The revenue budget is an essential business management accounting tool monitoring actual financial performance against the approved financial targets. Fixing a budget produces few tangible improvements in financial performance unless it is structured to reflect the financial performance of individual activity areas and management responsibility within the business.

The balance sheet is a financial statement of the assets and liabilities of a business or organisation at a specific date. The main balances reported being separated between fixed and current assets, current and long term liabilities to provide a snapshot of the financial standing of the business.

Every business that employs people is responsible for using a payroll system and the alternatives are for the business to arrange for outsourcing payroll, use a payroll software package or produce the payroll calculations manually. Each function has both benefits and disadvantages mainly concerned with time, money knowledge required.

Small and medium sized companies in the UK can take advantage of supplying abbreviated year end accounts to Companies House which have not been audited by independent accountants. This guide sets out the conditions under which abbreviated accounts can be submitted.

Five proactive steps a business can take to beat the credit squeeze including business finance, planning and taking a positive approach to meeting and solving the problems that might arise.

Small business often accepts business expenses as inevitable and while some effort is usually made to keep expenses down it is often done without reference to the accounts. Maintaining a regular system of bookkeeping using suitable accounting software can assist the cost accounting for profit exercise by providing the source and extent of the actions to be taken.

Many small businesses concentrate on the job in hand and treat bookkeeping as an administrative burden. By adopting suitable accounting software as an essential tool of the business the financial performance can be improved by taking positive management action on the sales and profit generated.

Marginal costing is an accounting term in which costs and expenses are identified by their variability according to the volume of goods bought or produced. By analysing costs according to the variability in prices can significantly improve profit efficiency levels within a business.

Every business is required by the tax authority to keep bookkeeping records to enable the net taxable profit or loss to be calculated. While complex accounting systems can be appropriate in some circumstances the choice for small business is basically cash accounting or accrual accounting.

The vast majority of tax returns are not enquired into by HMRC and are accepted as reasonable. When HMRC investigate the tax return of a small business the inadequacies of the accounting, lack of knowledge by the enquired and professionalism by the tax inspector often results in a higher tax bill.