Cryptocurrency Trading: Common Mistakes to Avoid

To say that crypto market is volatile means to say nothing. In respect of Forex and stock markets, this market movements are significantly high. Furthermore, during the day, the course can set a dramatic variance.

This volatile situation creates lots of profitable opportunities for short-term periods. And here is where most often lots of people hunt for profits and instead, mostly face huge losses. Thus, to make crypto trading easier and manage your portfolio more effectively, use crypto portfolio tracker tools.

Getting to trading, let’s discuss common trading mistakes.

The usage of Numerous Indicators.

For any starter in trading, one of the first things is to learn using market indicators. Many people mistakenly think that they must completely master all the indicators before they become profitable in trading.

Indeed, several productive traders generally rely on only the volume plus price candles to trade and conduct a technical analysis does not play an essential role for them. Yet, the most decisive indicator is the price action. Just look at the price, get comfortable with it and then commence using indicators.

Nevertheless, remember no indicator accurately predicts the future and using lots of indicators, especially when they show opposing pictures can cause you to miss what could contrary be a profitable trade.

Trading Too Often and Against the Trend

In the initial period of trading, you can be eager trying to complete as many trades as you can thinking that more trades means more money, right?

Wrong.

To be a productive day-trader, you are not supposed to trade constantly. In fact, several effective trades per week are enough to yield solid profits. By adjusting the frequency of the trades, you can avoid enormous losses damaging your portfolio.

One more important “rule”; never set daily fixed number of trades as an objective because this can result to taking sub-optimal decisions and taking useless risks. Rather, you can base your trades upon the attentively selected rules and then you deviate from these rules frequently, when it is the right time re-evaluate your trading strategy.

What about trading against the trend?

Even if some advanced traders often get profits while trading against the trend of an asset, amateurs will most likely suffer tremendous losses.

The Usage of Dense Stop Losses

Many crypto-asset exchanges propose stop-loss feature. It’s a quite useful tool which trader can use protecting himself/herself from heavy losses in the right conditions. Yet, lots of beginners mistakenly place their stop-loss too close to the initial buying price.

When setting the stop-losses, it is crucial to know support/resistance line. Under normal conditions these support lines are hard to break. Keep in mind to use a stop loss for practically every significant trade. It can save you from an unexpected flash crash.

Avoid Pump and Dump Groups

Pump and dump groups perform in coordination to manipulate the crypto-asset price by significantly rising the buying volume before unsuspecting traders and bots get in on the action. Yet, the reality is not that glowing. Pump groups practically never give profits. The group admins buy cryptocurrencies in large amounts set their sell orders at an accordingly higher price than their entry point, but low enough that group members buy it, hoping to make a huge profit.

Before Trading Test Your Strategy

It is critical to remember testing your strategy before trading in order to check its effectiveness and the way of implementing it. Currently, there are online trading platforms allowing to evaluate strategies without putting money at risk. These platforms are called “paper trading”. With these platforms you can strictly prove your strategy before implementing it with real money.

The Usage of Dreadful Risk-to-Reward Ratios

When it comes to trading, an appropriate risk-to-reward ratio is 1 of the decisive factors. Commonly, amateurs lean to believe that the logical solution to record profits in trading is by making winning trades surpass the losing ones. Nevertheless, you can have more lost trades but still come out with a positive balance.

Targeting Enormous Profits

Being avid in trading can result to tremendous losses and financially destroy you. Despite the fact that you are in a very profitable position, it is critical to stop at the right time as every significant growth is followed by a not less significant down. Also take to an account that nowadays recording a huge portfolio growth like in previous years is practically impossible.

Asking why?

For a simple reason. Now the crypto market isn’t as profitable as it was several years ago. Yet, there are enough chances to make profits. You only need realistic financial objectives.

Adding to Losing Positions

Another disastrous mistake can be adding to losing positions. Even though you are convinced in your choice, it’s not recommended to increase the losing positions. Base your belief on facts, rather than intuition not letting your personal biases cloud your judgment.

To conclude, before taking any action in trading, consider to avoid aforementioned mistakes, as they are the main reasons new traders fail. Also, do not forget about using crypto trackers. To find out more about these useful tools, check this complete informational cryptocurrency portfolio tracker guide.

How to Boost Sales of Your Pearl Engagement Rings?

There are a growing trend for choosing earth-friendly alternative gems to diamond when choosing engagement and wedding rings. This is where pearl engagement rings continue to receive increasing amount of interest. The fact is that pearl jewelry has been popular for a long time, even when the preferred styles have evolved. The pearl is seen as an elegant, lovely, and versatile alternative since it is available in so many colors, shapes, and origins.

Promoting Pearl Engagement Rings

If you have a pearls jewelry business and are looking to boost the sales of your pearl engagement rings, it is recommended to follow these tips and strategies.

  • Learn About Customers

Find out what your target audience likes in terms of styles, colors, shapes, and the types of pearls for their engagement rings. While the popular types include Akoya and freshwater pearls, the preferred styles include solitaire, halo, accented, cluster, and eternity.

  • Customer Experience

Your customers should feel special when they interact with your brand, whether it is on your website or in person. When it comes to buying engagement rings, keep in mind that it is one of the most important moments of their life. You should make the experience as special as possible.

  • Provide Right Information

 Ask your customers if they have all the information about the ring they intend to purchase. Many customers have already done their research and know everything they need to about the pearl and the ring’s design. At the same time, others need to be guided. At the same time, providing excessively technical information can be overwhelming.

Provide them just the right information required to help them make a decision. Today, most couples would have already done most of the research online. They already know a lot and your role should be to provide them with all the options while delivering a great buying experience. At the same time, providing more value and rewards can prove to be just the right strategies to get them to purchase from you. Even when you make the process of buying simpler, it can make a huge difference to the overall experience.

How To Installation Of Firestop Head Of Wall Joint?

A head of wall joint is one of the firestop systems. It is a linear gap between the top of a wall assembly and the bottom of a floor or roof assembly. This firestop system is one of the U.S. model building codes require head-of-wall fire joint systems. It is assembled the top of fire rated wall and the underside of fire rated floor or roof assemblies. A fire stopping system is installed to protect these joints. The wall and floor and roof construction allowed by a system is specified in the head-of-wall firestopping listing.

Requirements Of Head Of Wall Joint

The minimum requirements in this section of the listings should match the field conditions. These requirements are the following below:

  • It ensures that the fire protection material on the floor and roof assembly or beam and joist in the field condition is listed in the system. Now, head-of-wall fire-stopping systems at Underwriters Laboratories are available for only cementitious fire-resistive materials. There are no head-of-wall firestop listings and no permitting the use of mineral fiber fireproofing.
  • It is secure the actual wall assembly in the field condition is accommodated by the system. Shaft walls that are installed from one side of the wall and incorporate a gypsum liner or core board are different than standard steel stud walls and should be specifically listed in the system.

Head Of Wall Joint Installation Procedure

  • A condition that is prevalent in most buildings is a rated wall assembly that meets a non-rated roof assembly. Finding a third party listed system for this condition is unfortunately not possible.
  • Installation of the fire stopping materials into the head of wall joint is provided in the system. If mineral wool is a component of the system, ensure the type of mineral wool and the density installed are listed in the system.
  • Secondly, ensure the mineral wool is compressed into the joint as indicated by the system.
  • Head-of-wall firestopping system selection and installation can be made simple if the tested listing is understood and utilized as a guide for proper installation.
  • If there are specific questions about a third party laboratory listed head-of-wall fire stopping system, the third party laboratory or manufacturer of the fire stopping materials listed in the listing should be contacted for clarification.
  • Proper installation of fire stopping systems the first time can reduce long-term applicator expense and maintains a high level of life safety for building occupants.
What is SIP? How SIP is a better investment offer as compared to lump sum investment

Mutual Funds sahi hai. This fact has been corroborated by numerous statistics. For instance, as per reports published by AMFI, the Mutual Fund industry AUM has more than doubled in a short span of five years. But the question remains – should you invest in one go (lump-sum) or should you go for regular investments through SIPs. 

What is SIP?

For all beginners, the first question that comes in mind is What is SIP and how it can help them achieve the desired financial goals? Systematic Investment Plans or SIPs are similar to Bank Recurring deposits in principle. One needs to invest a fixed sum of money (contribution) on a periodic basis. The frequency of investment can be chosen by the investor (fortnightly, monthly, bi-monthly or even quarterly) as per their convenience. On the other hand, lump-sum investments require the investor to deposit the entire contribution in one single payment. 

Know more why SIPs fare better than lump-sum investments in the long run.

  • Financial Discipline

SIPs have played a crucial role in increasing the penetration of mutual funds in the country as it makes it possible for everyone to start investing with a minimal monthly budget. It is a more feasible and practical approach to investing. The biggest advantage of investments via SIPs is that they inculcate a sense of financial discipline amongst the investors. When one knows that a fixed sum of money (i.e. SIP contribution) is going to be deducted on a periodic basis from the bank account, they are more likely to plan their finances better. This minimizes possibility of erratic or impulsive spending habits. Good or bad, habits are known to be contagious. A small change (regular investments through SIP) will ensure structured financial planning in the long-run. 

  • Risk spread

Lump-sum investments carry a high risk quotient. They can generate high returns if the markets are doing well. However, in case there is a slump or market crash, one can lose a large sum of money. SIPs on the other hand, spread the risk over a long-period of time. With this mode, the investment is done across market cycles. As a result, only limited portion of the investment is impacted by the market volatility.

  • No requirement of constant market analysis

Many times investors remain in a dilemma about their entry timing into the market. They keep on waiting for the “perfect” opportunity. This hold true more for the first time entrants or the inexperienced ones. However, this requires them to constantly monitor the market which consumes a lot of time, effort and other resources. More often than not, it leads to a delay in their investment decisions and achievement of linked financial goals. 

SIPs take away all this hassle as one needs to continuously invest a pre-determined sum of money on a regular basis. If nothing else, it provides a huge psychological support while investing as it eliminates the stress and mental pressure of timing your transactions.

It is rightly said that when it comes to Mutual Funds, one should invest for time and not merely timing.  Longer you stick around, better are the chances for higher returns.

  • Ensures continuity

Equity markets tend to fluctuate often and are prone to volatility. This can induce investors to withdraw their money in a moment of panic when the markets crash. The probability of this happening with SIP mode is significantly lower as the risk/ investment is spread over a longer time period.

  • Rupee Cost Averaging

SIPs allow the investors to invest at varying market levels. As a result, investors get more units during a bearish period which they can redeem at a high when the market is doing well. This helps to bring down the per-unit buying cost and is known as the benefit of Rupee Cost Averaging. Let us understand with a simple example.

Suppose that your monthly SIP contribution is Rs. 10,000. 

‘2018 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec
NAV 50 50 50 50 50 50 40 40 20 40 40 40
Units 200 200 200 200 200 200 250 250 500 250 250 250

Total units with the investor at the end of the year = 2950

If the NAV of the Fund again becomes Rs. 50 in the month of Jan (2019), then the total value of the portfolio would be Rs. 1.77 Lakhs (2950 *60)

Now, let us compare with a lump-sum investment of Rs 1.2 lakhs made in the month of Jan’2018. The investor would receive 2400 units and the value of the portfolio would have been only Rs. 1.44 lakhs

Even if the NAV of the Fund had gone down to Rs. 30 in Jan’2019, the value of the SIP portfolio would be Rs. 88,000 as compared to Rs. 72,000 in case of lump-sum investment.

  • The “C” Factor

In the world of investment, the power of “compounding” is greatly valued. As we all studied in school, compound interest always generates higher return as compared to simple interest. With SIPs, you can earn returns on your investment as well as additional returns on these returns. 

  • Flexibility

Last but not the least, SIPs offer investors flexibility. They can start with a contribution as low as Rs. 500. Additionally, schemes like Top-Up SIPs or Flexi SIPs allow the investors to increase or decrease their contribution as per their financial conditions. There are other options too such as perpetual SIPs, Trigger SIPs which can be considered.

So, a route which encourages people to start investing and continue the same over a long period of time is always preferred.

Final Word:

Remember the story from your childhood about the tortoise and the rabbit? Slow and steady wins the race. The same logic holds true for Systematic Investment Plans as well. 

Now that you know that SIPs are your true friend when it comes to investing, what are you waiting for? Choose a fund and scheme that fits your pocket and is in line with your long-term financial goals. It is easy, quick and you can start with just Rs. 500. (That’s the cost of one pizza!)

Here’s why investing in mutual funds is gaining popularity amongst millennials

Over time, the popularity of mutual funds has grown tremendously. For those who know how the mutual fund market functions, they are probably aware of the factors behind its popularity. Automatic diversification, professional management, customizability, and liquidity are some of the associated factors.

What is a mutual fund?

A mutual fund such as SBI MF gives you the privilege to invest in financial securities such as bonds, stocks, and other assets. You earn income both from stock dividends and bond interests which are held under your portfolio.

Reasons for gaining popularity:

Diversification:

As soon as you purchase a mutual fund, your mutual fund agency, couples your investment with the investment from another investor. As it holds many investments, mutual funds make it easier for you to diversify your investment portfolio rather than hovering around an individual investment.

However, it is essential for you to understand that not all of your investments will reap out the best results for you at one go. Diversification helps you to lower the impact of lagging mutual funds and reaping out the benefits of those that perform better in the market.

Diversification plays a pivotal role in balancing out all your volatile stock holdings. For an optimal diversification, it is essential for you to keep track of all your investments in different sectors.

Professional Management:

You may or may not be skilled at managing your own investment portfolio. At times, it may also be difficult for you to understand market volatility as you lack sufficient time to dedicate for the same. Mutual funds give you a liberty to club your money with other investors. Also, all investment decisions shall be taken care of by your portfolio manager. He will critically analyse the market and invest in appropriate funds to yield you a good return on investment.

Connecting with fund managers of SBI MF ensures that you do not need to worry about researching market pitfalls.

Liquidity:

What makes mutual funds favourable is that it allows you to buy and share them in accordance to your own will. You can either opt for mutual funds through banks or other financial planning or investment firms. Whenever the situation calls for immediate access to your invested money, mutual funds gives you complete independence to sell your fund shares or units.

Customizability:

There are myriads of mutual funds available for you to make a choice for your financial goal achievement. Right from high-risk funds to funds offering a steadier growth, the market has it all. Here are three prime types of investing in –

  • Equity funds: These funds are for those investors who have a stable and well-defined income and are willing to spend for a long tenure.
  • Balanced mutual funds: These funds are for those who are in the middle stage of their career. For those who are willing to optimize both their risk and return, should blindly opt for balanced mutual funds.
  • Bond funds: For those who are near their retirement stage should prefer bond funds for investment. Bond funds assure you with a fixed income guarantee with a low-risk factor.

For hassle-free mutual funds investment, prefer to invest in SBI mutual fund with Clearfunds.

Complying with Making Tax Digital with VT Accounts Software

In the world of accounting, many people will have used VT Software, and with good reason as it is a reputable software brand that could help with your accounting needs.

Fast-forward to now, and VT Software has decided not to integrate a Making Tax Digital (MTD) for VAT solution within its products, leading many of its users to wonder how they are going to become MTD compliant, and quickly as the law for Making Tax Digital came into force earlier this year in April 2019.

Fear not VT Software users, for BTC Software have an MTD for VAT Solution that will allow you to comply with the MTD for VAT rules whilst still using VT.  How good is that?

BTC have designed their software to allow VAT data from VT Cashbook and VT Transaction Plus to import into their MTD for VAT functionality via the Clipboard from VT.  On top of this, it also:

  • Enables agents to submit their clients’ VAT returns direct to HMRC in the required MTD format.
  • Enables agents to gather historic MTD VAT return data from HMRC and view it. This helps them to see what has been submitted historically, particularly if they have only recently started acting for the client.
  • Provides a quick online agent-client authorisation process with HMRC replacing (for MTD VAT only) the old 64-8 forms.

For more information on how you can benefit from this offering from BTC Software please head on over to https://www.btcsoftware.co.uk/mtd-for-vat-vt-users/ where you will find a whole host of information about what we’ve covered and more.  If you have any questions or queries about anything that is covered then the BTC team will be more than happy to discuss this with you, whether over the phone or via a series of emails.  It is too good an opportunity to miss out on, and it will help you stay compliant for your clients.

*On top of this fantastic piece of news, it is also well worth noting that BTC Software is also currently working with other bookkeeping software providers including Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent, and Reckon One.  This will ensure that BTC’s MTD for VAT solution will also integrate with these products too via APIs (as their other software solutions do).  Even more great news to ensure that many more people and their clients are staying compliant with the relatively new concept of Making Tax Digital.

5 important documents required before you go for a court marriage

Marriage is an inseparable part of our lives. Every single person saves his money for a grand wedding. With the fast-paced modern life, people are now more comfortable with court marriages. It saves money as well as time. At MyAdvo, court marriage experts make the legal procedure foolproof and help you to go through the overall process.

MyAdvo primarily operates in India. Apart from that, people from other countries can also enroll their names for availing the service of applying for court marriage with MyAdvo. In the presence of a marriage registrar and three witnesses, the whole procedure is carried out without any hassle.

Image result for court marriage

Process for court marriage

Let us discuss the procedure in detail:

  • You will be given a checklist of documents along with a questionnaire. You need to record your details in them.
  • When MyAdvo receives the filled up questionnaire, they will issue an intended marriage notice.
  • To decide where you want to solemnize your marriage, you need to select a district where either one of you has stayed for a minimum of one month before the notice was filed. The court marriage will be solemnized at the office of the marriage registrar of that district.
  • Once the place of the court marriage is decided, you along with your partner and three witnesses will need to meet the experts from MyAdvo. The meeting will take place at a time decided on mutual agreement. During the meeting, the experts from MyAdvo will check and finalize the documents. After that is done, MyAdvo will file the intended marriage notice.
  • The marriage officer will publish the notice once it reaches him. Along with that, he will also invite objections regarding the intended marriage. The objections – if any – must be raised within 30 days after the notice is published.
  • If someone raises an objection, the marriage officer will give both parties a chance to present their case. Once that is over, the officer will decide whether or not the objection is true. If it is, he won’t solemnize the marriage. However, the involved parties can appeal against the decision in the district court that falls under the jurisdiction of the marriage officer.
  • If there are no objections against the published notice within a month, the legal procedure will continue. In a time chosen upon mutual agreement, you, your partner, and the same three witnesses will have to appear before the marriage officer. There, you need to sign a declaration to solemnize the marriage.
  • The marriage officer will then issue a marriage certificate. Both the parties along with the three witnesses will need to sign this certificate. After the signing, the marriage officer will issue the marriage certificate to the couple.    

Required Documents from Bride and Bridegroom for court marriage

  • Bride and groom need to submit separate affidavits mentioning their date of birth, current marital status, along with the declaration that they are not related to one another within the degree of prohibited relationship defined in the Special Marriage Act.
  • The bride and groom also need to submit their residential proof. The photocopy of Aadhar card, Passport, Voter Card, Driving License, Ration Card, and Rent agreement/Lease agreement are accepted as the same.
  • Proof of date of birth should also be submitted by both the bride and groom. You can submit a photocopy of the birth certificate, passport, or class 10th certificate.
  • The bride and groom must submit 4 passport size photographs of them.
  • Intended marriage notice signed by both the bride and groom.
  • In case one of you is a divorcee, he/she needs to submit a copy of divorce order or decree. A death certificate of a spouse must be submitted if one of you is a widow or a widower.

A requirement from the Three Individual Witnesses

  • One passport size photograph of every witness.
  • Each witness will have to submit a photocopy of the PAN card.
  • A photocopy of Identity Documents such as Adhar Card, Driving License, PAN Card, Passport, Voter ID Card (both front and back), NFS Ration card, or any Govt recognized document is also mandatory to complete the requirements of the court marriage.

Future Opportunities In DevOps Market, Every Entrepreneur Should Know

The role of DevOps in any organization has evolved consistently since the field first became known in 2007 as a combination of software development or ‘Dev’ and information technology operations or Ops combining as DevOps, and has become an important part of businesses. In DevOps, the operations and development engineers work together throughout the service lifecycle, from the stages of design development, production, and support, reducing the overall time required and the risks of errors.

DevOps enable businesses to considerably shorten the development life cycle for systems operations while also delivering required features and updates to meet the business objectives. The adaptation of DevOps within businesses is expanding on a large scale, as businesses are recognizing the benefits of DevOps in performance and overall operational efficiency.

Future Opportunities In DevOps Market

There is an abundance of future opportunities in the DevOps market, which is visible by the DevOps market size, currently estimated to be worth approximately $3.58 billion. The value of the global DevOps is projected to reach a value of $10.31 billion by the year 2023, growing at a massive CAGR of 23.54 percent. The DevOps adoption is measured by deployment speed, mean time of recovery, deployment frequency, production failure rate, and average lead time. Factors influencing the selection of a DevOps model are buyer maturity and the supplier-buyer relation.

Future opportunities in the DevOps market include the following:

  • Applications In Small Companies: The costs involved in setting up DevOps teams have restricted to a certain degree the expansion of DevOps into medium and small companies. As the costs reduce with increasing competition and widespread availability of DevOps professionals, smaller companies are expected to make use of DevOps capabilities.
  • Customer Experience: The customer experience (CX) is of integral importance to businesses directly dealing with consumers, and a feeble CX can result in a customer leaving to never come back. In such a situation, DevOps can rapidly change the required aspects of the CX and fine tune it based on further customer feedback, without spending extensive time in testing and development.
  • DevOps and the Cloud: There is an immense potential of linking DevOps with the Cloud, and while many DevOps services are already linked with the Cloud, the number is expected to multiply considerably over the years. With the scalability and personalization provided by DevOps, linking it with the Cloud is the obvious next step, facilitating speedy delivery of services to meet business needs. Using the Cloud reduces the overall DevOps costs for development, testing, deployment, and operations.  
  • Automation: The biggest trend in the industry is automation and artificial intelligence (AI), and it is expected to influence the DevOps market as well. There is a massive potential of combining Automation and AI with DevOps, based on the stage of the delivery cycle. Automation can be used in application development, planning, provisioning, security, and standardization.
  • DevOps Specialized Professionals: The field of DevOps is still developing and typically consists of professionals from the specific fields of software development and information technology operations. However, in the future, as the popularity and importance of DevOps grows, there will be professionals trained to handle DevOps activities specifically, having knowledge of both software development and information technology operations.

The DevOps market is growing at an exponential pace, with applications reaching into numerous businesses and industries. There are a plethora of future opportunities in the field that every entrepreneur should know about so that regardless of the size of the business, entrepreneurs can make use of the benefits of implementing DevOps.

Best color schemes for websites can get you more customers

While designing a site, the color and texture is the most important component that needs to be taken into consideration to make it look attractive. Color schemes for websites play a vital role in catching interest of the site viewers. There are so many modern textures prevailing which can make the site look interesting with natural, bright, dark and earthy features. You can use any of these to make the site attractive.

Some top level colorations for sites and their background texture

  1. Multicolored and balanced – these colorations include both cool and warm tones which are mutually combined but not in an overwhelming way. These include combinations from bright and appealing bluish-green textures to earthy terracotta. They well suit the modern and youthful designs of the sites.
  2. Bright Accent coloration – this coloration texture contains shades of violet and blue and these shades are further combined with orange and bright red accents. The combination of orange-red accents and background of vivid blue texture helps the viewer to find the right places and icons of site immediately, from top to bottom of webpage.
  3. Earthy and natural – the nurturing outdoor scenes and blue sky like shades give a feeling of getting linked with surroundings. The earthy and natural textures are called ideal for site designing. These textures give a pleasant look to the site and also emphasizes on environment consciousness among the users.
  4. Fresh and cool – the emerald green and shadowy imperial blue texture together forms a refreshing and clean view of the site. These textures give a fresh and cool image to the site. These reliable and calm combinations give an ideal image to the site.
  5. Vibrant and audacious – the turquoise and coral red complexion gives vibrant and audacious look to the site, which easily catches the eyes of the viewers. These vibrant colors also include other textures like bold feather; this texture is perfect for modern and edgy designed sites.
  6. Russian green and vermilion – for giving a complete modern look to the sites, the pages are created with black background having bold accents. This complexion contains different red accents like auburn and vermillion and Russian green texture over black.  
Choosing the Best MTD Compatible Software

Making Tax Digital (MTD) has finally arrived and marks a new era in HRMC, which plans to become an advanced tax administration the embraces digital technology. The goal for MTD is to make tax processes easier, faster, and more efficient for both businesses and HRMC.

MTD currently applies to VAT-registered businesses with a taxable turnover above the registered threshold (£85,000), although will eventually include self-assessment and corporation tax. This means all businesses and accountancy firms need to be using MTD compatible software to store tax records and file taxes, with various software solutions currently available from vendors.

Here are some tips for choosing the best MTD compatible software:

Make Sure it is Compliant

This may seem obvious but always ensure that the software is MTD compliant! There are several functions that the software needs to do, including storing and preserving digital tax records, creating VAT returns using digital tax records, filing VAT returns to HRMC, and sending and receiving tax data (and other info) to and from HRMC using an API (application program interface) platform.

You do have the option to use more than one software solution for this, which is especially important for businesses using practice management software that are storing patient data along with their tax data.

Know Your Software Options

There are a few types of software solutions available for businesses, including cloud software and desktop software. Each one has their advantages, so consider what you need from the software, whether there are additional features you could benefit from, and what is within your budget.

For instance, cloud software involves storing all data online in cloud networks. You can access this on any device with an internet connection, making it a good option for larger enterprises that want to work on taxes off-site. It’s a popular option for accountancy firms due to the large capacity, speed, efficiency, and flexibility of the software.

Desktop software involves storing the software and all data onto physical computers. This means you need backups made of all data and will need to always use it on-site, while any repairs or updates need to be done manually too. IT departments can handle much of this work, although not all businesses have access to such resource options.

Consider Bridging Software

Bridging software is an alternative to buying a completely new software package, making the jump to MTD much less complex and easier to come to grips with. For example, HTMC has listed bridging software solutions that can be combined with current software packages to make them MTD compliant.

For instance, if you currently have accounting software that is not MTD compliant you can use a bridging software to bridge the gap. If you only use spreadsheets then a bridging solution is a great way to make sure you’re MTD compliant without buying new software solutions.

How User-Friendly is it?

It’s recommended that you choose MTD software that is easy to use – or easy enough to learn! Again, having an IT department may minimise the importance of usability as they can learn how to use and manage the software and provide subsequent training, although you want to ensure the vendor offers some form of training.

Accountants also need to know how to use the software, so making sure it is something they can easily learn is important too. Most MTD vendors provide either on-site or remote training solutions, while some offer accountant-specific software that incorporates many other useful accountancy software features.