Auto-enrolment Capacity

Auto-enrolment is upon us and already there appears to be a number of sizeable obstacles in an employer’s path which either have not been fully considered or are not being addressed.

Obstacles

· It is estimated that current mainstream pension product providers can support the setting up of around 2,100 new pension schemes each month.

·  It is believed that, at its peak, capacity for around 70 times this amount might be needed.

·  Many have assumed that product providers will be keen to accept increasing numbers of new schemes; however as with commercial organisations in other sectors, providers will only be keen to take on new schemes which they believe will be profitable. This could adversely impact upon small to medium sized companies who have a low to medium average wage structures or have high staff turn-over.

·  This ‘cherry picking’ is likely to come into full effect in 2014/2015 as the main bulk of UK businesses start to implement their auto enrolment.

·  The result could be that those deemed not profitable may be forced to use NEST, as their pension scheme provider. 

Whilst there is nothing inherently wrong with NEST, unlike other providers, NEST provides no administrative support to employers and so small companies, who are more likely to have limited  internal HR resource, will be very much left to their own devices.  Missing your auto-enrolment staging date could result in a sizeable fine being levied, with few, such as lack of administrative support, excuses being acceptable.

Answers

·  Employers must start planning as soon as possible.

·  The Pensions Regulator suggests this should be at least 6 months, Ward Williams Financial Services suggest 9-12 months to ensure everything is in place well in advance.

·  Early establishment will not cost anything extra and contributions need not be started prior to staging date, however with the potential ‘rush’ to enrolment likely to happen in the later stages of 2014, could your business afford to meet the penalties?

To discuss the implications of auto-enrolment and how Ward Williams Financial Services could help you with meeting your obligations, please call (01932) 830664 to organise a no obligation, initial meeting. 

Ten Tips for effective time management

“In life we only get one chance with our time – we cannot go back and use the last ten seconds” – Nigel Risner

Shift to valuing your time – this is an important change and you will never waste another minute!  In a pound sense, this should mean that you are comfortable charging for knowledge and experience, after all it has taken your time and energy, so don’t let clients or anyone take you for granted.  Remember, we cannot go back and use the last ten seconds, we only get one chance.

Get the most out of every day – ask yourself: am I making the best use of my time?  If not, STOP whatever you are doing and then continue to work on a project that will allow better use of your time.  Get up and for a walk if you are ‘bogged down’ with a specific situation and then return to tackle it.

Goals – work with goals in mind, it makes a difference.  If you don’t know what these are or don’t have any, spend some time working out what they may be.  Examples could be professional (such as project deadlines, sales targets, career enhancements) and personal goals (fitness, health, family and relationships, financial goals).

Handle things once only – you’ve heard it before never handle a piece of paper twice, if it is paper use the ‘three d’ rule, i) do it, ii) dump it, iii) delegate (we all like that one).  The same rule can be applied to emails (action, delete or forward).

What is your secret?  Ask someone you believe is efficient, what their secret is, how they developed their techniques, then establish how it could work for you.

Stop allowing time to be taken from you – if someone is late for their appointment and hasn’t contacted you, allow 15 minutes from the agreed time and then move on.  If you are stopped during the day by a colleague, client or telephone caller, ask them to arrange a meeting wherever appropriate.  You can decide how you allow other people to use your time.

Family and personal time – you do not want to finish your career and then realise that you have missed out on quality time with family and friends.  We all need this support so make sure you build time into your daily activities.

Health – it is important to maintain health and fitness and whilst we have been talking about time, knowledge and energy are also invaluable.  Being stressed/overworked will only hamper your health.  Take that break, go for a walk, spend time with family, have a massage and remember to have a yearly medical check up.

Remove clutter from office and home ­- the more you simplify your office and home, the more time you will create.  Clutter saps energy, creates more work thus allowing time to be wasted on non-valuable tasks.  Clear the clutter today!

Peak Performance – schedule those demanding tasks to the part of the day best for you and when energy levels are at their highest.  Some of us are larks and some owls so establish when your peak time is and then see how quickly you achieve results. 

Tips on maintaining business records

If you are not sure what information and detail is required- ask your accountant. Most will have a basic template you can use in Excel as a starting point.

Keep all the paperwork in monthly batches so it is easy to find if you need to go back to something at a later date.

Do little and often. Entering details of receipts and invoices can be tedious so don’t leave it until you have almost a years worth to do in a hurry. Try to do quick and painless chunks each week or at least once a month. The benefit of this is that you not only avoid hours of mind numbing work but that you have an up to date picture of your financial situation, rather than operating in the dark until the year end.

If you are using a bookkeeper, outline in advance exactly what you want and get a cost agreed.

Get a couple of different quotes to make sure you are getting value for money.

Check what is being produced to ensure it’s what you were expecting, but also looking at the figures on a regular basis will help you understand your spend and income. It can help you spot patterns or possible cash flow issues.

Keep communication open; make it easy for the bookkeeper to ask about things as and when they crop up. 

You may get questions at the year end from the accountant and you will not remember any of the detail required especially if you have just been handing over any paperwork to a bookkeeper.

Negotiate a lower cost of year end accounts with your accountant due to you having fab and organised records and all the information they may need at their fingertips.

The cost increases...

If you hand over a box full of receipts and random paperwork to your accountant at the year end, the cost of your accounts is likely to spiral. Your accountant will then give all of that paperwork to someone to sort and process- the time it takes obviously attracts a cost which is added to the bill of your year end accounts.

Once the basic accounts are drafted your accountant will likely come back to you with questions, probably tax related. If you have kept enough information to answer questions quickly with the correct level of detail, the accounts will be finished quickly and the bill minimised. If you have not kept information regarding complex or tax sensitive issues, then the work your accountant has to undertake is more time consuming and may involve communications with the revenue which again pushes up the costs.

You may be thinking- not if I agreed a fixed fee! But the fixed fees are usually based on the assumption that you can provide required information, it can be argued that work resulting from missing information is additional work to the initial quote - so don’t get caught out.