April is coming and it’s time to get your business ready for year end. We offer some top tips on how to get everything in order and make the process as simple as possible.

Issue and chase any invoices

While it’s always good practice to issue invoices in a timely manner, it’s especially important in the run-up to April, so you can ensure you have everything in order for the end of the financial year.

Make sure all teams are aware of deadlines. Even if you haven’t received payment, make sure the invoices are in the system. These can be recorded as outstanding debtors in your final accounts.

Check your accounts - early

Make sure all the figures in your accounts are right. Reconcile them with your bank statements and ensure invoices, bills and tax data is correct. It’s much easier to deal with any issues when you run your checks early and have time to investigate. Sage accounts software includes a data checking function to help you spot any discrepancies.

Claim your Employment Allowance

Unless you’re a new business, you should now be in the habit of claiming your employment allowance for your business. This gives you up to a £2,000 reduction in your Class 1 National Insurance Contributions (NICs) this financial year.

It pays to double check that you’ve claimed the full allowance. If you use Sage payroll software, simply check that “Yes” is ticked in the ‘Employment Allowance indicator’ field when you send your RTI submission.

Next year’s allowance increases to £3,000 a year but won’t be available for directors who are the sole employee, so do make sure you get your claims in this year.

Consider ways to minimise your tax bill

There are a number of simple steps you can take to ensure you aren’t paying more tax than you need to. Everything from ensuring that all your business expenses are recorded to choosing the optimum time for purchases and dividends can all make a big difference to the amount of tax that will be due.

Process all expenses

All genuine costs should be recorded and processed before the end of the tax year. Encourage all your employees to submit their expenses early and don’t forget to include things that may be forgotten, like mileage allowance, mobile phone charges and sustenance.

Look at the best time to pay dividends

There are significant changes coming to dividends next year, so it pays to plan ahead. Under new rules announced in the Budget, from 2016 dividends will be taxed at between 7.5% and 38.1% after the first £5000. Speak to your accountant to see if how these changes might affect you and the amount of dividend you might want to pay this year.

Plan major purchases

If you need to buy plant or machinery, you may find that you can deduct the full value of any qualifying item from your profits before tax, as part of the Annual Investment Allowance (AIA). The government’s website gives full details about what’s eligible for the scheme.

Get ready for new legislation

There are a few new pieces of legislation coming in the new financial year, so now is the time to check you’re ready. While the changes listed below will affect your payroll systems, they will also impact on the finances within your business, so it pays to be aware of what’s changing.

National Living Wage

From 1 April, all workers aged 25 or older will need to be paid a minimum hourly rate of £7.20. You’ll need to check to see which of your workers will qualify and understand what the impact will be on your costs. Of course, you’ll also need to ensure your payroll systems are updated too.

Abolition of Employer National Insurance Contributions for apprentices under the age of 25

From April 2016, you’ll no longer need to make Employer NICs for any apprentices who are under the age of 25.

Higher rate of Employment allowance

As we said above, this is rising to £3,000 a year from 2016 but will no longer be available for businesses with one director who is the sole employee.

For more information on getting ready for year end

To help make it easy to manage year end, we’ve created a year end help centre. This includes information about how to prepare, how to run year end in your software and some FAQs.