An essential feature of any payroll solution is the inclusion of an employee details worksheet in which simple details are entered for each employee such as name and address, income tax code, national insurance number and relevant dates which satisfies the requirements of small businesses operating a paye scheme. The payroll software then uses these details particularly of income tax code and national insurance dates to calculate the income tax and national insurance deductions.

Registration carries a number of substantial benefits to small and medium sized businesses effectively creating a new corporate body which is a distinct different business vehicle to the owners of the business. Shareholders who are protected from unlimited personal liabilities in the majority of circumstances and can carry significant tax advantages which vary from year to year.

Mastering the pay as you earn tax system is an essential function carrying with it substantial adherence to legislation and the needs and motivation of its employees. Choosing good small business payroll software can carry this burden.

Running a payroll for larger organisations with full time accounting staff is easy. Full time professionals are employed or the payroll function may be outsourced to a payroll bureau.

Every new employer engaging an employee must register for paye. An employee is anyone who works on a full time, part time or casual basis for the business and includes company directors. When you engage someone to work for you, you become their employer. Employers should register as soon as possible when a qualifying employee is appointed and may register up to four weeks prior to the first employees pay day.

All companies are required by law to maintain records of those company transactions in a manner that must be adequate to enable the company to produce an accurate Company Tax Return. Company tax records must be kept for a minimum of six years from the end of the accounting period and longer if the accounts are submitted late or being enquired into by the Inland Revenue.

Businesses become liable for vat when sales reach the vat threshold set on 1st April 2007 at 64,000 pounds p.a. regardless of whether that business has registered for vat purposes.

Businesses whose customers are vat registered should consider opting for voluntary vat registration as sales would not be affected by vat registration and registering would permit that business to also reclaim vat input tax on purchases.

In the UK anyone receiving earned income which is not taxed under the employers paye system is technically self employed. Anyone who in self employment and running a business in the UK must register that business with HM revenue and customs within 3 months of starting that business and failure to do so can lead to penalty fines.

All businesses must keep records of the financial transactions and submit these accounts annually to HM revenue and customs in the format of the self assessment tax return which are supplementary pages included in the self employed annual tax return.

This whole small business accounting software for a limited liability company can be written on excel spreadsheets which means all bookkeeping transactions are visible at the click of a button. Each excel workbook being arranged in 12 monthly worksheets. Prime data entry excel spreadsheets being provided for sales, purchases, cash, bank, savings account and credit card account.

Most accounting software package are used by non accountants often with little or no previous accounting knowledge. Bookkeeping is best in these circumstances reduced to making a list of sales and a list of purchases on preset excel spreadsheets. Each workbook is arranged as 12 monthly spreadsheets with preset columns and uses an entry code letter to analyse both sales and expenditure.

Directors of companies are not self employed but employees of that company. In essence anyone who is in business either as a sole trader or part of a partnership and receives income that is not taxed under the PAYE system is effectively self-employed. Occasional miscellaneous receipts would not be regarded as self employment and should be entered on the tax return as all other income.

Since the majority of taxi drivers, but certainly not all, have little accounting or bookkeeping knowledge the lower the level of expertise required the more suitable such an accounts package will be. Data entry basically consists of just 3 records, being an excel spreadsheet for taxi receipts; another for taxi expenses plus a further worksheet in which assets such as a vehicle can be recorded.