I originally posted this to the general bookkeeping section but wasn't sure if it should be here instead.
I'm sorry to keep asking such basic questions but I'm only just starting out and wondered if someone could answer the following questions:
1. Can I claim a laptop which I bought this year in order to enable me to take to client premises if need be. Although I will be using it for personal use also (about 25% in reality) can I claim say 50% of the cost as an expense against profits. If it is possible to claim as an expense then can I claim the expense in the first year against profits or do I need to capitalize it over say three years? 2. I've been informed by Michelle on a previous post that I can't claim learning a new skill as an expense but insofar as keeping up to date, would this include purchasing tax books in order to keep abreast of changes in the tax law etc. 3. Can I claim for my AAT subscription and the cost of any AAT CPD courses which I plan to attend ?
I originally posted this to the general bookkeeping section but wasn't sure if it should be here instead.
I'm sorry to keep asking such basic questions but I'm only just starting out and wondered if someone could answer the following questions:
1. Can I claim a laptop which I bought this year in order to enable me to take to client premises if need be. Although I will be using it for personal use also (about 25% in reality) can I claim say 50% of the cost as an expense against profits. If it is possible to claim as an expense then can I claim the expense in the first year against profits or do I need to capitalize it over say three years?
Your mixing up accounting and taxable profits.
If this was purchased prior to trading treat as though brought into the company on the first day of trading.
The laptop belongs to the busiess. Capitalise and depreciate through the books over useful economic life (say 3 years).
For tax purposes the use of the laptop is essential to your work and personal use is not significant (you would have still needed to have the laptop which does not deteriorate due to to the minor personal use) so I would for tax purposes be prone to saying the whole sum is allowable for first year AIA.
For further details and examples refer to EIM21613
2. I've been informed by Michelle on a previous post that I can't claim learning a new skill as an expense but insofar as keeping up to date, would this include purchasing tax books in order to keep abreast of changes in the tax law etc.
Purchasing tax books every year is a legitimate expense of the business
3. Can I claim for my AAT subscription and the cost of any AAT CPD courses which I plan to attend ?
Once you have a business then all those expenses incurred wholly, necessarily and exclusively for the business are allowable expenditure.
Your business requires AAT membership, AAT membership is not available without paying the subscriptions or continued professional development therefore it is all allowable.
Thanks for your help
Bubs
No probs,
its nice when replies are all good news for the person asking the question.
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Oops, who put that 2 so close to the 1 on my keyboard! Sorry, really think that I need one of those colourful trainer keyboards with the big chunky keys to accomodate my elbow sized fingers!
Here's a link to that one that I meant to guide you to (sorry again) :
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Ok, thats sorted you out with the lists to get you started.
Now go back up a level where you saw examinable documents in the right hand column and a couple of entries below that you will see technical articles.
These are great for in depth discussions about specific standards, or trends in the industry, etc.
For technical articles don't restrict yourself to the higher level papers but read through as much as you can for all papers which will really expand your knowledge base.
If you were ever feeling really brave there are also all of the old exam papers there with stock answers.
Only thing to be careful of now that I've told you about all this stuff is once you start reading it not going ahead and signing up as a student of the ACCA (at which time regulation 8 would cut in and I'm sure that you've already seen the ongoing discussion in relation to that one on the site at the moment)..
Any further questions don't hesitate to ask. I may not always be able to come back to you as quickly as today but I will always answer eventually... And don't worry, nothing sounds silly.
kind regards,
Shaun.
p.s. with everything now about international standards ACCA does make tracking the names of the UK standards easy and you need to just list the names from the P2 document in Excel. sort them, remove duplicates and then track each name through Google.
The proper names of the international standards are much easier as they are given in the examinable documents PDF.
-- Edited by Shamus on Thursday 1st of August 2013 01:08:59 PM
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
I'm curious as to how you keep abreast of these things. I assume that your knowledge has been built up over many years of experience but do you tend to navigate on a daily basis the HMRC website, and other sites, magazines.
I'm trying to find tips on how to keep abreast of changes etc., in the rules and regulations and feeling pretty inadequate and quite frankly "clueless". I know you have given pointers on previous posts (i.e. BBP and Kaplan books for tax together with another book which I can't remember right now). I've had three years of limited AAT training where I have literally read Kaplan, BPP and Osborne books just to understand (I self studied for most of it) and pass the exams but outside those pieces of literature I have no idea where to begin. My day job is not in accounts (it's actually Intellectual Property - administration) and so I'm really keen to learn and understand as much accounting and bookkeeping as I can without going down the CIMA or ACCA route.
Any pointers on what and how to become more and more aware of the "rules and regulations" as they say would be gratefully received. I admire your knowledge and I know it's because you put a lot of work into it and it's something I aspire to so any tips to point me along the same path would be great.
Many thanks for all your posts, I get a lot out of them.
other people always seem to feel that my knowledge base is a lot better than I feel that it is myself which maybe is the secret in that I am always questioning my own ability and never suffer with the confidence that makes some others complacent.
I am always questioning why we do things in certain ways rather than rote learning of you must do x which really helps in a fundamental understanding. I think that shows in some of the answers where people ask how do you do x and my answers relate not to how they do it but rather what are they attempting to achieve.
For example, I answered one yesterday (this thread www.book-keepers.org.uk/t54520547/discount-on-assets-purchased/) where the poster was asking about Sage codes but if you look at the response it was not about how to do what they wanted to do but rather looking at how what they were actually attempting to achieve should appear in the financial statements.
Seems the reverse way of looking at things but my approach is always looking at what we are attempting to achieve and then how to achieve it rather than thinking from the perspective of data entry without consideration for the final effect of such.
The Kaplan books have helped hone that approach in that the examples start hard and become increasingly more difficult building upon previous examples and often calculating results in different ways (As an example, have a look at the various differnet calculations of unrealised profit in the consolidation questions in the first few chapters of the Kaplan study text for ACCA paper P2 (Advanced Corporate reporting) same principle, different ways of achieving it).
As for how to stay current and abreast of things...
As already discussed get either (or both) Taxation by Melville and the ACCA Kaplan P6 study text each year which if you read those in December / Jamuary you are set for the year (although you will keep having to refer back to them as there's way too much to remember).
For financial reporting standards I have a deck of index cards that I always carry with me. It has the standard number on one side and the description of the standard on the other. I go through the deck once each way (description to standard, standard to description) every day (Theres currently 126 standards in the deck (every FRS, SSAP, IAS, ISA, ISRE, IAPS, ISRS and section of the IFAC code of ethics)).
Note that if you adopt the above make sure that you shuffle the deck each time otherwise you just end up memorising the standards in sequence.
I also have a similar sized deck of definitions (asset, provision, continent asset, etc. Plus 13 of the more common ratio's, 30 acronym lists to make sure that in some situations I do not forget something and also key points in relation to some standards (such as the list for subsequent capitalisation criteria).
I have boxes and boxes of decks of cards but those two decks built up over the last ten years are the key ones worth their wieght in gold to me... To others the decks would probably be a little different.
If you adopt a similar approach the key is that you must keep reviewing the content as standards change / get repealed / new standards are released.
Rather than going from the FRC site I tend to read the ACCA P2 and P7 syllabuses each year and take the basic list of current standards from there (beware that they also change names as they evolve... Look at IAS27 as a good example or ISA740).
On its own of course the above is not enough to stay abreast of things. I am also subscribed to (these are the one's that I have found to be the best, there have been plenty of others along the way) :
AccountancyAge newsleters (delivered by email)
Financial director newsletter (delivered by email)
AccountingWeb newsletters (delivered by email)
ACCA in practice (delivered by email)
HMRC agent communications (email)
IFA monthly newsletter (physical magazine)
PQ magazine (physical magazine)
The BKN site is really useful in that everyday something comes up that I may know but has a twist on it that makes me read around the issue.
stay abreast of the latest dicsussions over on Accountweb and become a dab hand at using google to search the HMRC site for information.
Over the years I've amassed seven of the large size Ikea billy bookcases stuffed full of accounting books plus articles in magazine files. Many of the books are pre owned ones from Amazon resellers where the delivery costs more than the book (1p for the book, £2.80 delivery)... I use that to justify by averaging pricing those with those that have cost £50+!
To date there's only been one book that was delivered full of blue highlighting making it unusable. Thats the only book that I've ever thrown away.
The only tip really though is to just be genuinely interested in the subject matter rather than the money that it may (or may not) yield. If you have that then picking up and maintaining the knowledge becomes not just easier but also fun (sad as that sounds, lol).
All the best,
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
This is going to sound really silly but how do you access the ACCA P2 and P7 syllabuses each year? Also, I guess I should know this but where can I find a full list of the complete accounting standards so that I can start making my own deck.
Thanks so much Shaun. I appreciate you getting back to me so quickly today. I've no intention of going forward to ACCA or CIMA or any other accounting qualification right now as I've only just got my life back (for now - Lol) after 3 years of hard study and working full time. Although I gather from reading the various posts on the forum that the hard work is only just beginning!
I am always questioning why we do things in certain ways rather than rote learning of you must do x which really helps in a fundamental understanding. I think that shows in some of the answers where people ask how do you do x and my answers relate not to how they do it but rather what are they attempting to achieve.
For example, I answered one yesterday (this thread www.book-keepers.org.uk/t54520547/discount-on-assets-purchased/) where the poster was asking about Sage codes but if you look at the response it was not about how to do what they wanted to do but rather looking at how what they were actually attempting to achieve should appear in the financial statements.
Seems the reverse way of looking at things but my approach is always looking at what we are attempting to achieve and then how to achieve it rather than thinking from the perspective of data entry without consideration for the final effect of such.
I agree with that approach Shaun! it is how I try to do it too!
