Tuesday's Tea Cup chat...

So this week's chat has been - trying to keep the accounts up to date while managing a poorly house and ratty children!

Yep there's something about 1st Jan that focuses the mind towards admin! Anna and I have been pulling together a spreadsheet that automatically adds up things based upon month and criteria (for those who are doing the same thing, SUMPRODUCT is your best friend!!). Exciting eh?!

Now this was challenging when we were pre children, trying to remember formula and make sure the right ranges are focused and making sure that we don't miss any expenses / offline sale information was the kind of job we used to be paid for!

Doing this while there's a screaming 2year old in the background is near impossible! It's dead glamourous being a Mum; if you can afford a maid, a nanny, a cook and a West Wing in which to house all the staff and kids. In reality your kids drive you mad while you are madly in love with them and Daddy has man flu when you need him the most! A moment's peace and quiet to concentrate on accounts is much needed!

BUT we must find the time to do this, as we just learnt that doing our tax return isn't enough. Nope, Companies House want our balance sheet as well. In fact, the online companies house records for u-ni-k gifts showed a big green tick telling us we were up to date while they sent us a letter saying we were overdue sending in our annual returns. A call today showed that as well as the annual tax return we need to send them our balance sheet.

Costly lesson. £150 costly.

So mainly over a cup of tea / coffee this week we're swearing about accounts and systems that give you big green ticks when actually you're not done. Oh and poorly husbands.