Latest news and industry insights

Official figures were released last week showing that inflation remains at 4% in the year to January.

In business, staying ahead of, or at least up with, the curve is crucial for success. Over recent years, one of the revolutionary tools that has transformed the way businesses manage their finances is cloud accounting. Cloud accounting offers many benefits over traditional, on-premise accounting systems. Let’s discuss some of them.

The National Cyber Security Centre have issued some new guidance on “Using online services safely.”

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) have recently published updated their guidance on how to identify tax scams made by phone, email, or text.

The Bank of England and HM Treasury have published their response to a consultation on a digital pound that was started in February 2023.

The 12% to 10% employees national insurance rate cut first announced in the Autumn Statement came into effect in January. This means that many employees will have seen a boost in their take home pay in their January pay packet.

Begbies Traynor, a firm of business rescue and recovery specialists, have published their latest Red Flag Alert based on financial data from the last quarter of 2023. It makes worrying reading as they estimate that more than 47,000 businesses in the UK are near collapse because of being in critical financial distress.

The Department for Business and Trade are making changes that will ban dripped fees, make fake reviews illegal, and make sure that price labelling on supermarket shelves is clearer.