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2.6. Dividends

Dividends are a tax efficient means of withdrawing profit from your business and it's easy to make an informed decision about dividend payments using inniAccounts' real time accounting features.

Creating a dividend

To create a dividend select the 'payroll & dividends' option, then 'create dividends'. You will shown two figures - profit available and cash available.

• Profit available - this figure is the amount of profit that is technically available to be paid out as a dividend. it's based on your company's profit and loss figures for the current year. You should never draw more than this figure as a dividend.
• Cash available - this figure is based on the LiveCash view of your companies finances and shows how much cash you actually have available to pay a dividend.

What's in a name?
It is normal for these two figures to be different - often the profit available is greater than the cash available. The most common cause is that invoices that you have created, but not yet received payment for, count towards your available profit, but not your available cash.

You can also click on 'view accounts' to explore the details behind the profit and cash you have available.

You can now enter a figure in the payment box and click on 'recalculate' - the dividend will be split between shareholders according to the number of shares they hold.

Documentation and payment

Once you've created your dividend you can download and print minutes documenting the dividend agreement (this is a stipulation of running a limited company) and also download dividend vouchers detailing the payment and the tax credit available.

Minutes and vouchers are only available to Plus and Premium customers

You can now make payment to the shareholders - you will find a pending payment in the bookkeeping area for each shareholder's payment.

Related Pages

• inniAccounts User Guide > Administration and settings > Employees and shareholders