Planning to start your own business?

Develop your ideas into a practical and effective plan to launch your business

Key elements covered include:

• Getting the marketing right for your business
• Developing a realistic, working business plan
• Deciding what finance you need and learn how to use financial information

Make the most of online trading and marketing

Learn how to exploit online trading and marketing opportunities for your business.

This workshop will help businesses develop their online presence and increase online sales. It is aimed at those who already have a little experience now looking to increase the amount of trading they do online, or for those businesses who are new to online trading but keen to exploit the opportunity.

The workshop covers everything from online shops, payments and legal aspects to effectively marketing and advertising your business online. The format of the workshop is part presentation, part discussion and part hands-on, with the opportunity to ask questions about developing these opportunities for your particular business.

Build your own business website

Learn from scratch how to build and manage an attractive and effective website for your business.

This workshop will show you how simple it is to develop your own business website and keep it up to date yourself. It is ideal for businesses that don’t have their own website yet, or for those who do but want to take control of managing it themselves. No prior knowledge or skills other than basic web browsing and text editing skills are required to use this simple but powerful website building tool.

The “Practical Basic Book-keeping” workshop

Book-keeping is a core business skill, and, even if someone else does it for you, you still need to understand and value the process. If you want to know the starting point for good record-keeping, this is the course for you. Those new to business and with little or no formal training in bookkeeping will particularly benefit.

Would you like to bid for Council contracts?

A master class in using Public Contracts Scotland to help secure public contracts, with practical advice from Council staff who score tenders 

This FREE workshop will show businesses and other organisations how they can ensure they give themselves the best possible chance of gaining business and winning contracts with Argyll and Bute Council.

Come along and learn how the Council procure goods, services and works and why the Council go through the processes they do. Argyll and Bute Council’s Procurement team will be able to show participants how best to demonstrate their business/organisations strengths; and Council operational staff that score the tenders will be providing their input on what they look for in a tender. There will also be an opportunity for the team to share and discuss with workshop participants future plans for procurement and new developments from the Scottish Government over the next year.

Meet the advisor

Business Gateway can offer advice and support to help you develop your ideas into an effective and practical plan.

The advisor can meet with you to talk through your ideas and offer free advice, in confidential one to one meetings.

HM Revenue & Customs workshops

Becoming Self Employed?

This FREE workshop is an introduction to becoming self-employed and covers tax, National Insurance, VAT, record keeping and when to pay, partnerships and Online services

The course aims to give you the knowledge to:

• register your self-employment
• setup and maintain business records
• know what National Insurance to pay
• know what expenses you can claim
• know which pages of your Self Assessment Tax Return you need to complete

Would you like to know how to reduce your tax bill?

Come along to this FREE workshop to find out how.  This workshop is run by HM Revenue and Customs in partnership with Business Gateway and is aimed at the newly self-employed.  It will cover:

• what your allowable business expenses are and how to work out your tax allowances
• how to recognise the most common types of allowable business expenses
• how to identify allowable and non allowable business expenses
• the different ways to work out your motoring expenses
• how to correctly work out capital allowances for cars, other vehicles and equipment using examples
• Where to find any further information and help you may need
• Self Assessment Online

Self Assessment for the Self Employed

This FREE course is organised and run by HM Revenue & Customs in partnership with Business Gateway. It is designed for sole traders and partnerships and will give instruction on how to complete a Self Assessment return. The course will cover the expenses and allowances you can claim, the deadline you need to meet, how to pay your tax and guidance on online submission of returns.

If you are interested in finding out more about any of the above workshops please contact the Business Gateway team on 01546 605459 or business.gateway@argyll-bute.gov.uk
To book online visit www.bgateway.com/events