

Legal services

• Shareholder agreements and business continuity. We can draft shareholder agreements to minimise future threats to your business.
• Company formation. If you want to start a new business venture, we can help you with creating a new company or partnership.
• Wills and Lasting Powers of Attorney – Ian Henman is our estate planning expert and is just waiting to help you with these important matters.

Financial service

• Corporate finance. We can help you identify and raise many different types of corporate finance.

Audit services

• Statutory audit services. Our experienced auditors can solve your statutory audit worries with minimum disruption to your business.
• Grant audit services. We can help you release grant funding with our fast-turnaround grant audit services.
• Innovate UK Smart Grants. We can help you prepare a bid for Innovate UK funding or undertake a grant audit to release your funds.

Tax services

You will probably be aware of our most popular tax services. These include tax returns for Income Tax, Corporation Tax, VAT, Inheritance Tax and Capital Gains Tax. However, we also offer the following:

• Tax planning services. Our tax specialists can help you plan ahead and often reduce your tax liabilities.
• R&D relief and tax credit service. If you research or develop new processes, products or services, we may be able to help your access R&D tax reliefs.
• Unclaimed capital allowance service. Fewer than 10% of UK businesses claim correctly for the capital allowances relating to their buildings. We can help put that right.
• Tax Investigation Service If HMRC decides to undertake an inspection or enquiry into your tax affairs, we can help you get through it – and you’ll be covered for up to £100,000 in fees.

Other help for businesses

We hope that this post has given you an insight into the broad range of ways we can help your business. You may want to print it out for future reference!

However, don’t forget that we’re still here for all of your usual accountancy services, from bookkeeping to payroll. To discover our full range of business and personal services, browse under the menu ‘Your Needs’ at the top of this page. If you are a landlord, look under ‘Guides’ for our dedicated service: ‘Making Buy-to-Let More Profitable’.

As always, if you need any help for your business, please get in touch with your account manager. If you’re looking for a new accountant who can offer you more, we’re looking forward to hearing from you!