Month: November 2010

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CIS payroll requirements must be adhered to in construction

If you wish to continue to work as a self employed or freelance contractor, it is worth, if you have not done so already, liaising with a contractor umbrella company to make use of the payroll services given by these companies. Not only will you receive cis payroll benefits (if you operate in construction), but you will have a greater level of stability this way, which is especially valuable these days. Even in difficult times it is still desirable to be self employed, provided that there is enough work available.

One reason for this is that self employed traders are often required to pay not as much in national insurance contributions to HM Revenue & Customs. Another is that by being self employed you have the ability to offset your work-related expenditure against the income tax that you owe on your earnings. Also, of course, you have the final say over what contracts you take on, or decline to take on, which can be invaluable, especially to freelancers with more than one profession: if times are busy in a contractor’s primary profession, he or she might reject contracts in his or her secondary profession until there is a fall in trade in the first. In other words, self employment is a good way to attach new strings to your bow.

Freelancers and sole traders from a whole range of different industries utilise the services offered by contractor umbrella companies. Whether you work in logistics, construction, teaching, Information Technology Services, or even social care, making use of payroll services can boost your earning potential and save you money at the same time. In addition, it can simplify the intricate procedure of ensuring that you are CIS compliant, according to the rules and regulations of HM Revenue & Customs.

A contractor umbrella company can provide skilled freelance contractors to its clients at short notice, enabling these clients to temporarily bring up their staff numbers in order to complete projects, without all of the associated hassles that they get with permanent employees, such as sick pay, NI, maternity or paternity leave, and so on. In the construction industry, however, all transactions made to sub contractors must be made in compliance with the Construction Industry Scheme regulations (cis payroll). Umbrella companies can provide payroll services to sole traders, pending a successful registration process, ascertaining, among other things, the sub contractor’s eligibility to work in the UK. They will have a system in place to process payments between themselves, their clients, and their sub contractors.

Please visit http://www.liquidfriday.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.

http://www.liquidfriday.co.uk/

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Rugged pc equipment is used in many ordinary devices

rugged pc equipment might at first seem paradoxical. Computers are delicate and highly sensitive pieces of machinery, you might imagine. The truth of the matter, however, is that tough, durable computing equipment is absolutely essential, both for a great number of everyday items and also for more specific circumstances. This sort of equipment goes by two names within the industry: rugged embedded pc equipment and rugged transport pc equipment. The two are closely linked. Embedded equipment is frequently used as part of the computing equipment necessary for transport vehicles.

Examples of ordinary items which use this sort of equipment are digital watches, mp3 players, and traffic lights. These give us some hints as to why embedded computing hardware is so important. In a traffic light it is very disruptive and possibly dangerous to shut down the computer equipment in order to repair it and in mp3 players the computing equipment is highly inaccessible. Other places where embedded computers are found include control systems for factories and nuclear power plants.

The type of robust computing equipment needed for transport is similar. This type of equipment can be found, for example, in automobile computing systems. As such, it must be able to tolerate vibrations and shocks, dust, dirt, humidity and extremes of temperature. All of these are of course disastrous for your standard personal computer which you and your family use at home. So-called rugged computing equipment is used where normal models would give up.

Often the people who require rugged computing equipment work in extremely inhospitable environments. Examples of these locations might be on transport travelling through a desert, or on an oil-rig out at sea. Users of this type of equipment will often work in fields such as security or defence, and it is very common to see rugged computing equipment described as of a military standard or built from military standard parts. So it is not beyond the realm of possibility to imagine that your electric blue mp3 player was developed using technology and ideas pioneered by the military.

Rugged embedded pc equipment and rugged transport pc equipment have many selling points, in addition to keeping nuclear power plants working and traffic lights correctly directing traffic. For example, rugged pc equipment can withstand drops and blows and can be sealed to survive immersion in liquid: design features and selling points from which the more clumsy of us will look forward to benefiting soon.

Please visit http://www.vision4ce.com/ for further information about this topic.

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Is your organisation wasting money through duplicate payments?

More than ever in these times of financial cuts and common belt-tightening, all businesses need to be considering ways in which they could save money – and, indeed ways in which they could be wasting their budgets.  Using accounts payable audit software can be a very useful way of reducing spending by detecting errors through duplicate payments, fraud, or other common mistakes.  Further, the use of recovery audit software can be a cost saving choice that also minimises the potential for errors.

Accounts payable audit software can be used by in-house teams to increase control, improve processes, and prevent errors.  The technology uses search algorithms and sophisticated pattern matching techniques to generate a precise report of potential duplicate payments and errors.  This brings many benefits, the most notable being prevention and protection.  With this software, users can pre-process upcoming payments, so that duplicating invoices will become a thing of the past.  It also helps to develop processes, as the errors report reveals any underlying weaknesses in the system.  Reduced external consultant fees are another bonus, as you no longer need to pay commissions to external recovery auditors for recovering payments that you can do yourself. The ease of use of the technology means that all staff in the Accounts Payable team will be able to use it, with no re-training costs incurred.

One company which specialises in this kind of product is Fiscal Technologies.  Founded in 2002, the company provides software to corporations and governments around the world.  It aims to give companies the tools to deal with accounts payable auditing independently, helping them build ‘best in-class Accounts Payable teams’.  With a large percentage of staff members from auditing backgrounds, the organisation has a very good knowledge base when it comes to duplicate payments.  If you are interested in using the services of such a company, they are likely to offer you a free audit of your technology, so that they can demonstrate to you how they identify duplicates and the extent of savings you may be able to make.

If your accounts payable audit could do with a little improvement, then, surely it makes sense to consider such a company.   The potential to save thousands of pounds on eradicating duplicate payments is for most organisations too valuable to ignore.  A small amount of investment in recovery audit software can lead to an extensive return, and give you the satisfaction of knowing that your process is as streamlined as possible, and can be done by your very own in house team.

Please visit http://www.fiscaltechnologies.com/ for further information about this topic.

http://www.fiscaltechnologies.com/

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Graduate scheme is a way to get your foot in the door of your dream career

These days competition amongst graduates for the best graduate jobs is tougher than ever. This is unwelcome news for recent graduates, and students in their final year or two of university or college of further education, but, naturally, positive for employers. As they try to cut their payroll expenditure, they are now more likely to create extra internship jobs, rather than instant, entry-level contracts at the first time of asking. In a graduate scheme, the holder of the position is expected to impress, show talent, and prove an important addition to the workforce. Much desired graduate jobs can be obtained through this kind of process if the worker makes him or herself invaluable to the company in question, so that, when the period of the internship is finally over, the company feels that it can no longer afford to let the intern go, rather than it still being the case that it can not afford to employ him or her on a full time contract. But how does an intern get to this stage?

The first, most important step is choosing the business you want to work for. Unpaid internships can typically last as long as three months, depending on the level of competition, so you need to know that this is a job you really, really want. Do lots of research. Find out who works there and see if you can get an idea of what it is like, and what would be expected from you. If you don’t do this, and it turns out not to be suitable for you, then you might want to stop, but of course you will have wasted time, and you might run the risk of upsetting people in the industry: you certainly won’t receive an excellent reference this way.

First impressions are key. From your research you will be able to judge the dress code. Some companies, for example in the media industry, have a ‘smart/casual’ approach, and it is desirable to fit in. The general rule is: always initially try to be a few notches smarter than the general dress code, then you can relax a bit once you are fitting in.

Good graduate jobs are still out there, it is just that the path leading to them might be a bit longer, with more hoops to jump through. A good graduate scheme will provide good support to those in internship jobs, and good companies understand and appreciate the sacrifices made by their interns, and recognise the value of a good worker. But in this economic environment everybody is required to make sacrifices, and graduates are no exception.

Please visit http://www.careerplayer.com/ for further information about this topic.

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Bacs payments are made using approved software suppliers

The Bankers Automated Clearing services, usually identified by the abbreviation bacs, is an organisation for processing payments in the UK. It is not for profit, and the scheme was originally created to facilitate electronic payments, lessening the need for paper documents where the transfer of money is concerned. According to its official website, 5.6 billion bacs payments were made in 2009 alone, accumulating a total value of £3.83 trillion. Large, individual companies are likely to make thousands of such payments, to the value of hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of pounds each year. For such large companies, processing these payments can constitute a significant obstacle in terms of administration and paperwork. Accounts payable teams can, if the situation is not monitored, and an adequate solution devised, end up swamped in stressful, confusing, and tiresome paperwork. It is for this reason that many companies choose solutions involving specially designed bacs software.

Bacs is the best method of payment for managing automated payments to and from repeat suppliers and customers. Also, of course, it is perfect for managing salary payments, because of their regularity and consistency. In fact, there is a good likelihood that your salary has, at some point in your working life, been paid through the scheme, as this is how the majority of the UK workforce is paid.

When accounts payable is run inefficiently or on inadequate software in a business, this can have a knock-on effect that trickles through the entire range of aspects of that particular company. Worse, it can result in payment errors and vulnerability to fraud. The scheme provides a rigorous approval process for would-be software suppliers, to make sure that their software is adequate. There are several criteria, among which is the authentication of parties that communicate with Bacstel-IP, or, in the case of faster payments, Secure-IP. When a software supplier satisfies this and many other requirements, it will have permission to use the ‘approved software’ logo.

The bacs scheme is an effective way of processing large volumes of secure payments. Your company’s bacs software needs to come from a fully authorised supplier, otherwise you are at risk from insecure bacs payments and payment errors costing significant amounts of money.

Please visit http://www.bottomline.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.

http://www.bottomline.co.uk/

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