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We Passed!
We are delighted
to announce that we have passed a recent assessment for our
Investors in People award.
AKM has been
recognised for its commitment over the last 3 years, to developing
and investing in its staff for the benefit of all our customers. AKM was commended on how great our team is and how determined
the management are to delivering good values throughout the
business.
We are obviously
very pleased with this news as it confirms what we have always
believed that a business is only as good as the people who work
within it. We feel that
we do have an excellent group of individuals who are all committed
to serving you, our customers, to the highest level possible and are
chuffed to bits that this has been formally acknowledged.
Are you checking your data?
Everyone knows
how important their accounts data is to their business and everyone
knows that backing up your data on a daily basis should be habit and
not a chore, but how many of you actually check your data?
Increasingly we
are coming across more and more businesses that have an excellent
back up process in place but never check their accounts data.
Data that is not checked regularly could harbour the
beginnings of corruption and if left alone and those errors not
fixed, you could loose your data and end up with days of disruption,
hassle and worry.
So, when
backing up your accounts data and the box pops up saying ‘check
data?’, make sure you do.
If you get any
errors appear or warnings, then fix them.
The longer you leave them, the greater the chance that your
data can become corrupted and we all know how important your
accounts data is to the running of your business.
If you want any
advice or have any questions on this then call Tammy or Chris
Manage VAT
Sage 50 Accounts
2008
Sage 50 Accounts 2008 introduces a new VAT ledger,
grouping all of the regular VAT processes in one area. Accessed from
the Company Tasks pane> Manage VAT option, the VAT window is made up
of 2 parts: A toolbar listing the options available and a list area
which shows archived VAT returns, EC Sales Lists and Reverse Charge
Lists. Once reconciled, archived VAT Returns are added to the list.
EC Sales Lists and Reverse Charge Lists are added after they have
been saved.
The following options are available from the VAT
toolbar:
VAT Return
The VAT Return allows you to calculate VAT Return
figures automatically at the end of each VAT period, with the
ability to drill down on the boxes of the return, and reconcile
against a range of supporting VAT Reports.
The new Adjustments feature in Sage 50 Accounts
2008 allows manual adjustments to the VAT Return, for example,
because a particular VAT Scheme is used, or corrections are
required.
Wizards
The VAT Ledger gives access to two commonly used
VAT Wizards:
- The VAT Transfer Wizard- Allows you to
journal the balances of your Sales and Purchase Tax Control
accounts into the VAT Liability Account at the end of the VAT
period.
-
The Scale
Charges Wizard- If you need to record fuel scale charges, this
wizard allows you to post the appropriate charge values for your
company vehicles. This wizard should be used in conjunction with
Public Notice 700/64 available from
www.hmrc.gov.uk
EC Sales
The EC Sales option allows you to generate an EC
Sales list as required by HMRC. This list may be transcribed to your
paper copy or submitted electronically to HMRC.
Payment
The Payment option allows you to make your payment
by HMRC without leaving the VAT window. In previous versions this
payment would be made through the Bank module. The Payment routine
automatically adds your VAT number to the payment for reference.
Reverse Charge
The Reverse Charge option generates a list of any
reverse charge transactions recorded during the VAT period, this
list must be submitted to HMRC with the VAT Return. The Reverse
Charge feature allows you to crate a .csv file of relevant
transactions that may be submitted via the Government Gateway.
Servers
Hi, my name is
Cuchulain and I am the new chap at AKM. I am going to talk to you a
little bit about servers.
Upgrading to a server can be one of the
most important IT decisions made within any business. Choosing the
right setup and design of your network is imperative and can seem
very daunting to someone who is not used to all the technical
jargon. So why choose to have a server in the first place?
“I use the PC at my desk as a server
so I don’t need one, right?”
For most part,
this can be fine. It does really depend on the size of your
business, the amount of data you store and how integral PCs are
within your business. If you tend to store a large amount of data,
the majority of which being essential to the running of the business
(e.g. Sage), then a server would be the best way to go. On the other
hand, if you just use PCs to type the odd word document or two and
browse the net once in a while, then a server probably isnt required.
“But what can a server do that my
regular PC can’t?”
Firstly, a
server is a great way of centralising your data, which means it’s
easy for everyone in the business to get to important documents and
files.
Secondly, if you
are using your normal PC as a server, if everyone is sending and
receiving emails, accessing data, and the various other things that
occur on a daily basis, this can get a little overwhelming for a
normal PC and can cause it to slow down or even crash; especially if
the PC is also being used as a workstation! In extreme circumstances
this could cause a loss of data or corruption of files.
Thirdly, server
operating systems (such as Windows Server 2003) are far more secure
than standard operating systems. With a server you can protect files and documents, set up
permissions and give every user a unique user name/password with
their associated access rights.
One of the
fundamental systems in Windows Server 2003 is called the common
language runtime. This
feature basically makes sure that programs don’t have any errors or
bugs before it starts; something which Windows XP doesn’t have.
A server is also
perfect for those businesses with 5 users or more, the server
manages the load on the network, the demand from the individual PC’s
and makes sure that all data is stored centrally for all to access.
In short, servers offer the reliability, scalability
and security that regular PC’s don’t.
Finally…
“I think a server would be good for our
business but I’m not a computer whiz and it’ll cost us a fortune!”
The price of
standard server hardware can start at around £700, with server
software from £450; a small price to pay for the service it will
brings to your business. If you are interested in purchasing a
server and would like a quote, don’t hesitate to contact us. You
needn’t worry about the setup of a server either, we can do that
too!
Are customers finding your website?
We’ll let you into 4 tips that the experts use to
enhance your positioning on the www
- Find out your typical Google search
positions:
Go to a Google search box, type in some things that you would like
your customers to find you for. Have a few goes. How are you doing?
On page one? How about your competitors?
- Check the keywords your site is actually
using:
Go to your home
page, select view->source. You will see a page of unfriendly html
text.
Can you see the
<Title> marker near the top? This should contain your most important
keywords and me different for each page.
Look or search for
the heading markers <h1> and <h2>; these should also contain some of
the more important keywords.
There’s also some
text labelled “Keywords”; don’t worry about that too much, search
engines tend to ignore it due to misuse.
If you have
problems, like no <h1> or <h2> tags then seek advice.
- Go back to viewing your home page normally.
Check that you have used all your main keywords, and that the
most important ones occur several times.
- Repeat steps 2 and 3 for other key pages on
your website.
Or get a website
optimisation expert to lend a hand.
On Page One
can provide a keyword analysis for you by analysing the most popular
searches for your sector, the keyword analytics from your website,
and leading competitors’ use of keywords on their websites. Other
services include ‘on-site’ optimisation, ‘off-site’ optimisation,
and Adwords campaign management.
On Page One
provides wholesale services to advertising companies and other
optimisation companies in and around Cambridge. We also sell
direct at keen prices, e.g. keyword analysis from £147.
boost@onpageone.co.uk
www.onpageone.co.uk/seo-website-optimisation.html
Xmas
I can hear you all groaning now……unfortunately
though it is coming.
And in preparation for the holiday period we are
pleased (although not sure that is the right word!) to be opening as
usual.
We will be open;
Monday 24 December
Thursday 27 December
Friday 28 December
Monday 31 December
Wednesday 2 January – back to normal
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