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Setting up a small business on your own isn’t an easy task. As a one man band you have to learn how to deal with every business function from marketing to IT. One area of your business where it really pays to outsource is in the finance department and hiring a qualified accountant makes a lot of financial sense for most businesses.

Once your business starts to grow though and you begin taking on employees, the temptation is to move more and more of the businesses functions in-house. Whilst this can make sense in some areas, with payroll it really does pay to outsource.

In this article I want to look at four areas where outsourcing the payroll function can save your business a lot of money and time and prevent difficulties further down the road as you expand your workforce.

Resource Savings

Time is money in business and payroll can be very time consuming. As your business expands so too will the time needed to perform the payroll function in-house. Investing in payroll software can also be expensive and keeping it up to date is another drag on your time and resources. Factor into this the training needed to bring staff up to date with the software and any updates and developments and you can begin to see the constant drain on resources that doing your payroll in-house can be.

Staff Recruitment and Absence

One of the clear benefits of outsourcing payroll functionality to an accountancy firm is the stability and consistency it brings to developing expanding businesses. All businesses are vulnerable to the danger of key talent leaving them for sunnier pastures and retaining staff is a core part of HR strategy, especially in the early days. Outsourcing payroll effectively removes the worry of having to recruit and train a new staff member to perform this vital business function on which every employee depends. For smaller businesses, having a single individual in charge of payroll also comes with inherent risks in terms of unplanned absence. Payroll isn’t something that can be put off, so if your payroll administrator is off sick then someone else will need to fill in for them, diverting their precious time away from their core duties.

Compliance

In accounting, accuracy is paramount. The UK’s laws around payroll are strict and any mistakes due to human error can and often do result in fines. Not only is this an unnecessary and unwelcome cost, it also means your payroll administrator has to go back over their work to identify and rectify the error. Accountancy firms deal with payroll every day and have the systems and oversight procedures in place to avoid these kinds of accounting errors. Not only this but HMRC’s rules and regulations are prone to change, meaning re-training your payroll staff. The Real Time Information for PAYE changes introduced in 2013 for example, now means companies have to send a Full Payment Submission to HMRC before every payday as well as a monthly Employer Payment Summary. This can mean 76 online declarations a year. That’s a lot of man hours.

Flexibility and Scalability

Creating a successful business is harder than it’s ever been. Recent research from the Harvard Business Review suggests that the average dying age of a publically listed company is 31 years (down from 55 in 1970). Small businesses have to grow and adapt rapidly if they are to be successful and that means so too do their workforces. Unlike many other business functions, payroll isn’t just desirable but required. The consequences for not paying your staff or getting this wrong can be devastating, with the risk of serious damage to the internal reputation of your company and some fairly irate employees. Outsourcing payroll means you can scale your business quickly without the burden of having to grow your payroll functionality too. Accountancy firms have the staff and the resources to handle your growing payroll needs. For seasonal businesses who take on a lot of additional staff in certain months, this can be a real lifesaver.

In this age of a competitive market, it can be very difficult to establish, develop and sustain any business. When it comes to the management of small business, it can be even more difficult. With strict rules and policies, expensive labor, extensive workload, high competition and financial crunch, it can be very hard for any small business to maintain a number of departments in one organization.

Because of this, many small businesses are now considering outsourcing various key functions including human resource management. Some of the benefits of outsourcing HR responsibilities include:

Cost Savings

It can very difficult to find financing and investing for a small business in the first place. Adding a separate department can only increase the total cost. For small businesses that are especially new, outsourcing HR can be very beneficial. It can be very difficult to run a separate department for various human resources functionalities including recruitment, payroll, training and others. For any small business, budget is one of the strongest concerns.

Efficiency

The HR agencies that regularly deal the human resources functionalities of a number of departments are more experienced and skilled at handling employees. Rather than hiring one candidate for human resources, getting a whole team to work for you is a much better option.

Competitive Advantage

As a new business in the market, you will constantly face challenges and competition from other corporate giants. Small businesses have to constantly maintain the best quality systems to outdo other businesses. You will definitely have a competitive advantage over other business if you outsource your HR function.
It can also help in increasing and enhancing the credibility in a given marketplace. With small businesses, one of the biggest issue and struggle is to keep up with the ever changing laws, regulations, organizational policies, government schemes and insurance claims. It can be very hard for a small of team of only few people to manage those things easily.

However, failure to compliance can lead to financial consequences. The outsourcing giants can not only help you in maintaining the payroll, recruitment and training of employee but also help in managing the workforce on a legal level.

Recruit Better Talent

Traditionally, the HR department of an organization is responsible to discover the best talent for the organization. It can be very difficult and requires sufficient experience to find the highly talented candidates for any job. In most of the cases, it takes a lot of time and hard work to find the right candidate. The HR agencies excel at it because this is their main job.

When you outsource your hiring a professional recruitment agency, they will be able to perform the job in a more quick and efficient manner. They exactly know where they will get the most and highly qualified professional for a particular nature of job.

Conclusion

For any business, it can be very hard to establish a clear set of objectives along with maintaining multiple departments. When it comes to small organizations, things can be even harder. The requirements, duties and responsibilities of managing a number of departments can consume employees and higher management, which will result in reduced focus on the primary goal.

Outsourcing human resources department can help in the reduction of administrative tasks and save a lot of time and energy.

One wouldn’t necessarily think of their clothes as a money maker, but what we wear vastly impacts our business success rate. Having a fine tuned business acumen includes knowing what to wear and when.

If you are heading to meet a new client, you want to dress to impress. As they say, you only get one chance to make a first impression. If you show up to a meeting with a potential new client horribly dressed, they will have a terrible first impression of you. You want to leave clients with the impression that you are professional, successful, and above all else, confident you can do anything the client needs you to get done.

Dressing yourself in Macy’s is gong to convey all of the right messages. If you show up to a client meeting dressed in second-hand clothes or faded and stained suits, nothing you say will be able to convince a client that you can accomplish what they need from you. Dressing in Charles Tyrwhitt however, demonstrates that you have a history of success. Showing up to a client meeting wearing the finest of clothes demonstrates to your clients that you can succeed. When you demonstrate this, you earn their trust and their account.

It might seem odd to think that how you dress can impact your financial success, but our appearance plays a large role in how we interact with others. Dressing for success is critical in business. If you dress well, you will find your list of clients expanding and your income increasing. By contrast, neglecting your appearance will only bring you frustration and hard times financially.

Make sure to take care of your business by taking care of your appearance. You need to invest in quality wear above all else- get some shoes that shine, keep your slacks crisp, and make sure your tie is on straight. Never wear the same suit twice to a meeting with a client- so make sure you keep at least four to five different sets of suits in your closet. You’ll want to be prepared at all times to let your suit do the talking for you.

So, you’ve done your research. You know a well-balanced investment portfolio should ideally include exposure to bullion. But do you go with gold or silver? Truth be told, there’s no one correct answer to that question – at least not one that’s applicable to every investor. Learn the key differences between gold and silver and base your decision on factors including how long you plan to hold onto your investment, how much you are able to invest and what sort of risk profile you want to adopt. Remember, both metals offer inflationary protection and carry no credit risk, whilst each has taken its turn in the limelight as far as past price performance goes. The canniest of investors are likely to go for a long play investment in both metals. Read on, and find out more.

The Case for gold

Gold’s volatility factor is up to 70 percent lower than silver’s. Gold also carries more prestige. This is largely due to its rarity. The yellow metal is 18 times rarer than silver. And new discoveries are on the wane. Production has likewise fallen considerably over the last decade. Meanwhile, central banks are still buying up large quantities of the stuff, which is encouraging. Over the longer term, gold’s price has performed exceedingly well. Also in its favour is gold’s unrivalled status as the accepted alternative to currencies. The yellow metal has been used to store wealth for more than 3,000 years. You simply cannot say this of silver.

The case for silver

Silver has much going for it as a savvy investment choice, though its volatility means it is more speculative than gold. Notably, silver is more widely used in industrial applications. Whatsmore, the industries it’s used in – like, solar power and electronics – are growing. Sterling silver jewellery is still a popular gift idea and many people are indulging in silver jewelry for themselves as well. Silver’s price may be currently weak, yet it is this very weakness forcing producers to scale back operations. These aforementioned factors, at some point, are likely to affect silver’s supply and demand ratio to the point where its price will be pushed up. In addition, analysts concur silver may well offer investors better value than gold, as the gold/silver price ratio is currently further apart than it theoretically should be. Finally, even though VAT must be paid on silver purchases, it remains, of course, much cheaper per ounce than gold to buy. This offers those with even only US$1000 in capital to invest in bullion, an ‘in’ into the market.

To conclude

Silver or gold? Each is likely a good investment choice over the longer term. Yet as you’ve just read, they have their differences. Which is precisely why many advisors would suggest owning both. If you choose a total exposure to bullion amounting to 10 percent of your portfolio for instance, go ahead and split that 10 percent between silver and gold. How you weigh the split largely depends on your views on the health of the stock market and worldwide industrial growth.

A well thought out marketing strategy is an important component for every business. One of the things to consider when developing a marketing strategy is figuring out which marketing channels to invest in.

 There are many different options, but not all of them make sense for every business. It is; therefore, best to invest in the marketing channels that are most appropriate for your target market. The rise of social media and internet usage has made digital marketing platforms extremely relevant. Here are four marketing channels you should be investing in.

Social media

According to EMarketer, there were over 1.43 billion social media users in 2012. This is a 19% increase from the 2011 figures. It’s obvious that social media usage is rapidly expanding, making it the perfect platform for a well-developed marketing strategy.

It is easy to target the right audience through networks like Facebook, which allow for targeted advertising. Twitter is a great way to share small amounts of information about products with a large number of people. There are also other social media networks; like LinkedIn, Tumblr, FourSquare, that can help market products at a fraction of the traditional cost.

Search engine marketing

Ranking high in search engine results is important as only the highest ranked websites get the most traffic. Search engine marketing includes paid advertisements, search engine optimization, and pay-per-click services. Investing in a new website and search engine marketing (SEM) services is not expensive. Most companies that provide SEM services will help develop the website, and website content for an all-inclusive price as well. SEM is a great way to increase the visibility for your product online, and works well with social media marketing methods as well.

Event marketing

Event marketing allows companies to target more specific groups of people as compared to traditional marketing methods like TV advertisements or billboards. It consists of sample distribution, interactive displays, and visual promotions at events. It is very common for companies to sponsor entire events – Mercedes Benz Fashion Week – which are branded to market a specific product.

You can also see event marketing in action at malls, where free samples are being provided. This means that companies – regardless of their marketing budget – can participate in this marketing channel as it is customizable. It is worth the money since it targets a specific type of customer in a more personal way as compared to other marketing channels.

Trade shows

Trade fairs (trade shows) allows companies to promote their products to a large number of potential consumers in the very short space of time. By having trained staff at the booth, collecting leads and quickly following up on them, it can be very easy to turn these potential consumers into actual buyers. This is one of the best methods for creating a lasting impression on consumers.

There are plenty of marketing channels available, but you should focus on using the ones that deliver the most bang for the buck.

Eva has been helping small businesses to improve their promotions for the last 3 years. Her expertise is in custom promotional merchandise, through her work at Custom Gear, one of Australia’s fastest growing branding companies.