You’d be forgiven for thinking that tax years are all about business accounting, P60s and tax returns, but in reality they often mark the start of some important changes for our day to day finances.

Here’s your quick guide to what’s changed this financial year:

Your ISA allowance is renewed*

For the year ahead, you have a brand new £20,000 allowance to use across the ISA family and any interest you earn will be tax-free! Many of us have held or know about Cash ISAs, but there are actually a whole range of different ISAs that could pay out much more interest than a typical Cash ISA –check out the Kuflink Innovative Finance ISA, for example.

Your tax-free personal allowance rises to £12,500*

Basic rate taxpayers are now allowed to earn £12,500 a year before having to pay any income tax, up from £11,850 last year.

The good news continues for higher rate taxpayers, for whom the threshold has increased from £46,351 to £50,000.

Your automatic workplace pension contributions increase

If you’re part of the workplace pension scheme, you can now expect to contribute 5% of your salary each month. This may vary in practice as technically the minimum contribution is now 8%, with a minimum 3% coming from your employer.

Although this increase may mean a little extra squeeze on your income, it’s always a great idea to make sure you save as much towards retirement as you can. You may even wish to consider additional investments to make sure your golden years really are golden!

2.1 million people expected to benefit from wage rises

From April onwards, the national living wage will be increased to £8.21 per hour with the national minimum wage for those aged 24 and under also rising.

*Capital is at risk. Your tax treatment will be dependent on your personal circumstances and subject to HMRC requirements.

No, it wasn’t his theory of relativity or even his world-famous E=mc², it was compound interest!

It goes without saying that fact this can come in very handy for pub quizzes, but on a more serious note – it might just change the way you manage your finances forever.

Einstein was totally right.

So, you’ve heard the term ‘compound interest’ before, but just to re-cap: it means re-investing any interest you’ve earned alongside the original sum. In other words, you’re earning interest on top of your interest.

The concept may well be nothing new, but did you know that compound interest alone could add thousands to the value of your investment?

For example, if you invested £10,000 at a rate of 7.2% pa for ten years, you’d have £17,200 at the end of the term.

However, if you compounded that interest on an annual basis over the same term, you’d have £20,042.31.

That’s a huge £2,842.31 extra in your pocket just for making one simple adjustment to the way you invest… and it won’t cost you a penny more!

So next time you receive some interest back from your investment, make sure you remember Einstein’s eighth wonder and watch your returns add up faster than ever.

When it comes to money, the word ‘Collections’ can be pretty scary – but here at Kuflink, our cheerful Head of Collections Nattalie is anything but! Take a glimpse at how her department operates in our latest ‘Meet the Team’…

What is your role at Kuflink?

In short, we are here to ensure our borrowers repay their loan! In the collections team we keep track of all loan payments, chase payments and recover debt if need be.

What does a typical day look like for you?

A typical day usually consists of checking on any incoming payments, adding or updating the borrowers loan profile on our system, chasing delayed payments and liaising with solicitors.

I’m also one of the Directors here, so I’m a part of the credit committee and have responsibility for helping to vet and approve new loan applications.

Which teams do you work with the most?

I’m in regular contact with almost all other teams, and I don’t think there is one internal team we work with more than another. We work alongside different teams for different reasons, such as passing information to marketing so that they can update our investors or speaking with cases to keep track of new loans.

I also keep a great relationship with solicitors, who help us and our borrowers to communicate more effectively.

What skills do you need to make a good collections officer?

We deal with numbers all day, so you’d have to be good at maths. You also need to understand risk and be able to look at new enquiries with a ‘common sense’ approach – if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Collections can obviously be quite a sensitive job, so I think it’s also important to be firm but fair.

What is the biggest challenge you face in your role?

I’m sure we’re all tired of hearing it, but Brexit uncertainty really is the biggest factor weighing on the housing market right now. Buyers and sellers are hesitant to act until we know more about what’s going on, so we have to factor that in to all our decisions.

What do you love about your job?

That’s easy: when a loan repays in full, the satisfaction that my job has been done!

Get to know the people behind your investments with our new weekly ‘Meet the Team’ posts. Have a question you’d like us to ask? Email your suggestions to hello@wp1www.kuflink.com