Hello, I hope someone can advise me on a query regarding shipping.

I recently started e-commerce, and I am considering placing an order with an Alibaba supplier and using a logistics agent (whom I also found on Alibaba). The supplier will send the goods to the agent, who will then transport them to my door under DDP incoterms.

I don't currently have an EORI number, so I asked the logistics agent if they would use theirs. They informed me that an EORI is not needed for ordinary goods and is only required for special goods. My understanding is that it is needed regardless, but I may be wrong. The agent then assured me that it is not an issue, as they frequently handle CN-UK DDP shipments, and if there is any problem, the logistics agency would resolve it since the shipment falls under DDP incoterms.

My question is: does this sound reasonable, or should I look for an agent who specifically mentions that they have an EORI number they can use for bringing the goods into the UK?

Thanks in advance.

If you are a sole trader and not VAT registered, Is it a legal requirement to provide each customer an invoice for your service?
Or can you simply keep records of the sale/service by your bank account statement and maybe a receipt? I am thinking of times when it is not feasible, for example, a one off payment from a customer who wishes to pay straight away after your service.

Thanks.

Is it possible to change company names whilst the the company status is showing compulsory strike-off action has been suspended?

It seems that competition in recent years has been getting tougher, and quite a few businesses are shifting towards DTF. Does anyone know the specifics of what’s going on?

Hi all, I’m working with a UK client who’s building a structure of several Ltd companies (consulting, SaaS, and a community style business). We’re setting up a separate IP company to hold intangible assets such as brand/logo, course content, frameworks/methodology, templates, know-how, client lists, etc.) . The plan is for the operating companies to license what they need.

The commercial driver here is exit optionality: the client previously had a situation where they couldn’t sell one business cleanly because IP/rights were entangled across entities, so we’re trying to avoid that from day one. Royalties would be modest and we’d document the rationale behind them.

My main question is around future IP evolution: if the operating companies develop/improve content/processes over time, what’s the best-practice legal approach to ensure the IP company remains the owner of improvements/derivative works while still reflecting commercial reality?

If anyone has views on the overall logic (or pitfalls you’ve seen in practice), I’d appreciate your input. Also, I’m looking for recommendations for a UK commercial/IP solicitor who can do a paid consultation and draft/review the IP assignment + licence agreements (including “improvements/derivatives” wording and buyer-friendly transfer/step-in clauses).

Thanks in advance.

Hi we currently us DX Freight as they are the ONLY company i can find who will ship our items. We sell long items that are light, but awkward. Max dimensions are 6000mm x 150mm x 150mm 25kg. They are packaged in solid cardboard tube. DX Freight have lost 3 of these this week alone and refusing to pay compensation as the parecls were going to a private address. I have scoured online trying to find any other companies but no luck. This is going to bankrupt us, they simply do not care.

Hello,
Client has retained profits in a UK trading company and intends to use approximately £250,000 to fund renovation of an overseas residential property that will be let.
I am reviewing the UK tax implications only and considering the most appropriate structure, including:

• Extraction via dividends and personal ownership
• Establishing a separate UK Property SPV
• Funding through an existing trading company
• Use of shareholder loan vs share capital

I would welcome practical insights on:

• Corporation tax treatment of overseas rental income
• Impact on trading status where property activity is introduced
• Any common structuring considerations or risks under UK tax law

Many thanks.

Has anyone found a workaround for Google Business Profile when you're fully remote?

I tried registering but got declined because I don't have a physical location to verify. I'm a virtual assistant working with UK small businesses - all my work is remote, but I still want to show up when potential clients are searching locally or for remote support?!

A Webflow site with 11000+ content. Need to interlink all those. It will drive me nuts if i try to do this tracking in google sheet.

On my Shopify and Wordpress sites I use Linkboss. It handles it perfectly. Fast & the suggestions are good. Ditched the previous tool I was using after finding Linkboss. But they natively don't support Webflow sites.

So I need something at least half decent to save my sanity.

Hello,

Please could anyone help me with the below,

For completing a Self Assessment Tax Return, Does the period of time include any income accrued, or only income physically received/paid within that period.

For example I became Self-Employed in February of this year, I have accrued earnings between February and 5th April 2025, however I will not physically receive any payments until after 5th April 2025,

Would this go on my 24/25 Tax Return based on accrued earnings, or should it be carried over to 25/26 once the money is physically received into my account?

Thank you for your help.

Bit of a niche one, but I’m hoping some people here won’t mind sharing how they do things.


I work in logistics for a big healthcare company and spend most of my time buried in parcel data – couriers, failed deliveries, weird surcharges, that kind of thing. It’s all very glamorous.


On the side I’m looking at whether a “lightweight tender” approach (basically a proper review of rates and service, but without the corporate bollocks) actually makes sense for smaller UK businesses, or if most people just want something that works and don’t care beyond that. It's a service that would hopefully secure cost savings for many SMB's. We saved 25% on one of our divisions return parcel prices this year. Whilst we have a huge business and scale, savings from doing parcel tenders are extremely common, even if we aren't talking about tens or hundreds of millions in yearly spend on parcels. Even at £20,000 yearly parcel spend it is not only possible, but common to have relatively large savings percentages, and who would complain about a couple grand in savings?


If you run a UK business that ships physical products, I’d love to hear:
– Which couriers you’re using (RM / DPD / Evri / DHL etc.)
– How you ended up with them (price, recommendation, easiest to set up…?)
– Whether you’ve ever properly reviewed what you’re paying since you first set it up
– What winds you up the most about your current setup – cost, reliability, tracking, surcharges, lost parcels, something else?
– Is this service would potentially be something you'd be interested in doing for your business on a 'no savings no fee' basis?


I’m not trying to flog software or anything here, just trying to work out if the problems I see at work actually show up in smaller businesses too, or if I’m overthinking it.


If anyone would be up for a quick chat about how you handle shipping in your business, I’d really appreciate it. Happy to share what I’ve seen go wrong (and right) on the logistics side in return – might help you avoid a few headaches down the line.


If this isn’t ok for the group then mods feel free to remove.

Hi, I run a franchise business with my friend, we are self employed. 21 months before our contract end date we asked about renewal options and also what happens if we decide not to. Our franchisor has now stopped us from taking any enquiries or bookings beyond our contract end date, this will jeopardise our business in that by the time our renewal discussions come into place 3-6 months before the end date we will not have any bookings in the diary and will not want to renew due to it no longer being a profitable business and we would be almost back to square one. Our franchisor knows the importance of us being able to continue taking enquiries now and we can’t see anything in our contract to say she is able to stop this a whole 21 months before our end date, does anyone have any experience with this? Any suggestions would be helpful, thanks

Morning,

We have been using Whatsapp Business quite successfully and wondered what everyone's experience with it is?

We use it for incoming enquiries regarding services and general communication.

The main issues we have is
-having a linked device log out and then struggling to reconnect as we work remotely. It means someone has to get hold of the one main phone...
-Missing messages that have been made read

Look forward to hearing of how you get on with it

Daz

How do we go about finding an accountant who has experience of handling a community benefit society's statutory accounts run under the Charity and Community Benefits Society's act of 2014, controlled by the FCA and based on the quickfile accounting programs?

Hi all, I’m in the middle of some inheritance tax planning. I’ve just sold a piece of agricultural land for £500k (held it for 10+ years). I want to give the money to my daughter now.
My accountant says if I give her the cash, I have to live 7 years or it’s taxed at 40%. But... if I use that money to buy other farmland and gift her the land instead, it might be exempt from IHT immediately because of "replacement relief."
It sounds a bit like a loophole—is this standard practice or is it more complicated than it sounds?

David

There's a couple of accounting terms that keep tripping me up:

• Creditors: Amounts Falling Due Within One Year
• Accruals and deferred income

For last year's accounts for my LTD company I had paid my accountant's fee upfront. He put that fee under "Accruals and deferred income" which I thought made sense at the time.

Now, upon reviewing it all against some more formal definitions, it no longer makes sense to me.

I've looked up the definition for "Accruals and deferred income":

Companies House definition:
Accruals and deferred income


CH's definition is quite generic but it does say "subsequent accounting period", which would suggest the accountant was right to put it where he did, However I then found this in a UKBF post:

Accruals and deferred income - accruals are costs incurred in the period but not billed. Accounts must show all costs incurred in a period so you need to add payments, unpaid invoices and accrued amounts and deduct opening creditors and accruals to arrive at the cost for the year.

Click to expand...

This definition is more specific, and it talks about "costs incurred in the period but not billed".

In my case the accountant's fee was 1) paid and billed upfront and 2) not incurred in the period (because the accountant always does your accounts when the accounting period is over), so I'm confused.

Also, "Accruals and deferred income" is a sub-item of "Creditors: Amounts Falling Due Within One Year" which, again, would suggest this accountant's fee is part of the debt my company owes, which is not the case because it was paid upfront.


Is it just accounting practice to do it like this, or is there something else going on?

Thanks for clearing up any confusion!

I am so stressed.

I was self-employed up until 5 years ago and then moved back into self employment at the start of 2024 when my mum became ill.

I asked HMRC to reactivate my account and like a total fool thought nothing more of it. I tried to log into my self assessment account at the start of my week to file my tax and pay with my government gateway ID. However my password wouldn't work. Then I realised that the email linked to the account was a blueyonder email that was disbanded by Virgin Media last year.
I've rang the online team 3 times to get my email changed. I've got through personal security fine, but keep failing at the business security. I have scoured my documents but they keep asking me info I do not have (the month and year I registered for self employment, the month and year I started trading). Basically it was 15+ years ago and I have autism. My mum did everything for me, including looking after all of my documents. Now she is in a care home with dementia and I don't know what happened to them.

I'm stuck. They have said I have to file a paper return and maybe appeal the penalty because of my disability. I am not going to lie and say that its made me so anxious that I'm consumed by it.

I really don't know what to do. They said I can't close the account and open a new one without going through security questions.

Does anyone have any advice?

Reviewing again our couriers, Not sure if we have the volume to go direct to couriers (sending on average over the year 75 a day) or use an aggregator like ParcelHub or InXpress

Hello everyone!

In July 2025 I completed the Verify Your Identity process with CH and got my personal code. Today for some reason I checked the details of my company on the CH website (in the company information section) and to my amazement I saw that both me and my other director (also verified in July) have until November 2026 to verify our identities (both in Directors and PSC sections). I don't quite get it – how is it possible that the same authority that got me verified has not updated its own records? Has anyone come across the same situation? What didn't I do (if I didn't)? Also, I got verified as Director (if I remember correctly) but do I also need to verify my identity as PSC separately? I'm not sure there's any help article on this on the CH website or I couldn't find it.
Please share your experience.
Thank you!

Hi all,
I am currently developing a website for my business. The site will be informational only (a business profile / portfolio ), and no orders or transactions will be processed through it. However, I am considering adding a “Contact Us” form that would allow potential B2B partners to send us a message along with their name and email address.

I would like to understand whether having this type of contact form would mean that I am required to register with the ICO and pay the data protection fee, given that my business is not currently required to do so.

As an alternative, would simply displaying my business email address and/or phone number on the website—rather than using a contact form—avoid the need to register?

Any guidance would be appreciated. Thank you.

Looking for an independent engineer in Humberside who deals with commercial ( coin operated)washing machine repairs . Any recommendations, please?

Hi all, new here. Hope I've posted in the right place. Looking for a sense check.

I am about 10 years into my career and about to try consulting for a short trial period of around 3 months with a couple of startup clients. The work is hands on delivery, day rate based, around 3 to 4 days a week, and while it's nuanced, I am working inside IR35.

This tax year is already a bit messy for me due to PAYE work earlier in the year, a bonus, parental leave and redundancy, so simplicity is a big factor. I am trying to decide whether to invoice directly as a sole trader or go through an umbrella company and submit timesheets.

This is only meant to be a 3 month trial to see if this way of working suits me, although it might extend beyond that if it works out. I'm not looking to optimise tax, just avoid unnecessary admin or headaches for a short test period.

Is there anything obvious I am missing that should push me one way or the other? Any common pitfalls with umbrellas for this kind of setup?

Thanks in advance.

Hey,

My Wife didnt like how her 6 month probation meeting went at her job and decided to resgin with the required 2 months notice as stated on the contact as the resignation was post probation period.

My wife's resignation later originally stated 2 weeks notice as she thought because the probation final day / meeting was on a Friday and the letter was handed to them at the weekend it would count. HR replied and confirmed it would need to be 2 months from 23rd November. Further discussions ensued as they tried offering a different role which she declined on 19th Dec. She then replied suggesting she believed "29th Jan should be her last day if she calculated correctly" and asked HR to confirm if this was OK. HR replied same day thanking her for confirming and that her last day would be 29th Jan 2026.

No further communication was made until today when my wife got into the office to find access to all services was revoked and she was asked to leave and work the remaining notice from home on a few small handover items. She asked for this in writing and was sent this a few hours later which also stated that her last day would be 22nd Jan. She replied stating this should be 29th as agreed.

They have appologised saying this was a mistake and sorry for the confusion but her notice was handed in on the 23rd November so her last day would be 22nd.

Is there anything she can do in regards to this? I know it seems petty but it feels like theyre trying to save some pay and it feels quite unfair as she has made plans around this.

Thanks for reading!

Hi there,

Since lockdown I've been dabbling in 'copywriting', I use the term loosely as I seem to have solely secured content-writing gigs, I have quite a few years of experience in manufacturing and have been using that experience to write blog posts for manufacturing companies. A little bit technical, little bit persuasive, but mostly it's about keywords, links, and all that SEO stuff.

I'm happy with the niche I've carved, and I'm happy with the rate I'm getting, but all my work so far has been through UpWork. It seems being verified as a UK native helps a lot in winning work there.

I see many manufacturing companies that have blogs and 'news' sections on their website that I could help them with, but they're often very hard to contact, and usually, even the people in charge don't know what a copy/content writer is, as they use a marketing expert to handle it all.

So I tried contacting marketing agencies and have had little interest. Just wondering if I need to keep improving my approach (email copy and image) or if its just that these agencies are reluctant to hire the services of freelance writers?

Also, what margins are they typically working at? One of my long-term clients pays me £110 per article flat rate, typically 1,000 words (I don't charge per word don't worry!) and with a decent amount of information and relevancy, with the usual SEO focus. That said I've never actually got as far as discussing rates.

Anyone with experience of agencies that can shed light?

Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for some honest feedback on a tool I'm building.

I feel like nowadays, whether you run a business or want to build a personal brand, you are "forced" to create content. But the learning curve sucks:

1. You either watch 20-minute YouTube tutorials full of fluff just to learn one basic concept.
2. Or you buy expensive courses that are pure theory and boring as hell.

My idea is simple: Gamify content creation learning.

I'm designing Omnia, a tool for people who want to improve their online presence (Sales, Virality, or Authority) without spending hours studying. The goal is to train your "creator eye" with quick 5-minute daily challenges, so you instinctively know what makes a video work.