Marketing | SEO | Website | Bookkeeping | Payroll | Dundee | Bright Chilli

Helping businesses increase customers and profit.

69 Dalkeith Rd Dundee, Scotland, DD4 7HF United Kingdom

0844 736 5611

We can  help your business grow. Consultancy services at affordable rates. Internet marketing & Website solutions. Book-keeping & Payroll services. Dundee, Tayside.

Are you ready for Making Tax Digital?

October 05, 2018  /  Sara Jaconelli

The first phase of Making Tax Digital for VAT comes into force from 1 April 2019. 

Making Tax Digital (MTD) is a key part of the government’s plans to make it easier for individuals and businesses to get their tax right and keep on top of their affairs - meaning the end of the annual tax return for millions.

HMRC aims to have all VAT registered businesses reporting their VAT records digitally and sending quarterly updates electronically from this date onwards. 

From April 2019 your VAT registered businesses will need to submit tax records digitally to HMRC and not via the HMRC website. This will only apply to VAT records from 01 April 2019 onwards. 

Other tax records will not be required to be submitted digitally until April 2020 at the earliest, i.e. Self-Assessment, Corporation Tax.

The data required to be submitted digitally includes the following:

  • Time of Supply – Tax Point

  • Value of Supply – Net excluding VAT

  • Rate of VAT charged

  • Your business name, address, VAT registration number and details of any VAT scheme in use

A list of software companies which are MTD compliant is available via the HMRC website.

Spreadsheets can still be used but you will need to ensure that they can be digitally submitted to HMRC and a bridging software/app may be required to transfer the relevant information correctly to HMRC.

The deadline for compliance for MTD VAT is 31 March 2020.

More information of MTD and compatible software etc can be found here

If you need further assistance or have any questions regarding Making Tax Digital please contact Gillian Lindsay email gillian@brightchilli.com - call 0844 736 5644

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Apologies for silence

November 17, 2016  /  Sara Jaconelli

Apologies for silence on this blog.  

We’re busy working on our new stationery venture Write On It in our “spare time”.

We have lots of great gift ideas for xmas and created a Gift Guide if you need some inspiration - perfect for stocking fillers or Secret Santa presents.

Gift suggestions for the little ones, stationery fanatics, organised or disorganised people in your life and the creative - view gift guide

Meanwhile, we are keeping busy with SEO and Financial Management client work.. never a dull moment!

Hope all good with you Sara & Gillian.

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Write On It

March 26, 2016  /  Sara Jaconelli

Bright Chilli News Update:

The Bright Chilli team are both stationery fanatics and love great pens, pads and all other types of stationery goodies and this has driven us to open another business in our specialised subject of stationery - Write On It.

We design and produce high quality, handmade Personalised Notepads, Planners & Organisers, Notepads from our Write On It workshop in Dundee, Scotland.

We stock a small selection of great pens & more in our store

Great gifts or treat yourself get Write On It – Today

Find out more at writeonit.today

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Is your website working for your business?

January 25, 2016  /  Sara Jaconelli

Is your website working for your business?

A website should be more than just an online brochure for your business or a convenient place for people to look up your contact details.  It should be driving sales leads or bookings to help grow your business.

Some of the most common complaints about websites we hear when meeting business owners for the first time are:-

  1. Our website looks great but isn’t producing any enquiries
  2. We are appearing on page 5,6,7,8,9,10....... on search engines (eg google, bing)
  3. We can’t find our own products when we look online!

Case Study

We were approached by a client who had experienced problems with all the points above. Their website had been online for a couple of years but it wasn’t producing any sales enquiries.

Website Optimisation 

We undertook a review of the client’s current website and identified areas to optimise.  

  • The proposed changes would allow the search engines to understand the website and importantly include the business in search results (eg when a user types in a search request in the search engine).
  • We reviewed their main competitors’ websites to gain an insight into how they could rank higher in the search results.
  • We optimised the website by incorporating essential keywords and phrases into the website content in all the key areas the search engines refer to.
  • The client uses a wordpress.org content management system (CMS) for their website. Finally, we reviewed the site’s configuration and plugins and made improvements to make the site load faster.

How the Website Optimisation Has Helped the Business

Before we started the project, the website didn’t rank well on search engines (eg  Google and Bing) and didn’t appear within the top 100 for many of the popular keywords and phrases we reviewed.

Looking at our website monitor reports our client is now ranking higher or beside their competitors in search engine results with the keywords and phrases we started tracking at the start of the project.

Within the first 6 weeks there had been an increase in sales leads directly linked to the optimised website.

We are at the end of the fourth month following the website search engine optimisation.  This is traditionally a quiet time for sales leads as its “off season” for the client.  Enquiries are still coming in via the website from different areas in the UK they haven’t had leads from before.

Jargon Free Zone

At Bright Chilli we have a methodical approach and start with the immediate goals/needs of the business as a priority.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) doesn’t have to be a daunting task.

If your website isn’t producing results contact us for an informal and jargon free chat.

Bright Chilli - helping businesses across Angus, Tayside and Fife

Comment
categories / website optimisation seo
tags / website, seo, search engine optimisation, search engine ranking, marketing, internet ranking

What does your pen say about you?

April 22, 2015  /  Sara Jaconelli

It is National Stationery Week soon (27 April to 3 May 2015) and our friends and colleagues know we are stationery addicts!

Found a really interesting article on a website while buying stationery (but for the office, so that doesn't count.. right?)  "What does your favourite pen say about you"

Get Britain Writing - Find out more about National Stationery Week it's great for all ages.

Who will you write a letter to, or send a card or postcard?

The multi-function pens (below) are one of our favourites and the description in this article is pretty spot on. 

What's your favourite pen and do you agree with description in article? 

Comment
categories / fun away from computer
tags / pen, stationery

Wages and Payroll Updates from HMRC

February 25, 2015  /  Gillian Lindsay

HMRC Employers Bulletin  Feb 2015

It's the last week of February and this year is flying by.. it won't be long until the end of the current tax year 5th April 2015.  

HMRC recently released an employers bulletin - there are a couple of changes we wanted to bring to your attention.

wages and payroll

Changes ahead for the tax year 2015/16

If you have employees under the age of 21

From 6 April 2015, Class 1 Employer National Insurance Contributions (NIC) for  employees under the age of 21 will no longer be payable (on earnings up to the Upper Secondary threshold or UST).   You will have to choose one of the new 7 NIC categories when assessing their secondary NICs.  It is the employers responsibility to apply the correct category letter based on the circumstances of each employee.

Student Loans Threshold

From 6 April 2015 the student loan threshold will increase by 2.5% to £17,335.

Annual National Insurance Employment Allowance £2000

Did you reclaim your £2000 Class 1 National Insurance  Employment Allowance?  If you claimed this in the year ending 5 April 2015, you will automatically be entitled to reclaim this again in future years unless you advise HMRC otherwise.  You don't need to do anything to continue reclaiming this!

If you didn't reclaim this or are a new employer - check for eligibility 

Real Time Information (RTI) Filing Penalties

These will come into effect from 6 March for PAYE schemes with less than 49 employees. This has already started for employers with 50 or more employees. Notices will be issued in late May 2015 for any penalties incurred.  This could range from £100 - £400 per month, depending on the number of employees. Please make sure you file your returns on time to avoid unnecessary penalties.

Bright Chilli provide a payroll processing service to help businesses across Dundee, Tayside and Fife who don't want the hassle of dealing with their wages calculations, deadlines and filing for the HMRC Real Time Information System (RTI) across 

Please contact Gillian Lindsay on 0844 736 5611 or email gillian@brightchilli.com for more details.

 

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categories / payroll and wages
tags / HMRC employment allowance, national insurance, payroll, wages

Email Marketing your business

January 23, 2015  /  Sara Jaconelli

Email marketing your business

Questions we are often asked by business owners:-

  1. How can I get more visitors to our website?
  2. My business posts on Facebook aren’t reaching as many people as they did before, what should I do?
  3. I don’t get many repeat sales from our online customers.

To help with the points raised above, email marketing is a really useful tool to build into your Marketing Strategy to connect with your customers, clients or prospects eg:-

  • Sending an email eg newsletter/ promoting offers/new stock or services can act as a reminder about your business.  
  • It is also an opportunity to demonstrate your expertise or convey news that may interest the recipient.

And there's more..

  • You can clearly track the effectiveness of the mail campaign by tracking the click throughs to website and other links etc.
  • Personalise your message content by sending targeted message to customer segments.
  • Assists in growing your mailing list when you gain new subscribers.

Are You Sending The Right Message?  
Read this great article by Hubspot - "How To Create a Fantastic Email Newsletter [Checklist]"

Write a great headline on your email
180 power words for headlines from co.schedule to help you create a fantastic headline.

Low cost and effective
Email marketing is a cost effective method to communicate and market your business.  There are many email marketing providers and emails can be sent out either free or at low cost depending on volumes (we like mailchimp).

We recently published our  own newsletter  (will open in a new window)

We recently published our own newsletter (will open in a new window)

Sign up for the  Bright Chilli Newsletter  Today

Sign up for the Bright Chilli Newsletter Today

We can help

If you would like to find out more about email marketing for your business please email sara@brightchilli.com or call 0844 736 5611

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categories / marketing strategy
tags / marketing, email marketing, email, newsletter

Goodbye 2014, Hello 2015

January 08, 2015  /  Sara Jaconelli

Happy New Year!

First week back and hope everybody is raring to go!

We had a great 2014.

Here’s a little insight into some of the diverse range of projects we worked on last year at Bright Chilli.

Business Development 
Our business development strategies cover a broad spectrum of areas and depend on the needs of each client eg marketing, business systems, recruitment and product launches. 


We help clients’ develop strategies and implement action plans which resulted in them running a better business.

Website – Website Optimisation / SEO
We built a couple of websites this year using WordPress and optimised existing websites for new clients where the sites weren't performing well.

We achieved some great results with improvements in website rankings which in turn increased website traffic and sales for our clients.

When reviewing our website ranking reports for clients and you can track their sites change in position.

It reminds us of the old Top of the Pops tune by
Led Zepplin “Whole Lotta Love” when they would run through the charts!

further reading  - website optimisation 

How safe is your website?
We worked on an interesting project where a client’s website had been duplicated across a number of different websites without their permission.  

As it was a copyright issue, you would have thought Google would have been helpful but that wasn't the case. We successfully had all the duplicate sites removed – we will let you know how to check your own website is safe, in a future post.

Financial Management
We helped new clients put their business finances in order. 

Book-keeping
We provide a comprehensive book-keeping & VAT service and our clients receive regular reports to understand how their businesses are performing and importantly, how to drive them in the future, further reading.

Example monthly reports :-

  • Management accounts (Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet)
  • Debtors report (unpaid customers )
  • Creditors report (unpaid suppliers)
  • Cashflow report

Payroll
Our payroll bureau service ensures all our clients are filing their wages reports on time and avoiding fines / interest penalties, further reading.

Legal Compliance
If you are a company director are you aware of your legal requirements to file your accounts and annual return with Companies House? 

One client wasn't aware of the severity and impact of late filing of their accounts / annual return and hadn't been informed by their accountant. The consequence of the late filings meant there was a large fine to be paid.

We love this quote by Tony Robbins and bear it in mind while planning our own development strategies.

We are looking forward to sharing all our news, snippets (and maybe some photographs) this year.

Follow Bright Chilli on social media :-

We are news/info junkies

Sign up for our newsletter and we'll send the occasional email with a round up of interesting news to direct to your inbox.

Sign up today

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categories / business improvement
tags / website, business, marketing, book-keeping, compliance, business development, website optimisation, seo, payroll

Don't leave it too late to get your online store ready for Christmas.

August 18, 2014  /  Sara Jaconelli

According to the “weeks until christmas” website there are only 18 weekends until santa arrives!

Review the 5 steps below to optimise your website

Find out where you rank on Google and Bing, free website ranking report - see below

5 steps to optimise your website to assist convert new visitors into customers.

1. Products

  • Use great images to display your products
  • Sell the benefits - write great product descriptions to help the visitor learn more about the item.
  • Go one step further than the basics of size and dimensions and provide as much detail as possible.
  • Try to visualise if the visitor was in your store how you would describe the product to them.. it should be no different on your website.
  • Remember to include keywords in the product listing, keywords potential customers would type into a search engine eg brand names, product name etc (also known as SEO or search engine optimisation)

2. Cross Selling Products

Are you making the most of cross-selling opportunities? eg if you sell clothing - promote other items that match the product eg clothes to create an outfit  

3. Store Categories

If you know customers will be looking for Christmas gifts.  Create a new xmas category and make it easier for the new visitor to find exactly what they are looking for or a call to action category – “inspire me” (if appropriate for your business)

4. Customer Reviews

Customer reviews are a powerful tool, we regularly look at reviews before making purchases from Amazon, John Lewis etc.

If you have the facility to include product reviews in your online store asking your previous customers to write reviews of products they have purchased.

 

5. Confidence

Give visitors confidence to make a purchase from your online store. Are the following clearly visible on your website?

  • Contact details eg phone number / email address
  • About us page - who you are, where you are, why you are different etc
  • Credit card / PayPal symbols
  • Delivery charges
  • Refund policy
  • Checkout systems clear and concise

Free SEO Website Ranking Report

Our website ranking report lets you see where your website ranks on Google and Bing with a comparison against competitors.

What we need to know

Send an email to sara@brightchilli.com with the following information:-

1.    Your business name 
2.    Business website
3.    Your name
4.    Contact email address
5.    Competitors websites - up to 4 websites
6.    Keywords you would like to track eg products, brands, service or think people would use to find your website  - up to 10 keywords*

* keywords are the terms people enter to find your business on the search engines for example to find Bright Chilli you can type in website optimisation dundee, search engine optimsation dundee, book-keeping tayside, seo tayside

We will collate the keyword ranking report and return it via email. 
T&C - business website must be located within in the UK.

 

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categories / marketing strategy

What happens to your profit when you change your sales price?

August 12, 2014  /  Sara Jaconelli

Find out how a small change in your selling price can have a dramatic impact on your gross profit and sales transactions.

Try our new online decision making tool - Impact of Price Change on Profit.

Its easy to use - you only need to enter 3 figures get started.

 

If you want to increase your price but are concerned that some customers will be resistant to the price rise – view how many sales transactions you can deduct to maintain the original gross profit using the software tool.

 

If you want to reduce your price and are concerned about the effect on your profit view how many additional sales transactions are required to maintain the original gross profit using the software tool.

Open Impact of Price Change on Profit Tool

Having worked in accountancy practices for a number of years we know it's what happens today and in the future that's important (not just the historical annual financial accounts).  Find out how. we can help your business. 

Comment
categories / financial management
tags / gross profit, book keeping

How Do I Calculate My Gross Profit?

June 19, 2014  /  Sara Jaconelli

Gross Profit Calculation

"How do I calculate my gross profit"
is a question we have been asked by many clients over the years and...... it isn't always the new business owners that ask.

Gross profit measures your profitability before expenses/overheads and relates directly to your sales/turnover

As an example:

Sales/Turnover or Takings     £1,000

Less Direct Cost of Sales:
eg purchases, materials etc      £700          

Gross Profit                              £300  (Gross Profit = Sales less Direct Costs)
Gross Margin %                           30% (Gross Profit % = Gross Profit divided by Turnover)

Gross margin % measures profitability  
Higher values indicate a higher return on sales.  This is the difference between the price of your product and what it cost you to buy or make it. Therefore the only way to increase your gross margin is to sell at a higher price or buy at a lower price.

Don't forget about your overheads/expenses
Remember the Gross Profit is calculated before general expenses/overheads are deducted so you must allow for rent, rates, wages etc.

Simple Profit and Loss Statement Example

Sales/Turnover or Takings      £100,000

Less Direct Cost of Sales
eg purchases, materials etc      £70,000         

Gross Profit                              £30,000  

Overheads/Expenses:

  • Rent                                     5,000
  • Rates                                     1,500 
  • Wages                                10,000
  • Insurances                            1,000
  • Advertising etc                         500

Total Expenses                             £18,000 

Net Profit                                    £12,000

Looking After Your Business Finances

Find out more about our book-keeping and management account services.

To find out how we can help you and your business contact Gillian on 0844 736 5611 or email gillian@brightchilli.com

The content of this article is provided for information only. While all reasonable care has been taken to ensure that the information in this article is accurate, no liability is accepted by Bright Chilli Limited for any loss or damage caused to any person or business relying on any statement or omission in the content of this article.

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categories / financial management

Do you ask your customers for Google+ Reviews?

June 11, 2014  /  Sara Jaconelli

Customer Reviews are an important factor for Search Engine Optimisation  

There are great Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) benefits when reviews are gathered on third party sites eg Google+, Qype, Yelp, Facebook etc.  When reviews are added directly to your own website it doesn't have the same benefits for SEO.

Free Custom Review Instructions

We have found this great free tool to print out instructions for your business to help customers submit Google reviews via smartphone, desktop and mobile browser.

There are 3 pdfs available for Google review instructions:-

  • Smartphone
  • Desktop
  • Mobile browser

Access the Review Handout Generator

When To Ask Your Customers for a Review

Every business will know the best timing for its own clients and customers. All you need to do is work out the timing of handing out the report to ask your customers eg after appointment or by email 5 days after appointment etc

Finally

Make sure you are accessing your Google+ page regularly to check your reviews.

Comment
categories / social media, marketing strategy
tags / customer reviews, seo, customer feedback, google+, social media

Have you checked your Facebook Insights recently?

June 04, 2014  /  Sara Jaconelli

Facebook Page Views Decreased?

Many businesses are reporting their organic Facebook post reach has decreased.  This is due to changes by Facebook's algorithm, which means their business posts aren't appearing as often in news feeds.

Check your Facebook Page Insights to view how your posts are performing eg reach and engagement (clicks, likes, comments and shares) see example below.

Bright Chilli Facebook Insights page

Bright Chilli Facebook Insights page

Facebook Marketing Strategy

We help clients develop their marketing strategy and Facebook may be an important factor as there are different ideas that may be implemented.  

Please remember that Facebook have strict rules for pages running promotions and you must follow their guidelines which keep changing. (eg like and share competitions breach the rules just now) 

This great infographic highlights some of the marketing tips we share with our clients, download the full infographic (pdf) from Shortstack.com.  

If you have problems downloading the pdf please email hello@brightchilli.com and we will send a copy.

 

If you need assistance developing a marketing plan for your business or haven't yet developed a social media strategy (view social media training page) contact sara@brightchilli.com or call 0844 736 5611 for more information.

 

 

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categories / social media
tags / facebook, marketing, social media, social networking, marketing strategy

Getting away from the keyboard and exploring Dundee

June 02, 2014  /  Sara Jaconelli

Exploring Dundee and a Quick History Lesson

After a busy week book-keeping,  preparing wages, developing marketing strategies and optimising websites for our clients.

The Bright Chilli team like to get out and explore our lovely city, Dundee.  This weekend we climbed up 232 steps to the top of the St Marys Tower, Old Steeple in the Nethergate (thankfully there were a couple of rest stops on the way up!)

The tour takes an hour.  It’s fascinating to see inside this amazing building which is also one of the oldest surviving in Dundee and the views across the city are spectacular.

The tours are free but you need to book a place to find out dates of tours https://www.facebook.com/McManusDundee 

If you need more history facts - http://www.dundeestmarys.co.uk/history.html#oldsteeple 

Can you recommend any tours or places we should visit in or near Dundee, Tayside.  

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categories / fun away from computer
tags / Dundee, history tours, old steeple, steps, bell tower