First Christmas blog post

It’s December so I’m going to allow myself the use of the ‘C’ word. No, I’m not going all festive just yet, bah humbug to that until I start my Christmas shopping next week. However, there are things we need to consider about Christmas in terms of financials.

First, how much do you spend on entertaining your employees? The tax authorities say it’s all tax free but the smart money such as the tax advice network says keep it to £150 if you want to avoid your customers getting hammered for receiving a benefit in kind. Entertaining clients and prospects, meanwhile, is not tax deductable any more than during the rest of the year. So you can feed them by all means but whatever you do don’t buy any presents or cards and expect HMRC to help.

Another soiund financial practice if you’re the type that has office knees-ups in the office – or ‘buys a crate of lager and hopes that’ll do’ – is to check your insurance is up to any breakages and damage that might happen if someone gets carried away. Personally I’d be more inclined tokeep any celebrations safely away from the office, but what do I know.

Anyone with any useful insights into managing money over the Christmas period – particularly getting payments out of people when they think their accounts department should be on holiday – is more than welcome to comment to this blog entry!

Guy Clapperton is a freelance journalist who specialises in small business issues and has written for the likes of The Guardian, the FT and the Daily Mirror. Guy has written about finance and franchising for SmallBizPod. http://www.guyclapperton.co.uk