Profit Cash Growth

If your business is sitting on surplus cash right now, this episode tackles the question every profitable owner eventually faces: property, or back into the business? We dig into the real economics of investing spare cash in commercial versus residential property, why leverage changes the maths entirely, and when the smarter move is actually to reinvest in yourself.

Key Topics Covered:

• Why b...

Rising sales don't always mean a healthier business, and right now some of the UK's best known brands are proving it. In this episode, Claire and her co-host unpack "profitless prosperity," the point in an economic cycle where revenue keeps climbing but profit quietly falls away, and what it means for business owners watching their own numbers do exactly that.

Key Topics Covered:

• What profit...

There's a rumour doing the rounds that HMRC has built a £100 million AI supercomputer that's scanning your social media to catch you out. In this episode, we separate the scaremongering from what HMRC's Connect system actually does, and why the real risk for most business owners has nothing to do with AI and everything to do with whether their own numbers add up to each other. If you've ever wondered whether HMRC is wa...

Having more than one limited company feels like smart planning until it pushes your business into a completely different tax regime. In this episode, we unpack why the £1.5 million corporation tax threshold isn't a single number, it's a number that gets divided across every company you control, and why that catches so many growing businesses off guard. If you've ever set up a company because "that's what everyone does"...

Claire covers one of the most overlooked tax reliefs for business owners who own their own building: capital allowances on commercial property. Prompted by a listener story about a business that missed out on hundreds of thousands of pounds in claims, this episode breaks down what capital allowances actually are, why most accountants never mention them, and what to do before you sign anything on a commercial property p...

We go head to head in a battle off: the five things that have genuinely moved the needle for our businesses over the last 25 years. No rehearsed answers, no overlap discussed in advance, just two founders picking apart what actually built the business versus what just felt busy. It's a useful exercise for any owner who wants to get clear on what would hurt most if it disappeared tomorrow.

Key Topics Covere...

Most business owners have never heard of the apprenticeship levy, and it's costing them thousands of pounds in training they could be getting for free or close to it. In this episode, Claire and Simon explain exactly how the levy works, why it isn't just for school leavers, and how any business, including the owner themselves, can use it to fund everything...

Most business owners only track the time between issuing an invoice and getting paid, and wonder why cash still feels tight. In this episode, Claire Hancott breaks down the customer journey cash cycle: the full picture of how long money is actually out of your business before it comes back in. If you're spending on marketing, taking on new work, or thinkin...

Claire talks through three real client scenarios from the last few weeks where business owners came to her wanting to take on debt, and she told all three of them not to. This episode breaks down why, what she suggested instead, and how a genuine growth opportunity can look identical to a cash flow problem you haven't fixed yet. If you're weighing up a loa...

Should you be including your labour costs in your gross profit? Claire breaks down why this simple question trips up more business owners than almost any other line on the P&L, and why getting it wrong can make a good month look bad and a bad month look good. If your gross margin swings wildly for reasons you can't explain, this episode is for you.

Why do businesses actually fail? Not the vague, one-size-fits-all answer, but the five specific ways it really happens to owner-managed businesses turning over between £1 million and £20 million. In this episode, Claire and Simon work through the five most common causes of business failure, then rank them from least to most dangerous based on what Claire sees across...

Most business owners think "cash flow" means one number on one report. Claire breaks down why that single view is exactly what leaves profitable businesses caught short, unable to pay a VAT bill they never saw coming. In this episode, Claire walks through the three distinct ways every business needs to look at its cash, and why relying on just one of them creates a ...

How did Poland go from earning 16p for every pound a British person earned to 83p in just 25 years? And more importantly, what does that extraordinary economic transformation mean for the way you run your business? In this episode, Claire and Simon break down the eight key decisions that turned Poland into Europe's greatest economic success story, and apply each one...

What would Andy Burnham's Britain actually mean for your business? In this episode, Claire and Simon run through the policies being floated under potential new leadership, from national insurance changes and business rate cuts to flat-rate inheritance tax and a radical property tax overhaul. This is a frank, commercial take on what might change, what's already been ...

This week Claire breaks down a court case that sounds like a joke but has serious implications for any business that sells products or services as part of a bundle. The KFC sauce pot VAT case has opened the door for businesses across food, retail, and beyond to look again at how they are charging VAT, and possibly claim some of it back. If you run a business that bu...

This week Simon and Claire dig into the biggest business story of the year so far: SpaceX's $1.7 trillion stock market flotation, which has made Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire. They use it as the jumping-off point for a plain-English deep dive into what an IPO actually is, where the idea came from, and whether any of this matters if you're running a six or...

Rachel Reeves announced seven policy changes outside of the normal fiscal calendar, and Claire Hancott breaks down exactly what they mean for business owners and the people running them. From the mileage rate increase that's been frozen for 15 years to the VAT cut on kids' hospitality that might never reach consumers, this episode cuts through the nois...

What should your monthly management accounts actually look like, and what should they be telling you? In this episode, Claire walks business owners through exactly what Profit Cash Growth delivers to clients on a monthly basis, from the executive summary to the cash flow forecast to the taxes tab, and explains why the goal of every number is to drive a...

Your year-end accounts are not a management tool. For business owners turning over seven figures, waiting for annual accounts to understand how your business is performing is not just inefficient; it is genuinely dangerous. In this episode, Claire breaks down exactly why statutory accounts were never designed to help you run your business, and what better financial reporting actually looks like.

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