When I say Subscription Box, do you think of lots of lovely treats for pampering yourself? How about a box that won’t make you look more beautiful but will pamper your business bank balance?!
The SAS Business Box is actually a digital box and is perfect for anyone running their own business, whether you’re in your first or thirtieth year.
What’s in the box?
The SAS Business Box is a one-stop shop for all the information that you’d ever need to operate a small business, as well as lots of helpful tools, templates, videos and checklists.
There’s topics such as VAT, book-keeping, cashflow as well as meatier subjects like running payroll and filing your returns to HMRC and Companies House.
From the start all of the options are filtered into categories and sub-categories, so you’re not scrolling through loads of links to find what you need. If you take the VAT category for example, you get the option of choosing ‘I am registered’ or ‘I am not registered’. Within the ‘I am not registered’ category there are links to loads of helpful articles, such as how to register for VAT and what the benefits would be.
All of the articles are written in clear, sensible language that is easy to read, with plenty of headings so you can find what you’re looking for. There are links within the posts and at the bottom for other useful articles.
There’s also the Revenue Target Calculator which calculates how much sales income you need to make to cover all of your costs and your tax liability. This is really helpful for new start up businesses as well as established ones.
It’s super-easy to navigate around the site and pick and choose what you want to look at, much easier than the HMRC website! When you sign up you’re given access to your own ‘box’ – an online area where you can save all the useful tools and information that you’ve found.
What’s the verdict?
I really really like this box, and not just as a geeky former accountant! It’s brilliant that it’s non-judgemental, it doesn’t tell you off or try and force you down one particular route (or bombard you with adverts). For example, there’s an article all about how to do physical book-keeping, as opposed to online.
There’s also a whole load of templates and checklists, which open as .xls sheets with full instructions. They’re ready for use straight away and could make a massive difference to how you run your business – it takes the hard work and thinking away, and ensures that you are recording all of the right details ready for your annual returns and filings.
It’s a brilliant option if you want to run your accounting yourself but need the correct advice and guidance, plus updates on changes in regulations such as GDPR. Plus you know that there’s a friendly team behind it if you do need any help.
The SAS business box costs £48 per month (inclusive of VAT) and you can pause and restart your membership at any time. If you consider that hiring an accountant would cost you upwards of £70 a month, it’s really good value. Plus you get a very cool welcome gift, so you can enjoy a cuppa whilst sorting out your finances!
You can get £10 off your first month using this link (affiliate)