Claims
We live in such a claims culture that sometimes we take a lot of it for granted. There are claims for funding, costs, and almost any activity you can think of. There is insurance sold for endless opportunities to have a claim and there are many risks which we deal with day to day which are claim worthy if they go wrong but I want to talk about some of the claims that you should consider in your business which will improve your situation.
VAT BAD DEBT RELIEF
We have the opportunity to review our debtor books and see if there are any debts that after 3 months look like they are recoverable and then claim back the VAT on them through the VAT system. Do you have a system to review your debtor book regularly specifically to see if there is VAT to be recovered in this way? In any company that I am a Liquidator I regard this as an important part of recovering funds for the creditors and I have successfully made numerous claims over the period to generate funds and recover the VAT.
STORAGE
Do we ever stop to claim back the time wasted by storing lots of documents and archive all sorts of material which we then forget about and we clutter up storage both virtual and real space with records which are no longer required. Under the new GDPR regulations, we need to be more vigilant on what records are kept and how securely they are stored but I do believe we need to claim back the time, money and effort which is tied up in all that stuff we keep. The stored material does need to be regularly reviewed to claim back the costs, space and time. If you can claim back what is held in storage and remove the out of date information held on a regular basis it will save you considerable costs and space to deal efficiently with your storage needs.
DISCOUNTS AND REFUNDS
The range of discounts and refunds that are offered today is staggering but do you take advantage of them, are they collected and applied to all your transactions. Be sure that you make those claims.
CLAIMS IN AN INSOLVENCY
When a company does go into insolvency it always amazes me when a creditor who is owed money does not complete the claim form and send it back it. Yes, I agree there may not be any money at the end for the creditors, but if you don’t lodge a claim then you will never get the benefit of any dividend which may arise. At the time when the bad debt is occurring creditors will be sent a claim form and told how the process works. Fill out the form and return it – you never know how it will work out- I have seen dividends to creditors when it seemed a hopeless case at the start so for a small administrative task – just do it!
