Your Finance Team Ltd

28/10/2026

Today's Autumn Budget was never likely to bring big surprises, because the government had already ruled out raising VAT, income tax and National Insurance. There's still plenty in it that small business owners should know about, and some of it will hit your costs from next year.

Retailers and hospitality businesses get the best news. Businesses with a rateable value under £18,000 (up from £12,000) won't pay business rates at all, and the government says this takes 70,000 more businesses out of the system. Employers will see the National Living Wage rise to £13.21 an hour, which adds about £975 a year for each full-time employee before National Insurance and pension contributions. Owners planning a sale should know that the lifetime limit on profits taxed at the lower 18% rate is being cut from £1m to £500,000. The 5p fuel duty discount is staying until July 2027, but it would be sensible to build higher fuel costs into your forecasts after that.

We've covered all of this, along with the new founders' relief and the changes to tax on property and savings income, in our full Budget breakdown 👇
https://www.yourfinanceteam.co.uk/2026/10/28/autumn-budget-2026-expert-insights/

If you have questions about how any of this affects your business, get in touch with our team.

The 2026 Autumn Budget was announced on Wednesday, 28 October and here is our take on the changes from our accounting and tax experts. Read for insights on what it means for your finances, your business and our economy.

30/09/2026

We're delighted to share that Your Finance Team has been named a finalist in two categories at the 2026 SME Surrey Business Awards: Best Established Business and the Sustainability Award 🏆🌱

This year has been a big one for us, with B Corp certification in April and a growing team, so being shortlisted for both of these means a lot.
A huge thank you to everyone on the team for the care and effort they put into supporting our clients every day, and to the businesses who trust us with their finances. We'll be keeping everything crossed for the ceremony in November!

23/09/2026

Is a company electric car still worth it now that the tax on it is rising?

The figure of 9% has put plenty of directors off, but that rate doesn't arrive until 2029/30. The tax charge on a fully electric company car is 4% this year, then 5%, 7% and finally 9%, and that path has now survived two Budgets unchanged.

We've worked through what that means in real money on a £45,000 car, including the National Insurance your company pays on top, the new pay-per-mile charge coming in April 2028, and a welcome change that means fewer electric cars now attract the extra annual road tax for expensive vehicles.

With a Budget on 28 October, now is a good time to run the numbers.

See our blog here: https://www.yourfinanceteam.co.uk/2026/09/23/benefit-in-kind-bik-on-electric-cars-is-heading-to-9-does-a-company-ev-still-make-sense/

17/09/2026

Most business owners we meet didn't start a company so they could spend their evenings reconciling spreadsheets and second-guessing decisions, but that's often where growth takes them.

Here's the pattern we see behind the scenes most weeks:
🚩 Founders with no time to plan because they're buried in the numbers
🚩 CEOs covering finance, HR and operations at the same time, and dropping things in all three
🚩 Businesses growing on paper while cash flow tells a very different story

None of this comes down to leadership or motivation. It comes down to a finance function that hasn't kept pace with the rest of the business.

The businesses that come through this stage well usually have three things in place:
✅ Visibility over their numbers as they happen, rather than reports that land weeks after the fact
✅ A clear view of which work is genuinely profitable and which is quietly draining them
✅ Finance systems built for the next stage of growth, not just the current one

We act as your outsourced finance team, taking on cash flow, forecasting, and the reporting behind good decisions, so you can focus on running the business instead of chasing the numbers.

If that's where you are, book a call with us: https://calendly.com/yourfinanceteam-uk/new-client-consultation

09/09/2026

A client left this on Google after a year with us, and it covers most of what the first year with an outsourced finance team involves.

🔹"They made the transition from our previous accountant smooth."
We handle the handover and the conversation with your outgoing accountant. A few weeks, and you carry on running the business.

🔹"They spent time helping us transition to Xero, which for me was a huge move."
Setup, migration and training are included as part of our onboarding. If you're on spreadsheets or something you've outgrown, this is usually the change that makes the biggest difference.

🔹"The support from the whole team."
More than one person knows your business, so questions still get answered when someone's away.

🔹"I can't believe the information I now have to hand."
Monthly management figures, current enough to make decisions from.

Full review in the comments 👇 An outsourced finance team for less than the cost of one full-time hire.

Book a free consultation 🔗 https://calendly.com/yourfinanceteam-uk/new-client-consultation

01/09/2026

Back at your desk after the summer? September is a genuinely useful month if your financial year ends in December.

You have about four months left to change how the year turns out. That is enough time to chase the invoices that have been sitting since spring, look at costs that crept in without anyone really deciding to add them, and work out whether profit is anywhere near where you assumed it would be back in January.

It is also the right time to think about cash in the new year rather than cash this month. A quiet December followed by supplier payments and a tax bill is what catches out businesses that were profitable the whole way through.

Leave all of this until November and you are not managing the year anymore; you are just watching it finish.

If your numbers are arriving too late to be much use, we can help with that.

Book a free consultation today: https://calendly.com/yourfinanceteam-uk/new-client-consultation

18/08/2026

When did you last read your P&L properly?

If the honest answer is "when the accountant sent the year end," then every decision since has been made on numbers that were already out of date.

Read once a year, it tells you what you can no longer change. Read monthly, it tells you four things worth knowing:

🔹Where your growth actually came from. More customers, better prices, or one big client you now can't afford to lose. Three very different situations.

🔹Whether your margin is slipping. On £750k of turnover, a three point drop is £22,500 gone. Watch only the bottom line and you'll find out months late.

🔹Whether overheads are creeping. No single subscription or hire breaks anything. Tracked as a percentage of revenue, the drift shows up early.

🔹Whether the profit is real. £80k on the page and £9k in the bank is more common than you'd think. Stock, unpaid invoices, loan repayments and the tax bill all sit outside the P&L.

If you're turning over £500k+ and your numbers only arrive once a year, you're running on instinct.

Review your P&L regularly for clarity, confidence & control. Not sure what you are supposed to be seeing?

Book a conversation: https://calendly.com/yourfinanceteam-uk/new-client-consultation

11/08/2026

Your business goes quiet, and the brain immediately goes: this is the end.

We see it a lot, and nine times out of ten the panic is worse than the position.

So before you start slashing prices or taking on work you'll regret, here are a few things worth doing first:

🔹Check last year's figures. Is August always like this for you? Probably.

🔹Look at cash rather than sales. How many months could you keep going at current costs? That's the number that actually matters.

🔹Remember what's signed but hasn't started yet. Quiet diary doesn't mean empty pipeline.

And then use the time properly. Chase the old invoices, review your supplier costs, ring the clients you've not spoken to since last year.

Quiet is uncomfortable. But it's a lot less frightening when you know where you stand.

04/08/2026

Running low on holiday ideas? Same. 🌳

If you're trying to run a business and entertain the kids at the same time this month, here's a very small one: our partner Treeapp has a free app where you plant a real tree a day. Takes about thirty seconds, kids can do it themselves, costs nothing.

Won't fill an afternoon. But it's one of the few things you'll do this August that will still be around in twenty years.

We've planted 805 so far and counting 🌱

28/07/2026

We asked company directors what they wish they'd put in place sooner. Four answers came up again and again:

🚩"I wish I'd had monthly management accounts from year one."
Year-end accounts tell you what happened. Monthly numbers tell you what to do next.

🚩"I didn't realise how much pricing by gut feel was costing me."
Most businesses aren't losing money on the big jobs. It's the small ones nobody costed properly.

🚩"I thought I needed a full-time FD. I didn't."
Most SMEs need FD-level thinking a few days a month, not a six-figure salary on the payroll.

🚩"Having someone to call when a big decision comes up, that changed everything."
Hiring, borrowing, taking on a big contract. The value isn't the spreadsheet but having access to a second opinion before you commit.

None of it is complicated. It just tends to get put off until something forces the issue.

Which one of these is you? Tell us in the comments.