Hi. Right now i'm starting a business. Initially from day 1 there will be one brand, from year 2 I plan to create another brand leveraging off of the same (or very similar) product, same manufacturing plant but with different branding / website / target market etc... From day 1 (i.e. now) what is the best way to go about forming the structure of the different brands (businesses) in terms of accounting? Is it one company with the registered brands all under it? Or each brand as a seperate legal entitity? Or one holding company with different entities under it?

Thanks for your advice in advance, Aaron.

Hi all,

I've recently started an online store on Ebay to start selling some of my personal belongings. I just have some questions about I account for this as its not officially registered. I plan on registering as soon as things pick up.

I'm using quickbooks to track my income and expenses. Despite not be registered as a Sole Trader officially I want to still ensure that I've accounted everything correctly.

1. As I'm selling my personal items, would I still need to sell the items to my "business"? Or can I continue to sell whatever until I have to register?

2. I have a separate bank account to separate this from my personal account, if I was to transfer money to my "business" account would I still use capital introduced despite not be registered?

I just want to make sure that my accounts are correct for when and if I register with HMRC.

Thanks I'm advance.

Hi I have started a competition page , raffling off tickets for cash prizes , cars, holidays etc. I am struggling to get a business bank account . My company does not apply under the gambling act as before you can buy a ticket you have to answer a question first . I do not need a gambling licence but just wondering what I should label the company as on my bank account application as banks don’t like the sound of competition company’s. Based in Northern Ireland

As a sole trader with one business, can you have 2 trading names?

eg. I ran a life coaching business offering life coaching with the business name Inspirational Life Coaching. If I wrote a book and self-published it could this part of my business be called Inspirational Publishing? Would I have to have 2 businesses? If not do I have to have 2 sets of accounts or one?

Does anyone have a code the the annual subscription or where we get it for free. As part of UKBF?

Tks

I am considering closing down the partnership I created. I registered voluntarily for VAT but the sales I make are currently charged at 0% so the majority of returns have resulted in a repayment for the materials etc that I have purchased.

I understand that I am allowed to have £6,000 total in stock and/or assets (I understand this as items I would be able to physically sell such as equipment or vehicles) without having to pay anything back if I deregister from VAT. Is it feasible to sell the capital assets that I claimed VAT on to myself (obviously for a fair market price)? And report as normal as an invoice on my VAT returns?

I am in a position where I can afford to allow the business to run on for a while, so I thought maybe I could do this (which is what I really want to do to see if I can make it work) but take the equipment out of the equation now should I decide to close it, and therefore the VAT registration, down. Just so I have less to worry about being liable for financially should it come down to it.

Thanks.

Hello?

Does anyone have tips on setting up partnership programmes and how to go about proposing partnerships to established businesses where there is a synergy and mutual benefit?

On website I have 2 images both named the same but one in uppercase other in lower case

ie.

/img/Test.jpg and /img/test.jpg

Both display fine on the website but if I try to store them both in a folder on my desktop one overrides the other.

Is there a way I can change the folder so both test.jpg and Test.jpg can both be in the same folder?

We host a WooCommerce store through our website which accounts for approx. 5% of our sales, the other 95% is from credit account customers, placed via email, telephone etc.
We are using Xero for our accounting and Unleashed for our inventory management. All orders are processed into Unleashed either manually or via a 3rd party API to allow them to flow from WooCommerce. Once an order is completed the invoice is created in Xero, where we then manage our credit control.
I would like to implement a B2b store for credit customers which would also allow me to integrate a reward scheme.
Is this possible with my current configuration?
If not, do you have any recommendations for an alternative solution?

Hi,

We are a digital marketing agency, and developing quite a few websites. We also provide maintenance services.

We have quite a few clients, but one challenge our developer has is being able to monitor when a website breaks down from a UI perspective. We tried various in-house built solutions, but we were not able to capture all the errors we tested against.

We have now started to look into ready-made test automation tools, I was wondering if anyone has any experience with this? And if there are any recommendations?

Load Testing is also another area that we play with to ensure the websites are secure, my understanding is that the software testing tools are also including this kind of functionality.

Anyway, this is not too technical, tx

Constantin

We have an employee who is contracted full time. For around 3-4 years (excluding COVID) we agreed to flexible working, to help with easing the burden of his childcare costs. However, this was only supposed to be temporary and it was mutually agreed that once his youngest child reached school age, he would return to his normal working pattern.

He has now come to us and said that he doesn't want to return to his normal working pattern from September and instead wants to reduce his working week with us and take up employment elsewhere as well. (We suspect he's secretly been doing that anyway, but I don't think we'll be able to prove it as I think he's been earning cash in hand).

Whilst we don't necessarily mind him reducing his hours, his salary will obviously reflect this, I do suspect he's using the job with us as a means to an end and will eventually leave us. What we'd like to do is offer him either a low set number of hours per week OR change him to a zero hour contract, so that whilst he could earn more with us during our busier periods, we also don't feel obligated to still employ/pay him during the quieter ones. Can this be put on the table?

Many thanks for reading.

Hi,

I received HMRC tax code P9 form. It says the code is xxx, and says "Please use this code for tax year to 5 Apr" and the year is 2024. Does HMRC want me to use this code for the period from 06 Apr 2023 to 05 Apr 2024?

Hi,
I setup a new company in United Kingdom England which will be online retail shop with products directly from manufacturer brands.
Issue I have, is that supplier says I have to be VAT registered before they can do business with me.
As a new startup, how do I get required information for HRMC that I am intended to trade and charge VAT if all I have so far is website domain name.

I am only building website if VAT registration would be successful and not before so don't waste my time.

Any suggestions, on how I can get VAT application successful to be able actually start my business trading.

Thank you for any replies.

I have been opened my own removal & courier company in central london, i have been getting most of my business from residential and small business customers. I would like to further develope my business customer base and get contracted by big players in the market. Also generate more local residential and business sales leads. Could you please advise on how i can achieve that and what are the neccessary steps to take to reach my goal.

Me and my friend are being made redundant in march. We are both on low pay/ low income.
Aside from this, we have an idea to carry on in the same business and get new clients. It will only be us 2 in the business. So can we be sole trader and partner? Is this a thing? As its not going to be a huge profit making enterprise!
So, we have a shared new bank account so we can collect payments/pay for work related things in one place.
Now my other question is if we pay ourselves our 'wages' fortnightly like we're used to, and leave the excess in there (if any!) Where is the paper trail for tax at end of the tax year incase we go over the tax threshold.
We are extremely new to this!
Also does my friend have to her fill her own separate tax return??
Sorry for all the questions ?

Hi there,
I am ltd director as well as the sole shareholder & going to purchase properties under the company. My question is will i be able to transfer those assets into my personal name (maybe once I am going to close the ltd one day in few decades), if I wish to? Company is running smoothly now & as I have no other directors or shareholders that have control over this company.

Highly appreciate your kind response
Thank you in advance

We have a small group of employees that sometimes work from home (less than 40% of their working week), it not a job requirement, they are able to and are encouraged to work at their permanent place of work full time, but since Covid there is some flexibility.

Their job requires them to travel to various temporary places of work on a regular weekly basis.

On the days where they work from home and travel to a temporary workplace, we ask them to deduct their ordinary commute if they are travelling in a similar direction.

This process has worked for most employees. However recently this small group of employees have needed to go to various temporary places of work throughout the day and have a driving pattern of:

Home to Temporary workplace A
Temporary workplace A to home
Home to Temporary workplace B
Temporary workplace B to home
Home to Temporary workplace C
Temporary workplace C to home

Section 3.39 in the HMRC Ordinary Commuting and Private Travel guidance says 'Tax relief will of course be allowed for the costs incurred on travelling between the employee’s home and a temporary workplace' so we want to know if we continue to deduct the commute from the original journey unless its significantly different, but allow for all other journeys to and from home that day to be claimed? Or should all journeys be claimed for?

I would to say thank you to the people who have helped me in my previous post.
Really, it is so much appreaciated.

I have found that a PAYE has been opened, chasing and chasing and chasing, my old accountant (an online accountancy agency, please avoid if you are thinking about them).
However, he has never submit any of my payroll in the tax year 21/22 to HRMC on the company behalf.
I would like to understand roughly how much the company has to owe in terms of arrears and penalties, I am also considering to sue my old accountant agency for negligence or bring him in civil action, if it worths.

Is there any way/method/formula to calculate roughly a PAYE Arrears, including penalties to understand how much I have to owe ?

I have done a research but i have just found bits of information, without a clear mathematical way to apply on my case.
This is not for a payment to HMRC, is just for me to understand how much I should expected.
Would you mind to help me, if you know, to understand if there is an empiric way to calculate this amount ?
My mind is running and expecting thousands of pounds. The limited company has a sole director, myself.

Fiscal Year: 2021/22
Salary type: monthly
Salary amount: 736 £ fixed + "x" dividends (varies, but not more than 800£ monthly)
Number of Salaries Payments : 9
First payment: 2/09/2021
Last payment: 22/04/2022

Thank you in advance to everyone can help me to figured out these.

Have you a lovely weekend.

We need to despatch a washing machine to Republic if Ireland. We supply a raffle company, UK based and we are UK based so we invoice them as per normal, we also deliver the prizes we supply. One of their prize winners is based in the Republic of Ireland. The courier we normally use has asked us to complete export paperwork but as their is no sale or invoice between the recipient and us it is difficult to see how to complete the paperwork as there is no finacial transaction.

Hi there, Thank you for welcoming me to UKBF.
In September 2022 I bought some sofa legs from a supplier in China using Alibaba. Express delivery was used at a cost of 131 USD. I am in the process of reordering the same sofa legs and same quantity as before but have been given a price of 350 USD for express delivery this time. Can any explain to me why the price of the delivery has almost trebled over the last 5 months? This extra cost is making it almost unviable to buy from Alibaba anymore.

I just want to know which payment platform is worthwide to cooperate with.

I've been asked to help chase a 3k debt for some hire of a meeting room. Most of this is from 6+ months ago. The company is a limited company with a good credit rating (per Experian). They have been communicating with the person previously dealing with this, but she was given the run-around by them.

I'm looking for advice on the best way to get this paid. I'll try asking first of course, but if (when) this doesn't work do I go the legal route, try a solicitor's letter, pass it to a debt agency, or what?

Hi, I'm starting up a company in the UK and trying to register a Business name however it has been rejected due to section 78 of the Medicines Act 1968 which specifically highlights the term 'Chemist', the term I have used in the business name is 'Alchemist' which has an entirely different spelling and definition, what can I do to resolve this with Companies House?

Would it be best to contact a lawyer and would pricing go with this, as I'm low on funding - the company is for a barber business which kicks off in 3months.

Hi Everyone,

I've found a fantastic product that currently sold in Canada that I really believe there to be a market for here in the UK.

Other than reaching out to the company to see if they'd be interested in supplying me, where would you suggest I begin?

Would I set up a company in the UK as a subsidiary of their company? I.e Company Name (UK) LTD?

Any advice or pointers would be greatly appreciated to help me decide if it's a worthwhile venture.

Many Thanks,
Ben

Does anyone know the correct way to fill out the W8-BEN-E form specifically in reference to

Part III Claim of Tax Treaty Benefits​

14. Special Rates and Conditions


What percentage rate would one enter for Dividend income from US shares, is it 15% or 0%
And if it is 15%, can a UK-limited company claim this tax back when filling out their corporation tax returns or using any other mechanism?

I believe dividend income from UK shares is not taxed when being received by a UK Ltd company, so wondering if it's worth investing in the US market or not. It feels like being taxed twice.