What is Statutory Adoption Pay?

Through the agent authorisation process, a client is able to authorise an agent to deal with HMRC on their behalf. Further information is available on the HMRC website.

Employment Allowance enables eligible employers to reduce their National Insurance bill by up to £4,000 each year.

HMRC's resource provides further details on checking if you're eligible, how and when to make a claim and what to do after you've made a claim.

Taxable turnover is the turnover on which the seller is liable to pay tax.

CHAPS-an abbreviation for Clearing House Automated Payment System-is a same-day bank-to-bank payment system. It is typically used for large, one-time payments, as the transfers are relatively expensive to process. There are no upper or lower limits to the amount that can be transferred.

BACS, or Bankers' Automated Clearing Services enables payments to be made electronically from one bank to another. The transfer method handles all debit and credit card transactions, has an upper limit of £250,000 per transfer and is mainly used for low-value transactions. BACS payments take three working days to clear.

A taxable supply is any supply made in the UK which is not exempt from VAT.

A balance sheet is a financial statement that provides a snapshot of the financial condition of a company, showing how much it owns (assets), owes (liabilities) and the amount that is left over for its owners (owners' equity) at a specific point in time. It is typically completed at the end of a month or a financial year.

An asset is any resource that is owned by a company. There are two main types of assets: current assets and non-current assets. Current assets are expected to be consumed within a year, while non-current assets are expected to be held for longer than a year.

Accruals refer to revenue that have been earned, or expenses that have been incurred but aren't yet recorded in a company's accounts.

Examples of accrued expenses include wages payable, bonuses, interest on loan and goods received.

One example of accrued revenue is accrued interest.

On the balance sheet, accrued expenses are recorded under the current liabilities section, while accrued revenue are recorded under the current assets section.

A supplier reference (or trade reference) refers to a report detailing the payment history between a business customer and its supplier or vendor. It enables a supplier to check your creditworthiness and find out if you're a reliable customer before they offer you credit.

The profit and loss account (P&L) is a financial report that shows the revenue, expenses and profit or loss of your company over a specific accounting period.

This period can be a month, a quarter or a year. A P&L is also commonly referred to by other terms, such as the income statement, statement of operations, financial results statement and earnings statement.

A creditor is an individual, company or entity that has provided goods or services to a business and is owed money. In the balance sheet, a creditor may be listed under the current liabilities or long-term liabilities section.

The term ‘debtor' refers to an individual or company that owes money, or is in debt to an individual or organisation. An example would be a customer that has purchased a product or service from your business. In the balance sheet, debtors are listed under the current assets section.

Fixed assets are property or equipment that a company owns, and uses in its day-to-day operations for income generating activities. These include machinery, equipment, buildings and land.

Interim accounts are accounts prepared during the tax year to show the current financial position of a company.

It is the amount of money that must by law, be paid to an adoptive parent when he or she takes time off to adopt a child, or have a child through a surrogacy arrangement.

Statutory Paternity Pay is the amount of money that must by law be paid to the mother of a new baby while she is away from her job.

Depreciation is the measurement of the decline in the worth of an asset. Common methods of depreciation include: straight line, units of production, sum-of-years-digits and double-declining balance.

Rechargeable expenses are expenses that are incurred during the performance of your work that you can recharge or recover from your client or agency.

An invoice number is a unique number that is assigned to each invoice. This number is one of the most important elements of every invoice. Its role is to identify transactions, so it needs to be unique. Invoice number can contain only numbers or letters and numbers. It may contain date of issue, name of project or task.

An annual return (AR01) is a document that all businesses are required to submit to Companies House each year. It details general information about a company, such as its ownership, capital position and management. The annual return has been replaced by the confirmation statement (CS01) since 30 June 2016.