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Cornish Accounting Solutions

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Cornish Accounting Solutions

Chartered Accountants & Business Advisers
Helping family businesses to grow, thrive and succeed. We are one too so understand the challenges and issues.
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Author of the book - Building a legacy- a guide for family businesses. Comments by Ant Chartered Accountants & Business Specialists

03/09/2026

Emma's tip this month is for anyone on Xero who spends their evenings reconciling the bank.

Xero now has automatic bank reconciliation. Its AI ("JAX") matches and categorises the transactions it's confident about, and leaves anything it isn't sure of for you to handle. On a busy account that takes a big chunk out of the job. For a family business where the bookkeeping lands on one person, usually alongside everything else, that time back is worth having.

You switch it on one account at a time, so you can use it everywhere or just on the account that causes the most work. In Xero, go to the Accounting menu, select Bank accounts, click the name of the account you want, choose the Reconcile tab, click Auto-reconcile, then tick the box to enable it and save.

Our advice: start with one account and keep an eye on it for a month. You'll soon see how it handles your regular payments... the supplier direct debits, the card machine takings, the standing orders that never change.

Emma is happy to walk you through it, or set it up with you. Give the office a ring on 01208 74615.

01/09/2026

How many family business owners tell me they are busy, but they aren't sure they are actually getting anywhere?

The work gets done and the invoices go out. The month closes. Then somebody asks a simple question, like what does the next five years look like, and it's like the room goes quiet.

Most owners I meet are clear on one part of the picture and hazy on the other two because they know their numbers inside out but have never sat the family down to talk about succession. Or the family talks openly and nobody has looked properly at cashflow.

So we've put together something small to help with that. Its called the Family Business Clarity Check. Nine questions, around two minutes, and you get a plain English snapshot of where you stand. If you've done it before, have another go, as we've improved the scoring system to make it more accurate.

It looks at three things:

Do you have a plan you could explain to someone else?
Do you really understand your profit and your cashflow?
Has the family talked honestly about the future of the business?

Free, confidential, and you get your result straight away.

Clarity tends to come before change, wouldn't you say?

Have a go and see where you score lowest:

https://hub.cornishaccounting.com/clarity-check-page

27/08/2026

A good book can shift the way you run your business. Next up on my Meet the Author series is Peter Boolkah, and his book is called Your Business Sucks.

Don't let the title put you off, its actually another great how-to manual for anyone trying to move their business forward.

Peter's premise is simple. He believes you are the one who needs to change, and adapting how you run things is what actually moves a business forward. That might sting a bit to hear, but I think most people would say the same once they sit with it.

Peter has over thirty years of experience running businesses and helping owners take control of their life and their business, and he shares exactly what to put in place to make that happen.

If you want early access to the interview before anyone else, plus a free copy of Peter's book, join my VIP reading list. It only takes a minute.

So how about you, are you the one who needs to change?

25/08/2026

𝗠𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝘂𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗱𝗿𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴...

Last week I sat down with Rob Newman for Episode 12 of Meet the Author, and he said something early in the conversation that I haven't been able to stop thinking about.

Most of us are drowning, and the reason we're drowning isn't that we have too much to do. It's that we have no system for capturing any of it. So instead of working through things in some sort of logical order, we deal with whatever is shouting loudest. Mostly the thing that's shouting loudest only became urgent because we didn't deal with it three weeks ago when it wasn't.

Rob's book is called Make The Bloody List, and the title tells you everything about his approach. He's not selling a complex productivity methodology, he's pointing out that almost any kind of list gives you an edge over having nothing at all.

Rob's background is extraordinary. Claridge's at 17. Retrained as a chef in Florence. Parachute Regiment. Accountancy after redundancy. A 77-person firm. Lost almost everything in 2008. Three businesses now. 14 books. Teaches karate. Teaches yoga.

People kept asking how he manages all of it and I would say the book is the answer.

For me, personally, reading it has changed a couple of things. I now write my three must-do tasks every morning before I open my emails. And we've started a monthly 1% session with the team, where everyone brings one thing they could do slightly better that month. The ideas are always diffrent, and that's exactly the point.

I always like to think that the people who feel most in control are rarely the busiest. They're the ones who have thought about what they're actually trying to do.

The full episode is in the comments.

What's the one thing on your mind right now that's been there for weeks?

14/08/2026

If you run a holiday let, a café, or anything that leans on the summer season, this is probably your busiest month of the year. Cornwall is thriving over these sunny months.

Money's moving, bookings are up, tills are ringing, the season's doing what it's supposed to do. But.... it's also the easiest time to forget that November doesn't look like this.

We see it every year. A strong summer, then a quiet autumn that catches people out because nothing was set aside while the cash was flowing. It just needs doing now rather than later.

Here's a simple approach that works for most seasonal businesses:

Work out roughly what the quiet months actually cost to run.
Set aside a fixed percentage of takings each week while the season's still live.
Move it somewhere separate, so it doesn't quietly get spent on something else.

Nothing clever about it but in our experience it's the difference between a calm October and a stressful one.

If you'd like a hand working out the number, or want us to look at your actual trading pattern rather than a rough guess, get in touch this week while the season's still running.

You'll always get straightforward advice, from people who know business.

13/08/2026

Which of your customers are actually making you money?

The clip here is the moment that changed how my old friend Neil O'Brien saw business forever. He was working as a management accountant for an electronics company, and he built a profit and loss account for every single one of their 36 customers. Then he sorted them from most profitable to least.

Three customers were generating 91% of net profits. One of those three alone was responsible for 60%. At the other end, sixteen customers were losing the business money.

Neil calls them whales and sardines, and I think it's the most useful framework I've come across for thinking about profitability.

What he did next is what I find most interesting. He didn't publish a paper or tell his boss. He went home in the evenings and started running the same analysis on businesses owned by friends, a fabricator, a printing company, a training business, an accountancy firm. Every single one told the same story.

In my experience, most business owners have never sat down and looked at their customer base this way, would you agree?

They know who their biggest clients are by revenue. They rarely know who their most profitable clients are once you account for the real cost of serving them.

That's what Episode 11 of Meet the Author is about.

The full episode is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2MbWmVPpNM

How many of your customers are actually whales?

#8020

21/07/2026

If your business pays Class 1A National Insurance on benefits like company cars or private medical cover, ideally today's the day it needs to land with HMRC.

Filed your P11D back on the 6th of July and thought that was the job done? It's an easy trap to fall into... the P11D deadline gets all the attention, and the payment that sits behind it quietly slips down the list.

Two different things, two different dates. The P11D tells HMRC what benefits you've provided. The Class 1A payment is what you actually owe on them, and that's due today if you're paying electronically.

If you haven't sorted it yet, a few things worth checking:

- Do you have the figure from your P11D(b) to hand.
- Are you using the right Accounts Office reference, with this year's suffix.
- Is your online banking set up to pay HMRC today rather than tomorrow.

Miss it and HMRC starts charging interest straight away, with penalties building the longer it runs on.

If you need the figure double checked or just want a second pair of eyes before you send the payment, get in touch this morning.

As you know, we'll always offer you straightforward and clear advice from people who know Cornish business.

17/07/2026

16/07/2026

Most family business owners we meet are strong on hard work, but short on clarity in at least one place: their plan, their cash, or their family conversations.

Paul has spent almost 40 years working with businesses across the South West, and over 30 of those running his own family firm here in Bodmin. In that time, the same three gaps keep showing up... a plan nobody's written down, profit and cashflow nobody quite understands, and family conversations about the future that keep getting put off.

Our free 𝗙𝗔𝗠𝗜𝗟𝗬 𝗕𝗨𝗦𝗜𝗡𝗘𝗦𝗦 𝗖𝗟𝗔𝗥𝗜𝗧𝗬 𝗖𝗛𝗘𝗖𝗞 quiz takes 2 minutes.

Answer 9 straightforward questions and you'll get a plain-English snapshot of where you're clear, where you're exposed, and what to focus on next. It's a short report you can read over a coffee.

It's completely free, and your results are ready instantly.

If you run a family business and you're not sure where things really stand, this is a good place to start.

Take the quiz: https://hub.cornishaccounting.com/clarity-check-page

14/07/2026

𝗜𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗮 𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝗹𝗲𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝘄𝗮𝗹𝗹, 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗮𝘅 𝗿𝘂𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗱 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗶𝗻 𝗔𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗹... 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝘆𝗼𝘂'𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘀.

The Furnished Holiday Lettings regime is gone. That means mortgage interest relief is restricted, capital allowances have gone with it, and the automatic trading status you might have relied on for years no longer applies.

For a lot of owners, this won't have sunk in yet. Bookings carry on, the season runs as normal, and the tax position quietly shifts underneath it all.

We're recommending a proper review before year end planning starts: what's changed for your specific setup, what it means for this year's figures, and what to do about it now rather than in January.

A few things worth checking:

How you're claiming mortgage interest this year.
What's happened to any capital allowances you were relying on.
Do the reliefs you're used to still apply to this income.

If you haven't had this conversation with us yet, get in touch. Better to know now, while the season's still running, than find out at tax return time.

www.cornishaccounting.com

Address

79 Higher Bore Street
Bodmin
PL311JT

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 5:15pm
Tuesday	9am - 5:15pm
Wednesday	9am - 5:15pm
Thursday	9am - 5:15pm
Friday	9am - 5:15pm

Telephone

01208 74615

Website

http://www.cornishaccounting.com/

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