Company Formations and Registrations

Starting a new business is like embarking on a new and exciting adventure. It is fraught with excitement, with a little danger, and lots of obstacles. But unlike a proper adventure, starting a business is not like blindly running into trouble without an inkling of what the future will bring. The wise would-be businessman or entrepreneur can arm himself with information that can increase his chances for success and be prepared for any obstacles that he will face.

But the first hurdle of business is the plunge itself. Are you well prepared to open a business? Are you armed with the right information, the ample knowledge and a clear vision for what you want for your business?

Before embarking on a commitment to do business, do yourself a favour and ask yourself the following questions:

1. Why do you want to start a business?
Dedication and focus is very important in forming and running a business. It is a time consuming task and the prospective entrepreneur must have the drive to see his business through to the next level. Although running a business brings tremendous rewards, you'll have to think carefully if you have the right "mind space" for business.

2. What kind of company structure is best for my business?
Would you like to open a sole proprietorship where you own the company yourself but you also assume all the risks on your own? Do you want a limited company or a partnership? What are the obligations and responsibilities for each choice? You must assess what kind of business you want to set up and this is the first of many choices you will make.

3. What are my skills and weaknesses?
The conscientious businessman knows his strengths and his weaknesses. Ask yourself what your strengths/weaknesses are and list them down. Ask friends for their honest opinion. By knowing your attributes you can then hire people who are strong in areas that you are weak in or can compliment your skills.

4. What do I do with funding?
The best ideas in the world do not guarantee overnight success. That is why you have to be prudent when it comes to funding estimates and using your resources. Ask yourself how you will support your business, aside from saving enough money, are you going to take out a loan from either the bank or from friends? These are business decisions you will have to make.

5. Who will I compete with?
Starting a business is like preparing to go to war. Your objective is to win over your competitors in the eyes of your target market so you will capture their pockets. Do a thorough research on your competitors, identify their weaknesses and ensure that your product or service exploit these opportunities as a way of presenting yourself as a better choice. Never be complacent when it comes to competition.

6. Is there a market for the product or service I am offering?
Try to determine if there really is a demand for what you are going to sell. There's no use in starting a business if there's really no demand.

7. Do I have a business plan?
A lot of budding entrepreneurs underestimate the power of an effective business plan in starting a small business. A business plan gives structure to the random thoughts and ideas you have about starting your business. By writing a business plan you not only bring order to your vision, it can actually help your ideas evolve further. A business plan is also important when seeking funding or new business partners.

8. Where can I seek professional advice?
It is an important step in starting a business to consult with a trusted adviser. Try to identify a person you can ask advice about the business you want to start. You can also hire a professional to fulfil this function if you are so inclined

Starting a business is a very exciting time for budding entrepreneurs and businessmen. A great number of opportunities are just waiting for them. It is also a time for making many, many choices.

As part of starting a business, one of the choices a businessman or entrepreneur has to make is the issue about the office. For some, setting up a home office or working from home is an attractive proposition. First, it is a good way of saving some of the initial start-up expenses. Working from also gives you a good alternative to the antiseptic and noisy office environment. It can also save you money because you won't have to commute to and from an office. But before seriously considering putting up a home office try to ponder some of these points:

Question your motives. A home environment is relaxed, comfortable and can even be good for your disposition but it is also for these reasons that you have to ask yourself why you want to work from home. Don't think that work at home situations is an easy option because it is not. Also make sure that your physical absence from your business will not have a detrimental effect on it.

Keeping a work/life balance. A work at home situation enables you to experience full flexibility when it comes to managing your time but it also means demanding self-discipline and organisation from you. If you do decide to work at home make a physical and mental distinction between your home and your work life. Do this to avoid any kind of distractions like television, the garden or some other entertainment-related activity, and alternately to prevent work from consuming your whole life.

Try to set up a dedicated work area to help you maintain that invisible boundary between "work" and "home".

The right working environment. Set up the right working environment for your office. It should be well-lit, comfortable, and properly equipped. A work space at the kitchen table is not entirely conducive for the right work-related frame of mind. Keep in mind that you might have to revise your insurance policy to cover the office equipment you are putting in your home.

The right support network. There is no use to have an exacting self-discipline if the people who live in your home do not have it. You need the complete support of your family if you do want to work at home. They should not constantly interrupt you. A simple but effective tip is to put a simple "Do Not Disturb" sign on your home office door.

Here are a few tips that can help you when decide to work from home:

* Always meet your deadlines and plan your daily tasks
* establish and stick to a daily routine
* Always stay in regular contact with your office-based business
* Don't sleep late during work days
* Refrain from eating too much

Company registration also means doing a lot of preparations in terms of the tools you will need to sell your products and services as well as to promote the goods you sell as well as your company. Generating corporate equity - that is developing your company's reputation is a vital part of business success.

One of the mot effective ways of generating interest in your goods as well as your company is by setting up a website. An effective website can clearly bring across your message to your customers as well as work seamlessly with your company's strategic business plan.

Here are some reminders to help you make the perfect website:

Do not forget your objectives. Ask yourself what the purpose of your website will be. Will you use it to sell products or attract new customers? Do you want to provide customer-centric information? List down what goals you want to set for your website and try to achieve them. Look at your business plan to see if your goals are complementary to your business objectives and your company's vision.

Always use fresh content. Encourage repeat visits to your website by vigilantly keeping your website up to date. Offer fresh content so that visitors will have something to look forward to when they visit your website.

Make it easy to load. Websites that take ages to load turn off visitors. Make your website load swiftly by using small graphics or small clusters of graphics. Don't use complex graphics that will just bog down load times. Also be conscious about your text. Eliminate dense text blocks or overly long lists that would require a visitor to scroll down too much.

Stress important information. If possible, put as many listings of your phone number, address, email address, and/or order information for your products throughout the website. That way, visitors won't have to look around for a way to contact you.

"Under construction" is a no-no. Refrain from using "under construction" pages. If a page is not yet finished then don't put it online. If you want to put a little excitement for a feature that will soon appear on your website, use a "coming soon" icon instead.

Keep your audience in mind. Design and build content for your website with your audience in mind. Your website's look and content voice must be appropriate for the market you want to penetrate. There's no sense in having a zippy, MTV-style website when you’re selling canes for senior citizens.

Present a "clean" website. Remember that your websites visitors are not beta testers. Meticulously look for dead links, proofread your content, identify typographical errors, poor grammar and amateurish sentence construction. These errors can affect the professional image you are trying to project to your audience.

A lot of aspiring businessmen and start-up entrepreneurs are out there right now peddling their ideas in the hope of getting the much needed capital to get their prospective businesses off the ground.

According to one fund manager, there are so many business plans and proposals that land on his desk, but from all of these plans only five per cent actually get the funding they are asking for. The reason for this is two-pronged. One, fund managers are very conscious about the plans that they study. Only the real business gems get the kind of attention that would eventually result in funding or capital infusion. The second is that the sources of development capital for small and medium sized businesses are getting harder and harder to find.

But even with such a reduced number of opportunities for aspiring entrepreneurs and businessmen there are still certain things that can be done to increase the chances of a business plan to be noticed and eventually get the nod of funding managers.

One of the first reminders came from the fund managers themselves. According to them the firs thing to bear in mind is to be more selective in sending out the business plan. The worst thing that you can do is to send your plan to hundreds of venture-capital firms. By sending the plan to many firms immediately, you will not have the opportunity to fix the business plan if ever you get some useful feedback before sending out the next batch of plans.

In the event that the management team gets an invitation to present to a potential investor there are a few points that should be remembered.

First of all, it is quite common to see management teams looking for finance commit the same mistakes. That is, they parade about clichés in their presentations that are meaningless to venture capitalists and funding managers. One of the favourite assurances that is made is how a business plan is prudent. This means nothing to fund managers and offer no comfort. Another favourite line is that chief executives are working on a "three to five year horizon for exit". The reason this is mentioned is because they think this is what fund managers want to hear.

Fund managers advise not using these or any clichés as this only highlights inexperience of the management team. Be confident in presenting the plan and have faith in your plan.

But faith also means being sure of your business and its capabilities. Fund managers recommend that the management team have a clear vision of what their company is capable of doing given the funding that it is looking for as well as a clear understanding how that funding is going to be spent.

Finally, the management team has to remember that venture capitalists invest in teams not individuals or business ideas. They have to be able to show that the team has a breadth of experience in a number of disciplines that will be beneficial for the business. It is also of utmost importance to act like a team when doing their presentation.

One of the biggest reasons for most business failures is the inability to generate a good cash flow. Maintaining a good cash flow is the key to success for most small and medium-sized businesses. A decent cash flow will enable the worry-free purchasing of raw materials for your products, acquisition of new equipment and payment of staff wages. A problematic cash flow is a situation that will further breed other problems.

Here are some tips that you can follow to help keep your cash flow on track:

1. Make a credit check. Always make a credit check on your customers/clients. Set realistic credit limits for your customers. Try to seek out worthy companies to trade with. These are companies that not only have a solid credit reputation but also has a track record for paying bills on time.

2. Set clear conditions. Formulate your terms and conditions and make sure that your customers know about it. For example, if your terms are for 30 days, make it clear to your clients. One way to disseminate your terms and conditions is to include it with your invoices, contracts, order forms, etc.

3. Be on top of your administration functions. Don't forget to always check your invoices. Avoid invoices from being returned by addressing them to the proper department as well as a named individual. Also include the job details, a purchase order number, the proper amount, the business terms and the date.

4. Invoice ASAP. Issue your invoices immediately upon completion of a job. Follow it up with a phone call to see if the customer has received it as well as to check whether the details you have put in are all correct.

5. Always be observant. Always observe and be diligent about what is happening around your company. Do you notice that your customers are behaving strangely? Have they suddenly become hard to get hold of? Have they begun issuing post-dated cheques to you? These and other inconsistent behaviour can be a sign that something is happening with your client. It is up to you to decide on what to do given the signs.

6. Control your credit. Always have a follow-up system in place. Have statements and reminder invoices ready for sending at given intervals. Do not hesitate to call your customers if ever their payments are late.

7. Keep an eye on your stocks. Take control of your stock levels. Always plan ahead and don't carry too much stock because too much also costs you money. What you can do instead is to arrange for more frequent deliveries from your suppliers in order for stocks to be kept at a minimum.

8. Manage your suppliers. It is possible to get a better deal if you shop around among different suppliers and negotiate longer credit terms as well as volume discounts. This will give your company more reserve cash that you can then reinvest on your business.

9. Keep communication lines open. Always give up to date information to your banks, suppliers and customers.

10. Remain solvent. Always look for alternative ways to manage your cash as well as other alternatives to find sources of funding.

After your online company registration has gone through, it is said that one of the biggest headaches of businessmen comes in the form of late payments. Delinquent suppliers and customers who habitually delay payments for the products or services they received from your company, or have to be continually followed up to pay is bad business. It is taxing on the company's resources, it jeopardises the company's cash flow, and it can negatively affect morale.

Start-up entrepreneurs and businessmen should institute certain policies to lessen, if not totally eliminate, this habit of late payments.

Here are some tips to help you in managing late payments:

1. Always remember to check your new customers creditworthiness before drawing and signing a contract with them. One effective way to do this is to ask for the services of a credit-checking agency. But credit-checking should not be limited to new customers though - it is good practice to periodically check the credit worthiness of existing customers too to lessen your exposure to risk.

2. You should consider refusing the orders or obtaining down payments if a client has a poor payment record. You can also stop the delivery of supplies to customers who are not paying. Make it their "responsibility" and liability if they want additional supplies.

3. Draw clearly written contracts that also contain the terms and conditions. The usual business practice is to expect payment within 30 days - but whatever terms you and your customer agree upon, make sure that the payment period is clearly indicated.

4. Always keep close contact with your customers and always follow up on unpaid invoices.

5. In case a late payment occurs, always attempt to politely obtain a settlement for the overdue invoices before taking any further actions.

6. If the problem still persists, you can consider putting an interest on the overdue amount, or - in the worst cases – threaten the delinquent client with legal action. It would be a good idea to also stipulate these actions on delinquent payments on your contract.

7. One way to discourage late payments and encourage clients to pay earlier is to offer early payment discounts.

8. Try to use other avenues to make payments, like the internet, to make payments easier for your clients. Four out of five companies have indicated that they now accept payments by electronic transfer from their business clients. According to two-thirds of the companies interviewed - they have found that making payment options reduces the incidence of late payments.

9. You can consider factoring your invoices if payment collection is still an ongoing problem and is already affecting the liquidity of your business.

10. Always thank and show your appreciation to the customers who pay on time.

11. Think about offering early payment discounts.

12. Make use of the internet for payment. Four out of five companies now accept payment by electronic transfer from their business customers. Two-thirds of these find it reduces late payment.

13. Consider factoring your invoices if collection is an ongoing problem and is affecting the liquidity of the company.

14. Remember to thank those customers who do pay on time.

Maintaining a business while faced with cut-throat competition is a challenge for most entrepreneurs and businessmen. But challenges are not solely external, there are also internal factors that must be overcome to ensure success in business.

One of the more important aspects of a business that should be managed is the company's credit management policies. With over 10,000 businesses failing every year because of late payments, businesses should be more alert about their credit management and be diligent in looking out for signs of a failing credit management policy.

Here are the most common early warning signals that a business' credit management policy needs to be improved:

1. Extended aged-debtor lists. If your debtors are always paying invoices way beyond the agreed credit period assess your collection methods and try to identify areas that could be improved.

2. Reaching the overdraft limit. If your company almost always reaches or breaches the limit of your bank's credit facilities and services, you must review your asset management policies and credit management in detail to see where the problem may lie.

3. Customers using complaints at your expense. Your clients may begin to take advantage of your business' inefficient system by making specious complaints and queries to extend the credit period in order to improve their own cash flow at your business’ expense.

4. Conscientious payers getting scarce. If your customers who have a reputation for being prompt payers start slowing down their payments to your business they may have recognised that your collection system is very slack. This is quite a negative development.

5. Customers becoming insolvent. A credit insurance or a reliable internal system of credit risk assessment can help protect your company from poor credit management particularly if your company is very heavily reliant on the business of one particular customer or if you have a list of customers who have a vulnerable position in terms of cash flow.

6. Administrative excuses. Such excuses as a "computer failure" is also a tell-tale sign that your customer may have recognised that your credit collection system has a flaw and thus could be exploited to there advantage.

7. Credit ratings and market rumours. A bad credit rating or a damaging rumour about your business can do a lot of damage to your company and business. It can affect your chances of attracting new business and could, in the long term, affect your cash flow.

8. Suppliers stop their service. If at some point your business stops paying its bills there will come a time when you would have exceeded your credit limit with your suppliers and they will stop their services or deliveries to you.

9. A drop in staff morale. Your staff usually has a feel for what is happening to the business they will notice if the business is showing signs of difficulties. A bad environment like this means you risk losing your best employees. This would make your situation even worse.

Forming a company is a very rewarding experience. With record numbers of start-up companies being recorded by the UK government last year, more and more entrepreneurs are getting encouraged to join the bandwagon.

But forming a company also means facing a number of challenges. The challenges an aspiring entrepreneur is even more numerous because he is building his business from the ground up. One potential challenge would be in setting up an efficient office administration.

Below are some valuable tips that will help you set up and keep an efficient office administration.

1. Keep things clean. It’s a simple tip but highly effective. Working in an office that is untidy is not a very conducive environment. Eliminate any kind of dirt or mess at the earliest opportunity. Keep your desks and work surfaces clutter-free. If you are working at home, try to find an area that is dedicated just for running your business.

2. Efficient paperwork. Pick a filing system that you are comfortable with. Also, organise your paperwork into logical and manageable piles. Sort and file them as soon as possible. A growing pile of unsorted documents gets harder and harder to sort out as the day progresses. It could also happen that an important piece of document (maybe a payment notice) will accidentally get buried in that growing pile of paper.

3. Don’t forget your accounting. Many businessmen agree that accounting related tasks and functions should always be given utmost attention. Keep an up-to-date and accurate record of your income, expenditures and other expenses on either an accountancy software or on spreadsheet. Always be on time in posting off your VAT returns, filling out your Annual Companies House return or making Inland Revenue liability payments. If you have hired an accountant, he can surely help you in fulfilling these tasks.

4. Take care of your emails. The Internet now plays a very integral part in running businesses – be it large or small. In fact, e-mail communication is now the main form of communication and has replaced the previous archaic forms like snail mail and fax. It is a good idea to reply to all e-mails sent to you within 48 hours. It is not only more efficient, it also frees up your time to do other important business functions. There are times when this may not be possible because of the hectic pace of running a business but you should also remember that clients hate waiting for a reply. A prompt e-mail reply would also give a favourable impression to clients.

5. Create a good system. Each person has an idea of how to best organise their time and duties. Try to identify which areas of office administration is giving your problems or difficulties and devise a system to solve the problem.

An entrepreneur has to make a lot of choices and decisions most especially during the start-up phase of his business. There are so many concerns, items, and scenarios that needs his direct involvement and supervision.

One of the first choices that he has to make is in choosing a location for his office. This is one of the more crucial decisions because an office is not only the headquarters for your whole business operations, it is also a big investment. A bad decision would also mean a useless drain on your start-up capital and expenditure.

Here are some tips and reminders that you can follow that will help you make that crucial decision in choosing an office location:

1. Check the rent. Calculate if the rent you are going to pay for the office space is just right for the space and location. A lot of start-up businesses usually overlook this simple fact and end up paying premium rentals for an office space that could have been rented at a lower rate. Also a bad decision on rent can create cash-flow problems for your business further down the line.

2. Ask about the anchor tenants. All office buildings have what are called anchor tenants. These are tenants that collectively give the good or prestigious image of the office building to the public and thus could generate the initial customer interest and traffic for your company. Their presence in the building can sometimes be factored in the quotation for rent. It is crucial that you ask about them to the building management and find out when their lease will end. There’s no use getting a prestigious office building and pay premium rates only to find out that one of the most important anchor tenants in the building will leave a few months after.

3. Ask about office supplies providers in the building. Ask if there are tenants in the building can supply your office with office supplies that you need for daily operations. This can include printer cartridges, general office stationary and paper. An in-house tenant that can provide these supplies will mean savings for you because it can save you company time in making runs outside the office to replenish resources. You can even leave your company fliers in these tenants’ offices as a cross-advertising effort.

4. Consider any office renovations the should be made. A number of buildings would refuse if any significant changes are done because it can run contrary to the uniformity of a building’s looks and image. Ask yourself if the building’s image is one that you want to associate your business with.

5. Take care of client needs. If your business is the type where a lot of your clients would have to frequently visit your company then factor their needs. Make sure that the building has adequate parking spaces and is near stations for public transportation.

6. Look for a bank. Find out if there is a bank located in the office building or in the vicinity. A bank that is near your office is extremely helpful especially in terms of the daily banking activities that you have to do.

Attracting new customers who will buy your products and services is one of the most important goals of a business – more so for a start up business. There are many different methods that you can use to entice customers and attract their attention. But one of the best ways of doing this is to use tried and tested public relations skills. PR can give some excellent results for your online company formation with the added benefit of using very little financial resources.

Public relations (PR) is, quite simply, the relationship your business has with the public. The kind of relationship you will establish with your public is bound to have a significant effect on the future of your business. This is where public relations can help. PR is when you publicise and build interest and enthusiasm for your business among your public. Successfully doing this would create more awareness for your business and its products and services as well as driving sales.

Following are tips that would help you make effective PR efforts:

• Before you start planning any PR efforts make sure that your product or service is ready. Ensure that your product is primed for public consumption. Bring it out, make sure it works and that it does something that people will care about. Because PR drives customer demand, you will miss out on important sales or even drive your customers away and to your competitors if they do come to you and your products are not ready.
  
  
• You must get to know your market. A successful PR thrust is based on reaching the right audience with a message that is appropriate and meaningful to them. If you are not familiar with your target audience as well as the publications that they read, chances are, implementing the rest of your PR actions will be completely useless. There would be no point of trying to get your story printed in a financial paper when your audience primarily reads the regular dailies.
  
  
• You should learn all about the media to more effectively target your efforts. When you define your audience you will also have to know their reading habits (what publications do they read), the radio programmes that they listen to, the TV programmes that they watch as well as the websites that they visit. Take the time to familiarise yourself with the media outlets that you plan to target. You will need to get a good idea of that type of stories that you will need to present to optimise your chance of coverage.
  
  
• The most integral part of your PR campaign is your message so make sure that it is clear, concise and brief. If you cannot sum up your message in a few sentences then it is too complicated and editors won't probably read it.

Using public relations (PR) techniques to publicise your business as well as your products and services is not only effective but also cost-effective.

Here are a few more PR tips that can help you in your business:

• Being able to get newspaper coverage or a mention of your new product or service can be a great start to creating a buzz for your company. You can aim for local and national press and even your industry’s trade publications. More often than not, the kind of coverage you get in a trade publication will create more of an impact because it is read by all of your competitors and investors. The market is targeted to your specific audience.
  
  
• A good way of getting media coverage is to gauge the kind of stories that are getting a lot of attention, it could be current events, breaking news or even the latest controversies. You can then attempt to tie your business in with them. Every journalist is looking for a different spin (a different angle) on a hot story. If you can devise a way of presenting the story with a fresh angle, even use a human interest link, and then associate it with your business you can be sure you will get maximum coverage for your business.
  
  
• Try to establish and nurture a relationship with the media. Your relationship with journalists is quite important and serves as the basis of your interaction with the media. A good relationship would mean easier access to the media’s facilities. These relationships take time to develop though and the time you spend building that relationship should be seen as a long-term investment.
  
  
• Establish a relationship with the local media by first reading the local publications and then getting the names of the journalists who cover the specific subject you are interested in. You can then give them a call and then introduce yourself. Journalists are on a constant search for news so this is a great opportunity to introduce yourself.
  
  
• When your business gets relatively significant news (a new big-time customer, new offices, winning an award) do not hesitate to call the appropriate journalist. Even if you do not get coverage out of the call you still get to nurture that relationship.
  
  
• You can decide to write a feature article that is related to your business. A well written article that is specifically targeted to the readers of the publication you submit to can bring you good publicity.
  
  
• Writing a blog would be a great way to position your business in the eyes of your clients, the industry you are in and the press. A blog paints a picture of your business as a leading authority in the industry. It also serves as a vehicle to engage customers and potential clients and partners.
  
  
• You can give talks about your business or teach classes about your profession to local groups or during industry trade shows, conferences and seminars.