We’re just a few days from the time when businesses across the UK draw to a close for a few weeks. Christmas is a time to sit back and relax with your loved ones – and we’re no exception to that.

This week will be the last blog from us at AIMS until 2020, so it’s time for us to do a little bit of a retrospective on 2019 in the SME and accounting worlds.

It’s been an interesting, and sometimes difficult, year for businesses across the UK. Uncertainty and nerves have been the theme of the day throughout, with everyone unsure what their business might look like from one month to the next. With the Brexit deadline continuously moving, it’s been nigh-on impossible for some businesses to properly plan their future, and big businesses especially have been keen to “hunker down” and weather the storm. But in the SME world, despite all the doom and gloom there’s also been opportunity. In the last year, small businesses have been making strides in turnover, employment and a number of other factors that contribute to “market share”. They’re small strides – half a point here, a couple of percent there – but they’re worth noting. Whilst big business retreats, SMEs have been pushing forward to fill the gaps and provide their services to more and more clients.

But what about the accounting world? How have we and our industry been doing this year? Well, like everywhere else it’s been a bit of a mixed bag. Despite ample time to prepare, which we certainly made use of, MTD still threw many other accountants across the country for a loop. You’d think that after at least 30 years of computers being commonplace, moving just one type of tax to a purely digital solution would be simple – alas, it’s not quite as easy as that. There’s also been the perennial question of what exactly will happen to the tax system and clients’ status within it come Brexit, which whilst not really a “concern”, has elements that are still very much up in the air. But whilst we can’t speak for the business state of the industry as a whole, we can certainly say that AIMS are still doing well. We’ve had 2,500 new clients join us this year, and 16 new offices opening up across the UK, and we’re always looking to keep providing our excellent services and opportunities to more!

2020 will bring a lot of changes. No matter what happens politically, at the very least we’ll have to deal with the new IR35 changes, which could cause chaos in the private sector world for freelancers and companies alike. But, no matter what, you can be sure that we’re still here looking after our clients and making tax simple.

We wish you all a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year – we’ll see you in January to kickstart the Tax Return season!