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Tax laws help you eliminate avoidable mistakes

The decision to adopt new digital technology is usually one that companies make for themselves – but next year a change to UK law will force many business owners to update their processes.

What is changing?

On April 1st 2019, the way business owners file their VAT returns is changing. Making Tax Digital will have an impact on the Tax system, transforming the administration process into a simple and more efficient process, ensuring that tax payments are as accurate as possible. VAT-registered businesses above the VAT threshold will be required to keep their records digitally and use software to help submit their tax returns digitally. More specific information can be found at gov.uk.

Why the change?

Not surprisingly, the main reason for the new Making Tax Digital law is that the UK Government believes it is missing out on a big chunk of VAT revenue.

According to Government figures, there is a shortfall of up to £9 billion in VAT revenues collected every year. Ultimately, HMRC wants to ‘become one of the most digitally advanced tax administrations in the world.’ While few of us relish the prospect of paying more in tax, most of us would want to fix a leak in our business finances of that magnitude ASAP.

Eliminating ‘avoidable mistakes’

According to the Government, the main reason for the VAT accounting problems are ‘avoidable mistakes’ by those submitting financial paperwork. This problem is not confined to submitting figures for government use.

Companies who are still using paper-based systems and cash are creating huge potential for avoidable mistakes, scope for fraud and the need for expensive manual administration. For example, companies that ask employees to keep paper receipts for expense management purposes. On a global scale, companies are potentially losing out on $20 billion dollars of unclaimed VAT every year. At the same time, their employees are left frustrated and irritated at having to spend so much time on irritating manual processes.

Many companies have already cut out the margin for avoidable mistakes such as eliminating paper processes and cash in favour of digital technology. For others, it may be a painful transition, but it is likely to be those same companies who benefit most from the new rules in the long-term. Now is a great time to think about how Making Tax Digital could be your opportunity to take control of your financial processes and increase efficiency of your business.

The warning signs for a tough transition

Here are just a few signs that may indicate that the introduction of Making Tax Digital will be difficult for your business:

Cash is still being used for expense management
Your finance department is over-worked, spends too much time chasing paperwork and seems to lack control
Your employees are frustrated by having to keep and submit paper receipts in order to claim expenses

These are just a few legacy issues that are likely to make the transition to digital tax returns difficult, impact efficiency and increase administrative costs.

How can businesses prepare for Digital?

Start by eliminating cash processes from your business. For example, more companies are issuing prepaid cards to their employees for expense purposes. The entire process is digital, enables strict spending control and can be monitored in real-time. This helps to build efficient and accurate finance processes that eliminate any costly errors, whilst reporting in real time.

Also, look for ways to automate systems and processes such as through integration with packages such as Sage, Concur and Xero. Implementing an efficient and integrated digital finance system, frees up time for employees to focus on more critical and value-driven work, whilst enabling you to access previously unclaimed tax.

If Making Tax Digital looks like a major challenge to your business, start planning for it now. It could be your ideal opportunity to kick start a discussion within your business about shedding old processes and taking real control of your finances. Contact B4B for more information on how prepaid cards can be used to increase the efficiency and accuracy of your corporate expenses.

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Tags Advice, Regulation

Company News Insights Newsroom Uncategorised

B4B CEO ELECTED TO PREPAID INT’L FORUM (PIF) BOARD

Paul Swinton, CEO of B4B Payments has been voted to join the board of the Prepaid International Forum (PIF) as non-executive director with immediate effect.

PIF is the not-for-profit industry body that represents organisations regulated under e-money and payment services legislation and operate in the high-growth prepaid and fintech sectors. Driven by a belief that prepaid delivers a wealth of social and financial benefits to consumers, businesses and governments, PIF works hard to protect and advance prepaid as an enabler of innovative financial products and services.

Paul Swinton said: “I am delighted and privileged to have been elected to the PIF board. I look forward to joining forces with my fellow PIF board members to collectively promote greater opportunities and growth within the prepaid cards and fintech space.”

PIF Chairman Craig James said, “We approach the second half of 2018 with a re-energised leadership team and steadfast focus on maximising our contribution to advancing the success of the industry.”

© 2006 – 2023 Payment Card Solutions (UK) Limited trading as B4B Payments is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority to conduct electronic money service activities under the Electronic Money Regulations 2011 (Ref: 930619). UAB B4B Payments Europe is authorised by the Bank of Lithuania as an Electronic Money Institution (Licence No: 76) under the Law on Electronic Money and Electronic Money Institutions 2011.

In Europe, Cards are issued by B4B Payments pursuant to license by Mastercard International Inc. Mastercard is a registered trademark, and the circles design is a trademark of Mastercard International Incorporated.

In the USA, the B4B Payments Visa® prepaid card is issued by Metropolitan Commercial Bank Member FDIC, pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. 40 Washington Street Suite 150 Wellesley, MA. 02481.

All communications should be sent to: Europe – PO Box 76256, London, SW1P 9NU. USA – B4B Payments, 40 Washington Street Suite 150 Wellesley, MA. 02481.

B4B wants to ensure our customers know that their security is of the utmost importance. As such, we will never ask you to tell us your passwords, card PINs or One-Time Passcodes (OTPs).

At B4B Payments, we have taken all necessary steps to secure customer data and protect their privacy. Our systems have been designed with numerous layers of encryption and stringent firewalls. We use a combination of biometrics, two-factor authentication and other methods when customers access our services online or via our app.

Tags Awards, B4B News, partnership

Insights Newsroom Tools & Guides Uncategorised

Three tech tools every CEO should know

By Paul Williams, CFO, CloudCall Group plc

CloudCall enables its clients to communicate with their contacts directly from their CRM, maximising the effectiveness of sales and customer services teams.

Let’s be honest – sometimes Chief Financial Officers have a reputation for not being tech-savvy. But with so many examples of innovation, especially in financial services, we need to know more about tech than just how to work MS Excel.

As a CFO of a successful software company, I have a keen interest in how technology can enhance business performance. After having evaluated and implemented a number of innovations, I thought my list of the top three solutions currently in use here at CloudCall might be useful to other Finance professionals.

1. Customer behaviour + revenue = accurate forecasting

I’ve been looking for a way to improve the accuracy of my financial forecasting. As a cloud-based software company, our clients essentially rent our software so it’s a SaaS (software as a service) model. We have high levels of predictability of income from software subscriptions but the accuracy of our financial forecasting is heavily influenced by customer behaviour such as how fast they on-board users and ramp up usage.

Having reached the limits of what Excel can achieve, I have been looking for a more effective way to model this customer behavioural information together with sales and billing data to achieve more accurate financial forecasts.

We evaluated several solutions and trialled Microsoft Power BI. We found it stronger in its back-end connectivity to our systems than other solutions but its user interface was not so intuitive. That is likely to mean we need to spend more time and money on training and probably incur more operator mistakes.

We are currently piloting Salesforce and trialling its Wave Analytics solution. Like most Salesforce products, the user interface is very intuitive and visually effective, and early results show it to be very effective in marrying financial information with customer data to achieve the kind of powerful insights I need to better support the business.

2. Prepaid cards = expenditure control

Cash-based expenditure management really should be a thing of the past. The expense of handling cash, the unclaimed VAT due to lost receipts and risk exposure goes against virtually every principle that finance professionals hold sacred.

We assign credit cards for use by our executive team but we are a growing company and nurturing talent at junior levels. As part of their development, we foster a culture of financial accountability and trust – within certain boundaries.

We use the expenditure management solution of B4B Payments that enables us to issue Mastercard prepaid cards to our junior team members. We can stipulate when and where the cards can be used and drip-feed funds into those accounts. I remember several junior members of the team saying that they couldn’t travel for business if they had to initially fund it themselves as they didn’t have the spare cash. It’s an important courtesy to our staff that we don’t make our people fund company expenditure and then go through a tortuous expense claim process which may delay funds back to their own pockets to reimburse them. We can also give staff prepaid cards as gifts as rewards or for anniversaries, which keeps things simple and is very much appreciated by all those that have received them so far.

3. Customer view = opportunities for improvement

You’d be surprised at how many ways you can improve your business if you look in the right places. Technology can give you a unique view of your business and allow you to see it exactly as a customer does. Most of the time it’s good but sometimes it’s not – and that’s your opportunity to improve things.

I regularly listen in on sales and customer service calls (it’s ok, we have one of those messages that say calls may be monitored). I can easily do this through our CRM system, which is integrated with a great solution called CloudCall. Yes, it’s a key feature of our own software but it really offers a huge opportunity when agents are routinely presented with real examples of what they do well, and what they don’t do well to learn from. I really do use it myself. CloudCall technology will also help us with General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) compliance as we will be routinely asking customers and prospects for permission to hold their data and record their verbal permission. I suspect we’ll get a much higher opt in rate over the phone than via email, and the CloudCall technology will help us to keep the permissions up to date.

The pace of innovation has reached unprecedented levels in recent years and I’m sure my list of top tech tips will be entirely different in a year from now. But the point is that we must not be intimidated by new technology or else we – and the companies we serve, will quickly fall behind.

Tags CFO Advice

Company News Newsroom Uncategorised

B4B Payments exhibiting at Accountex 2018

B4B Payments will be exhibiting at Accountex, the UK’s largest exhibition and conference dedicated to accountancy and finance professionals. We will be at stand 243 at the event, which takes place on 23-24 May at ExCeL, London.

Accounting firms can benefit from B4B Payments corporate expenditure solution in two ways. They can become a sales partner for our award-winning solution and offer their clients an alternative to inefficient cash-based expense processes or use the solution to reward and pay employees, clients and third parties.

‘We have seen a strong and growing interest in our solution from Accounting firms,’ said Paul Swinton, CEO. ‘Becoming our partner is not only an opportunity to increase their revenue but also a way to retain their clients. We are also seeing Accounting firms join the increasing number of sectors in using our solution to pay and reward their employees and others.’

Tags B4B News, Events

Company News Newsroom Scrapyard Uncategorised

Bread4Scrap Launched

B4B Payments are pleased to announce the launch of the Bread4Scrap Prepaid Card solution to the Scrap Metals industry.

Law changes brought in by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 mean that Scrap Metal dealers cannot pay cash for materials brought to them and must use an electronic means of payment or cheques to provide an audit trail of payments for scrapped metal.

Many dealers are put off by the high costs and insecurity of using cheques and want greater convenience for their customers to make use of their funds immediately.

The Bread4Scrap solution allows participating dealers to issue a new prepaid card and load it within seconds and give their customers an electronic means of payment, which they can use immediately at over 35 million locations where cards are accepted. Paul Swinton, CEO of B4B Payments said: “This is a very quick solution for the weigh bridge operators and cash offices and a highly convenient way for their customers to receive funds. We are confident that Bread4Scrap will be a huge success for our customers.”

All communications should be sent to: Europe – PO Box 76256, London, SW1P 9NU. USA – B4B Payments, 40 Washington Street Suite 150 Wellesley, MA. 02481.

B4B wants to ensure our customers know that their security is of the utmost importance. As such, we will never ask you to tell us your passwords, card PINs or One-Time Passcodes (OTPs).

Tags B4B News, Bread4Scrap, scrap regulation, Scrapyards

Company News Newsroom Uncategorised

BreadFX Euro Card Launched

UK holidaymakers in Europe could be wasting up to a £1bn a year when they change their Sterling into Euros, says Paul Swinton, CEO of B4B Payments, a leader in smart and flexible corporate expenditure solutions.

“There are around 42 million trips to Euro zone countries by UK residents each year and they spend some £18bn worth of Euros. In these tough times, people could save themselves a lot of money with a little planning, simply by ordering a prepaid Euro card and loading it with the amount that they want to spend on holiday”, explained Paul.

B4B Payments has launched the BreadFX Euro Currency Card to address this issue. It has very competitive exchange rates, no commission to pay, and no fees for normal usage. * “Typically, you could get up to 10 percent more Euros for your pounds than you would at an airport currency exchange shop. If your holiday spending is about £800, it means you could get up to an additional £80 worth of Euros to spend ‘for free’,” continues Paul.

Once you receive your BreadFX Prepaid Mastercard (link to www.breadfx.com) you can email or text to exchange Sterling from your bank account to Euros on the card. BreadFX publish their daily exchange rates on their website so that you can compare with other ways of obtaining Euros. Paul maintains BreadFX could save the typical holidaymaker between 3 percent and 10 percent of the costs of their Euros, compared to travellers’ cheques, or many High Street or airport currency exchanges.

The card is accepted at some 30 million outlets worldwide wherever the Mastercard® Acceptance Mark is displayed. It can also be used to draw cash from an ATM for pocket money. As with many other Mastercard® cards, the cardholder has a unique PIN, so it can be considered a safe alternative to carrying large amounts of cash, or hiding money in a hotel room. However, BreadFX advise that you should keep the card as secure as cash and never disclose the PIN or keep it near your card.

The BreadFX card is also a convenient alternative to travellers’ cheques as you don’t usually need to have your passport with you as proof of identity. Because you pre-load the card with the amount of Euros you want to spend, you can control your budget but if you want to top up the card, all it takes is an email or text. If you lose your card it can easily be replaced (for just €7.50) or a replacement couriered to you at the cost of the courier service.

So what are the advantages against taking your ordinary UK debit card or credit card on holiday? The exchange rates with the BreadFX card are usually better, so you save money. If using a UK debit or credit card, exchange rates will vary on each transaction and there may be additional charges levied by your bank for using your card abroad, making it difficult to keep an accurate track of your spending.

*No fees for normal usage except €1.50 ATM fee. See website for full terms and conditions.

Notes to Editors:

The BreadFX Prepaid Mastercard® is operated by B4B Payments Ltd. All currency transactions are carried out by Cornhill FX. The card is issued by Wirecard Card Services Ltd.

B4B Payments was formed in 2006 to run, manage and operate prepaid card programmes. The Bread Prepaid Mastercard has become one of the industry leading general spend prepaid card programmes. Using knowledge and experience built up during its operation led to a natural progression to join forces with Cornhill to begin delivering travel money programs via prepaid cards.

Cornhill FX is part of the Cornhill Group and was established to provide a superior service to clients (large and small) requiring assistance with foreign currency conversion. With FSA regulation and servicing 1000’s of clients including many FTSE100 companies, Cornhill process a sizeable number of transactions daily that allow them access to the very best exchange rates on the market.Original research for B4B Payments conducted by YouGov (June 2010) as an omnibus survey of a nationally representative sample of 2,000 UK adults aged 18+. Other data sourced from The Office of National Statistics MQ6 Survey on Transport Travel & Tourism and from B4B Payments own research.

All communications should be sent to: Europe – PO Box 76256, London, SW1P 9NU. USA – B4B Payments, 40 Washington Street Suite 150 Wellesley, MA. 02481.

B4B wants to ensure our customers know that their security is of the utmost importance. As such, we will never ask you to tell us your passwords, card PINs or One-Time Passcodes (OTPs).

Tags B4B News, currency, prepaid

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