The Budget of July 8th 2010 did contain elements that will help small enterprises, such as these as copied from the Directgov website:
• Capital Gains Tax - the 10 per cent CGT rate for entrepreneurs will rise from ?2 million to ?5 million
• Corporation Tax - the small profits rate of Corporation Tax will be reduced to 20 per cent from April 2011
• National Insurance - the threshold at which employers start to pay National Insurance will be raised by ?21 per week above indexation in April 2011
• National Insurance - new businesses outside the Greater South East will be exempt from up to ?5,000 of employer National Insurance Contribution payments for first ten employees hired
• Enterprise Finance Guarantee - EFG increased by ?200 million to support ?700 million of additional lending until 31 March 2011 - the EFG supports lending to small businesses that find it difficult to get normal commercial loans
The EFG in particular may help a small firm that is running short of reserves and has to do something about the unsettled account with the large firm. The interest rates that some banks apply for loans to small enterprises may well be far higher than the EFG apply so it would be a good idea to approach the EFG if necessary. However, the small firm would usually communicate with the large firm first to get to the bottom of when they propose to pay the account and if they didn’t get a satisfactory reply then they may well start to ponder Debt Collection proceedings. If the small firm is not short of reserves then they may well simply go with a normal Debt Collection service such as solicitors or Debt Collection Agencies, but if not or if they are simply looking to save money then they may well look at Debt Collection Software. Where solicitors and Debt Collection Agencies take on the whole Debt Collection project for the small firm, Debt Collection Software means that the small firm has to take on the Debt Collection project internally. These differences are reflected in both the costs and the resources required, where solicitors and Debt Collection Agencies charge around 10% to 20% or more of the account value, a decent Debt Collection Software system costs around ?40. With solicitors and Debt Collection Agencies the effort required by the small firm will be minimal, whereas with Debt Collection Software they will have to allocate their own time and resources to run the Debt Collection project.
When evaluating the Debt Collection Software applications, the small firm should look at the manual to see if there is a help guide for Debt Collection that will aid them to get to know how the Debt Collection process works. They will also need to see that there is specific aid for creating the Debt Collection letters since these are at the focal point of the Debt Collection process. They will also benefit from advice on what pertinent legislation are available that could help them to convince the large firm to pay the account. Also any useful sentences that Debt Collection Agencies make use of would help when creating the Debt Collection letters, to make sure that the large firm does pay the unsettled account. The small firm would then have the know how to use the Debt Collection Software if any further unsettled bills come up at a later date, and more economically than either solicitors or Debt Collection Agencies.
