Improving the benefits you offer your staff – Jordans Breakfast Seminar 5 July

79% of employers who provide a range of benefits believe that it helps them to recruit the right staff and 80% believe it helps them to keep them.

SMEs generally believe that the cost of providing the range of employee benefits available in larger firms would be prohibitive for them but that may not be true.  There may even be savings in tax and national insurance if you provide a range of benefits.

On Thursday 5 July at 8.00am Jordans are hosting a breakfast seminar where Paul Davidson of Eaves and Co, tax advisers and Nigel Sycamore of Clear Wealth Management will be speaking about the options available and the savings to be made.  The seminar will also cover the preparing for the new pension legislation which comes into force in October this year and will ultimately require all employers in the United Kingdom to automatically enrol eligible “jobholders” in a pension scheme.

We still have some places available.  If you would like to attend please contact me.

Are annual fees for you – talk to us about annual fees at the Wakefield Business Conference on 26 April

Annual fees are just what they say, you pay your lawyers an annual fee, usually in monthly instalments, for an agreed service.  The lawyers set the fee considering factors such as the size of the client, the nature of the business and perhaps the number of employees or annual turnover.  Once the fee is set that fee is payable, irrespective of how much or how little the client uses the service.

The service may be anything from a telephone helpline to all the advice you need and may include regular meetings with your lawyers, the supply of routine documents, such as terms and conditions, or the drafting of letters dealing with issues or disputes as they arise.  An annual fee does not usually cover transactions, such as the acquisition of a property or another business, and does not usually cover any dispute once the claim is issued in a court or tribunal.

An agreed annual fee has the benefit of giving you the comfort of knowing that once you’ve paid the fee you can get the advice you need without having to worry about the cost.   However that comfort does come at a cost.  Typically providers suggest that fees will start at £200 per month but often that is only for the smallest of businesses employing less than 5 people.

At Jordans we regard providing our regular clients with initial advice on routine queries as part of the added value service we offer.  For clients with greater needs we are happy to agree an annual fee if that is what the business needs and sometimes that retainer may be tied in with insurance to create a ‘package’ to cover advice and possible claims.  It is most important though that the product suits the client’s business.

If you would like to discuss annual fees or any other aspect of legal services please visit us at Stand 34 at the Wakefield Business Conference at the Cedar Court Hotel on 26 April.