The SageLive system has been developed as an online accounting system much like the only current system Kashflow. From reading around the forums it was perhaps obvious that Sage would be going down this route as Duane at kashflow has a) been asking why no one else has developed this and b) has had offers from ex sage directors for his business.

It’s certainly an interesting tactic from Duane. On the one hand he is promoting Sage Live in press releases and on his site but is carefully integrating Kashflow into anything he publishes. We will see if this tactic pays off. If Sage Live is indeed the same but better then perhaps many of his customers will migrate over because SageLive is a much cheaper option and Kashflow have recently increased their pricing.

The great thing however about having customers in your own system is it sets up massive barriers to entry. I am not sure if Kashflow have an export facility into Sage (my guess is it’s the other way around) but if there is no easy method to export data from Kashflow into SageLive most customer will stay where they are so long as Duane doesn’t increase his prices too high. (currently £15.99 per month whereas SageLive is reported to be £10 per month)

With the massive machine that Sage have behind them this is going to be an interesting battle between the start up and the existing market leader.

You can read what Duane says about this here.

In Alistair Darling’s recent pre-budget report a temporary reduction in VAT from 17.5% to 15.0% from 1st December has had business owners in termoil.

Whilst larger companies are battling to changes things over including advertising, systems changes and prices lists small business owners appear to be finding life difficult.

The survey on the UK Business Forms site at http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=88257 asked a simple question on whether it was a good idea to implement the VAT reduction.

Whilst the voting was close the majority suggested the government should have made no change at all.

The reasons highlighted to not implement the reduction include:

• “Imagine how many man hours it’s going to take to change all the supermarket and shop prices in the UK. It will probably mean overtime and more tax paid by the workers changing the prices.”
• That retailers are having to reduce their prices any way to stimulate demand - and these reductions are far greater than a 2% savivng with most major stores having at least a 15% sales weekend (such as B&Q) with others going for 20%-50% reductions in the all important run up to Christmas where sales never use to happen
• That the reduction is too small (although it is the minimum VAT rate allowed (see below)

On a positive note the people voting to implement the 15.0% vat rate were looking at the ease of calculating 15% on prices rather than the savings that consumers would make by the 2% reduction in prices.

The UK can not reduce the VAT rate below 15% due to European legislation. Also look on the bright side as some European countries have stricter rules on when sales can occur - for example in Belgium, companies can only have sales at two precise times in the year - July and January - so at least UK stores can reduce their prices at the moment.

But the reduction in VAT from 17.5% to 15.0% seems to have left most small business owners feeling non plus by the whole idea.

If you are a work at home mum, have been made redundant or simply want to earn some extra cash here are some small business ideas you can get started with right away:

• Completing online surveys
• Writing a blog and monetising with adwords or affiliate offers
• Stuffing envelopes
• Delivering the local newspaper
• Teaching children (if you are qualified)
• Running a nursery school (if you are qualified)
• Cake making
• Coffee mornings
• Door to door selling like Kleeneze
• Avon rep
• Card design and making
• Website design
• Cleaning houses or offices
• Providing an ironing service
• Grow plants and sell cuttings at plant fairs
• Grow vegetables and sell from your home or at fairs
• Dog walking service
• Be an Ann Summers rep and hold parties at your house
• Write for websites or newspapers and magazines
• Sell your stuff on ebay
• Deliver cars to customers from local garages
• Answer directory enquiries calls from BT and other phone providers
• Typing letters etc
• Home telemarketing
• Painting and decorating
• Odd jobs
• Gardening services

There are 27 ideas to get you going. If you know of others please let us know.

Recession, what recession cries Amazon. Their net profits from for the three months to June 2008 doubled to a whopping $158million in what is considered the weakest quarter in their financial year.

Sales in their traditional areas of books and CDs rose by 31% whilst their entry into general merchanise increased by 58% and their shares jumped 8.6% in after hours trading — many believe that people are shopping more online because of the high petrol prices.

Chief executive Jeff Bezos said higher fuel prices may give the company a “relative advantage” over other retailers. “Even just driving 10 miles these days is a few dollars worth of gasoline,” he said. “And consumers, we suspect, are beginning to take that into account and try to do trip consolidation.”

Although of course the growth of the internet is still soaring and the number of Amazon accounts is up 18% to more than 81m.

UK managing director Brian McBride said:

“Without a doubt there is clearly a global economic problem here and nobody is immune from that, but we’re not a very good bellwether. At the end of the day the trend of the internet is still happening, people are still preferring to come online, and it’s a much more transparent shopping experience - you can see what the prices are.”

Amazon offers free shipping for orders over $25 so we guess their average order value rose also as there’s an incentive to purchase a little more to save the shipping costs. Well done Amazon.

This may be old news for some but Boots has crossed the boundary in the long known battles small business owners have for collecting debt from larger businesses. In a letter to their small business suppliers Boots wrote:

“We inform you that all invoices related to ***** contracts received from
1st April 2008 will be subject to a 2.5% discount before VAT. Terms
will also change to 80 days from the end of the month of your invoice”

“Can you please confirm acceptance of these terms within 7 days. In the
event of no responce we will consider this as your acceptance”

So Boots deduct 2.5% from invoices and now pay up to 110 days from the date of your invoice. The Federation of Small Businesses wrote something up but don’t appear to have the teeth to make anyone back down on issues like this.

Many business owners are likely to accept the terms because they need the business and Boots know this although some have taken a stand and now refuse to supply them.

The Forum of Private Businesses (FPB) have written to the office of fair trading revealing their “hall of shame” with other companies that have tough practices for small business owners attempting to get paid and include companies such as Allders, Argos, Betterware, BHS, Debenhams, Homebase and John Lewis. Some changes have been made by the companies although the OFT are mainly concerned with businesses ripping off consumers rather than other businesses.

The changes made by Boots have been widely reported and the BBC has picked up on it this week. A Boots spokesperson said :

It was seeking to align its policies with those of Alliance Unichem following their merger in 2006.

Alliance Boots was subsequently bought by private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts for £11bn last year.

“We are committed to working with our suppliers for our mutual long-term benefit,” the company said in a statement.

“Our procurement strategies are in line with other groups of similar size and scale.”

Not good enough really. The media aren’t interested in the tough life small business entrepreneurs face in their daily lives nor are the government (as they recently increased the tax paid on profits by small business owners by 10%) - so we are left to fight alone.

Rumours were first started in a Daily Telegraph article and a thread on ukbusinessforums attempted to get the latest information from the Kashflow founder. But on July 4th Duane wrote a post that confirmed everyone’s suspicions but also gave the astounding news that he decided not to sell citing his customers as the reason.

Duane said “I felt that being part of an AIM listed company would mean we lose that edge which would in turn mean our customers don’t get the service they’re used to in terms of new features being quickly added, etc.”

All very interesting and noble. It’ll be interesting to see if Kashflow will indeed meet their targets of £2million in profits in 2 years time in the current climate. Undoubtedly his customer base will need to be built from new customers as it’s likely some will go bust in the current climate. Duane and his advisors are no amateurs though as they have just done a deal with PayPal and have a great PR company to boot.

Let’s hope the decision is a good one and he can sell for £10million or more in a few years time.

Although these are claims that are known, reported and within their database. To be honest, every fraud we get on our website with a chargeback from Worldpay we never report to anyone as there isn’t one place where this should take place and neither are the police interested in online crime.

Although the fraud they report is not all about online crime but mostly where identities are stolen - so is a stolen credit card that’s used to purchase online items fraud? of course, but Cifas is reporting that asset finance, such as car purchases; communications, such as mobile phone contracts; and insurance fraud were all active in Lanarkshire and Coventry as well as London and the South East, and highlight East Ham as the hot spot for business fraud.

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