u/BigFaithlessness618

So I've run a small Etsy business for the last 5 years, just under the VAT threshold.

I had an accountant support me for the first year's self assessment but I have completed it myself since. I have a financial services background and feel pretty confident I've reported everything correctly.

I use QuickBooks on a dedicated business account which tracks my spending and it's liked to Etsy for my income but I have to be honest I haven't organised my receipts. I buy 99% of my stock online so I have invoices/receipts but it would take me forever to reconcile them. Use my personal email for invoices so is mixed in with span, things I buy and general crap.

Over the past few weeks I have been having this reoccurring thought that I am going to get Audited. Last year my daughter was born so sales reduced and my margin went down I have heard this can trigger an audit.

Part of me wants to spend the hours and hours needed to reconcile all my receipts on QuickBooks but also my rationale head says it's very unlikely to be audited and if you just spend the time then.

I wondered if anyone with a business as small as mine had any focus from HMRC? If so what did it look like?

Me and my wife would like some advice or examples where we could lock our money away to get a decent return and importantly how do I actually do it?

We also currently have £111k "Saved"

- £45k in s&s ISA invested in EFTs

- £26k in Cash ISAs

- £30k in a cash savings account.

-£10k in a HSBC cash bond @4%.

We also have £8-12k in our joint current depending where we are in the month which is our "emergency fund".

My wife wants to use our cash take a big chunk off the mortgage, I think we could get better returns on the stock market but my wife is hesitant as worries we could end up with less.

The compromise is that we would invest our savings in some sort of instrument that had fixed returns that beats our mortgage rate (3.25%). We are both 40% tax payers so when you work out the hsbc Bond at 4% we only realise 2.4% so would be better off paying it off the mortgage..