National Minimum wage for Directors

Following the previous article about owner-directors taking a salary equivalent to the tax-free pay limit, we have been asked whether this gives rise to a problem with the National Minimum Wage. 

DTI guidelines have stated that company directors are not employees of a company but instead they are ‘office holders’ and therefore do not have to act in accordance with NMW legislation. However if the director has an employment contract with the business then the director is classed as an employee and must comply with the NMW legislation. Something to remember if you have a PAYE visit!

For further advice on this, please speak to your client manager.

UK lapse in data protection

UK businesses are failing to protect their customers’ personal information, a survey from the Department of Trade and Industry has revealed.

Today more and more business is being conducted over the Internet, making data protection more important than ever. Most large companies have adopted efficient ways to protect their network and data protection but according to the survey most small companies have not.

If this is an area you require help with please email Cheryl@stephen-hill.co.uk who can recommend an independent IT consultant to advise you on this area.

Our paperless office – Dual screens

As mentioned in a previous newsletter, stephen-hill A4G are virtually paperless and we have had quite a few questions from clients interested in doing the same.

If you are thinking of going paperless yourself, having two computer screens for each employee is probably the start point and for those of you who have visited our offices you probably would have noticed this.

This is because in a paper environment you may be looking at a report, letter or other document whilst working on a particular software programme. In a paperless environment it is not practical to jump from one programme (where you view scanned documents for example) to another that you are working on. The split screen gets round this problem.

The costs of implementing dual screens are about £90 for a Multi-monitor graphics card (e.g. Matrox millennium P450 Card) and about £150 for a second screen. Your IT adviser should be able to do this for you.

"The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has bought progress"

Charles Kettering