SME Business News

The British Chambers of Commerce applauded measures by the Chancellor to place the needs of business at the centre of the Budget.
“Doubling the annual investment allowance, help with business rates, and allowing entrepreneurs to keep more of their gains will prove especially popular,” said David Frost, the BCC’s director general.
On a downbeat note, the BCC was [...]

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The Federation of Small Businesses was pleased with the announcement to take 345,000 small businesses in England out of the business rates system, is looking forward to the introduction of the new credit adjudicator giving small businesses the opportunity to appeal against a decision by the bank to reject a loan application, welcomed the Chancellor’s [...]

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This week, I will be taking a look at the different views of the main business groups in the UK towards last week’s budget. Today, I have outlined the views of the Forum of Private Business.
Phil Orford, the FPB’s chief executive, reacted: “I cautiously welcome the way the Chancellor acknowledged the importance of smaller businesses [...]

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HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has provided employers with more information on how the problem of a series of incorrect tax codes is being handled.
Worries emerged earlier in the year that a significant proportion of the 25 million tax coding notices that are being issued may be wrong.
The codes dictate how much employers and pension [...]

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The creation of new employment law is harming the competitiveness of the UK and putting jobs at risk, the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) has said.
The business group’s new paper, named ‘Employment regulation – up to the job?’, has been timed to coincide with the release of official employment figures tomorrow. The paper looks at [...]

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It has been reported this week that interest rates will remain at a record low for a 12th consecutive month.
The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee has come to the decision to hold the base rate at 0.5 per cent, whilst freezing its quantitative easing programme.
Interest rates have stayed at 0.5 per cent since last [...]

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The Asset Based Finance Association (ABFA) has launched an invoice finance presentation which provides an insight into the workings of the different types of funding available to businesses from the Asset Based Finance industry. The presentation guide takes an individual through how Invoice Finance works in practice; how the client communicates with the financier, how [...]

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Small firms must get the broadband service they are promised, says FSB
New FSB-ICM figures show six in ten are unhappy with their broadband speeds
As the Digital Economy Bill is debated in the Lords next week, figures from the FSB-ICM survey of 1,300 small firms shows that a quarter (24%) of respondents are dissatisfied with their [...]

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UK small businesses have adopted a “fighting spirit” over the state of the economy and their prospects for the year ahead, though some risk slipping into the lower level of a “two-tier SME economy” when it comes to customer service, according to new research from Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO).
Cisco’s Customer Kings 2010 report(1), which questioned small [...]

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New research published by CreditPal, a free online service for SMEs, reveals that over the last two years almost half (43%) of UK SMEs have been left with monies owed to them as a result of their trading partners or customers going bust. The total amount owed to SMEs is estimated to be around 5.3 [...]

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