I own four separate Ltd companies. One of which is a manufacturing business acting as a key supplier to three hospitality sites. The manufacturing business is viable and supported by shareholders. I'm considering closing two hospitality sites as the level of profitability is no longer worth it in the current climate.

The manufacturing co is a majority shareholder of all the hospitality Limited companies but the shareholdings are slightly different at each location.

I don't completely understand how closing these would impact the manufacturing business as the majority shareholder. We have a time to pay agreement at each site with HMRC as well as a bounceback loan without enough cash assets to pay them in full on closure so we may need to liquidate the companies.

Would that be problematic for company that is the majority shareholder?

Options as I see them
1. Liquidate the companies leaving only HMRC as creditors providing it isn't problematic for majority shareholding co

2. Write off any intercompany debt resulting in a positive net asset position and potentially sell the businesses (lease permitting)

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I have a hospitality business which has been hit and not really recovered from the
COVID lockdown. Now one of my electricity providers has increased my monthly bill by just short of 2000%. I am in dispute with them but to be honest have lost the will to
continue with the business. I am a limited company with just this electricity bill some HMRC debt and a BBL. What is my best way to close the Company and how do I proceed with the BBL? Ideally i’d like to be closed by the end of December .

Hi guys,

I am looking for any advice on how we could increase our panel of insurers to offer alot more competitive prices and offer some new insurance products. We specialise in home insurance and are based in Leeds, we are directly authorised by the FCA and have been for a number of years. We was looking to take on Taxi insurance and also expand our existing insurance panel to offer our customers some better rates. If anyone could point imus in the right direction it would be much appreciated. Thank you for reading.

First of all, I have zero intention of pursuing this idea. It is not an area of expertise, and I couldn't afford to start even if I did have the expertise. I would be interested in hearing what people thought of the idea though.

The idea is that you install solar panels for free in every house. The residents/homeowner/landlord would then have their electricity bills paid for by solar power. If the solar power does not cover the bill, the homeowner must top it up with the energy company. If the solar power exceeds what was used, your company collects the excess instead of refunding the excess to the homeowner, and that is how the company makes money. You'd be making money on the underutilisation of solar panels.

Hi there,

im looking for some advice and possibly someone who could point me in the right direction for my needs. Ill try to be to the point. I have been in buisness for roughly 6 years with another partner. The working relationship has pretty much broken down so I'm looking at potential legal options now but I don't know where to start and what rights I even have to be honest. ill try and get to the main issues and see if there's anyone that can advise possible outcomes.

Me and my business partner have (stupidly) never had any contracts between us in regards to the business. We have always worked on a gentleman's agreement and split any profits between us. We have tried many different ways to resolve the issues but sadly we cannot come to an agreement on certain key issues. How would a business partnership be settled legally without any contracts between the 2 parties? We have both openly expressed that we will start looking at legal options now.

The first issue I have is that me and this gentleman have a business premises that we work from. My name is on the business premises and my business partners name is not as I put the deposit down initially for the unit so I have been liable for the duration of this tenancy. Would my business partner have any legal rights to contest me carrying on working from this premises if for instance we decided to stop working together or the buisness in its current incarnation came to an end?. He has keys/access to the unit so would changing the locks etc be a problem?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I don't have a clue where to start with this and ideally would not like to start spending vast amounts of money that I don't have on legal fees etc. Happy to answer any follow up questions if needed.

Thanks

This is really to get around the limitations of my freeagent accounting software. I need to dispose of some assets off the balance shet. But freeagent wasn't designed for my type business and on the list of assets to pick from the dropdown menu is limited to the oldest 50 on books.

There loads of balance sheet items that are 10+ years old and have been depreceated over 7 years ago.

Store shed, parts for flight cases etc.

Can I just dispose of these items off the balance sheet so I can get to the newer items to dispose (from sale of capital asset).

I think freeagent does a good all round job for freelancers (which is what it's marketed to). But I think I may be outgrowing the functionality of this with my AV rental and ecommerce business. clearly freeagent doesn't think their customers businesses should not have more than 50 capital assets in the business.

Hi folks,

My website guys have told me that it would make sense to move our site to a more reliable server to futureproof us from any hardware issues with our current server becoming quite old. They suggest AWS

The issue is, the site is very well established and over the years we've had many custom developed features built into it. They tell me that the current coding isn't compatible with AWS and we would need a complete new build.

I was hoping the current site could have the code upgraded to the latest php and then we continue as we are for the time being, but apparently this isn't possible or wouldn't be the best option?

I'm also told we wouldn't be able to keep the URL's - This is a major problem to us as the site ranks well and we can't afford to lose our rankings.

Any help or advice please guys?

Hi everyone, sorry is this is a random one. I have a casual coffee/brunch meeting with a supplier and some colleagues tomorrow in Birmingham. We need to be within a reasonable walking distance of New Street as a couple of people are arriving by train. We planned to meet in the lobby of the Radisson Blu, but I may now have to take my dog with me as I might be continuing onwards down South for a couple of nights break visiting family.

I don't suppose anyone local to Birmingham knows anywhere close to New Street that would be dog friendly and open at around 10am for at least coffee if not food?

I have stopped my e-commerce business on eBay since 20th November 2022. I am currently VAT registered and done my recent quarterly VAT for the month August, September and October. For the month of November I didn't have a single sale. Do I still need to do the next quarterly VAT ?

I am still yet to file my self assessment tax year 2021 -2022.

Can I include the tax year 2022- 2023 which is from 6 April 2022 - 20 November 2022 in 2021 - 2022 self assessment or do I need to do it separately ?

What steps do I need to take now to stop being self employed ?

Could someone please provide me some instructions.

If this question was asked in wrong section, could the admins kindly redirect this post to correct section.

Many Thanks.

Hi

A newcomer here to the site, I wonder if anyone can help me with the following please. Any advice or experience on this would be great.

At the end of Sept (on a weekend, not work-related) our apprentice broke his left wrist (he is right-handed). He has been unable to work since and remains signed off with a sick note until the end of November. During this time he has been attending college due to a mutual agreement between us so that he could keep on top of the work, his writing hand is not affected. Whilst on SSP during this period my husband has personally paid the apprentice's travel expenses to attend college from his personal bank account.

He has asked the hospital when he can return to work and they have said it is up to him, the wrist probably should have been pinned at the beginning (it has never been pinned), and if he returns he should not use the wrist.

How do we stand as an employer? He works in a manual role, using drills and tools, lifting and carrying heavy loads, and installing and servicing air conditioning units so he would be unable to do this satisfactorily and safely if he has been advised to not use the wrist. We do not have office roles for him to undertake.

Should we tell him he needs to remain off sick until he is fully fit to do the job role (with a new sick note) or can he return and do ‘what he can’ and be paid full pay?

Hi, just wondered if anyone knew or had experience of how long it actually takes to receive the letter and payment for Redundancy from the Redundancy Payments Service.
It has been a painful process but the employees have now started to receive their the only info I can get is that it takes longer.

Hi. We put our company into liquidation last year, and now a year later the liquidator is asking for various bank statements, credit card statements, etc that we don't have.

The landlord locked us out of the unit before we'd had a chance to collect everything, and as you can imagine when we returned a good portion of the office furniture/paperwork was missing. The liquidator gave the landlord everything in the offices by way of a disclaimer I think.

I've been as cooperative as I possibly can be providing everything we could to the practitioner we appointed, only for another practitioner to be replace them. I assume practitioners talk. Would it usually take 12 months for the liquidator to ask for something we don't have, considering they sent a team to collect what remained themselves?

My concern is if I haven't got access to these documents any more and my responses are such, am I technically being uncooperative, and could it prove difficult for me?

Thanks

Hey all - new to UKBF,

I'm starting a vending machine business with a friend of mine, we're both keen and motivated. Currently we're scouring the web for the best vending machine to buy. I've viewed a few forums on here however they were all from a good few years ago and well, times change. Can anyone help by providing recommendations on the most reliable/value for money vending machines here in England? We've got a good location (no other vending machine within a few miles) and have secured the spot for it, we literally just need the actual vending machine and we're good to go. Any helps/tips/direction would really be appreciated! If it helps, our products will focus more around snacks as opposed to drinks, but we'll probably put a few drinks in there.

I signed up to a lead generation site - <<name removed by mod>>. They promised me loads of leads and a 3 month contract initially for £168 per month. I was a complete mug and signed. 4 months later - no leads. I tried to cancel only to be told that I had signed a 12 month contract, not 3 months(this is where I’ve been a mug!). Note to self - ALWAYS read Ts&Cs. They are now threatening me with legal action for non payment. How do I proceed?

Hi All,

The client is in non-uk resident. He will open limited company in UK. He wants to invest in gold and stocks on behalf of broker. He agreed to give me 5% return monthly on his investment. Let say He invest £20,000 and end of the year he will make £15000. How he will manage his tax liability on this income. Please advise. Regards YG

So, I have an itch I need to scratch. I'm heavily into my cars and have always wanted to sell a few cars here and there from home. I stress this would be a much-needed source of extra income and I do have a day job.

Since the pandemic, the industry seems to have become very closed and hush hush, with auction houses not publishing their fees or allowing public sales anymore, and trade sites requiring proof of trade insurance.

The main costs I'm accounting for:
- cost of vehicle (aiming around £3,000)
- auction/trade site admin costs (10% of sale value)
- self-insure warranty/repairs (5% of purchase price on each vehicle added to float fund)
- delivery costs (£100 per vehicle)
- trade insurance costs (£125 per vehicle)
- Valet (£5 materials - done by myself)
- advertising costs (£50 per vehicle)
- 'negotiating a deal' (5% of marketing price per vehicle)

The main barrier to entry for me is going to be the trader insurance, which seems to be highly fixed and it doesn't matter if I sell 1 car a year or 50 a year, seems to be about the same kind of price - £1,600 was the cheapest quote I got (through A Plan). I'd probably aim to start with about 1 car a month (I have ample off street parking so, this won't be an issue). If I can get up to 2 a month, I can halve the insurance costs on each vehicle.

This brings me to the next point around auction houses and trade sites. My closest auction house is BCA Blackbushe (i live in Southampton). I've been to the site before - it's so colossal there's not much point even walking around because you physically can't see the cars you're interested in before sales start. I'd probably keep to buying main dealer trade-ins or buying through trade sites, like Sytner. Having been to auctions as a kid and speaking to a few people in the motor trade, these seem the most risk averse approaches in exchange for a lower profit. The industry is now so hush hush, I have no idea or means of finding out what the auction fees are for buying. Can anyone give me a matrix or idea? All I can assume for now is around 10% of sale value through an auction (as above).

Electrical and mechanical repairs I can do most myself and have most garage tools.

From all i can recall (again because i can't actually access an auction to observe and learn before diving in), rough markup is around 35% per vehicle.

Using my assumptions, an illustrated example for a vehicle purchase price of £3,000 would have a marketing price of around £4,200:

Vehicle cost £3,000
Auction fees £300
Delivery £100
Insurance £125
Advertising £50
Self-insure warranty £150
Valet £5
Total costs: £3,730

'Negotiating a deal' £200. Sale price £4,000

Net Profit: £270


Can I check this is a fair assumption? I.e buying and selling 12 vehicles a year, I could expect to to make about an 8-10% net profit i.e. £3,000 a year net profit.

Please no crushing opinions because if you're not already in the trade, there's very little information available and it's difficult to get in.

Hi,



We are a business running in the UK and purchase B2B services from abroad. We recieved an invoice from a supplier who did not know about reverse charge procedure. The invoice which was subject to a reverse charge does not state any phrases like 'Reverse charge: Customer to pay the VAT to HMRC' nor it states any VAT tax rate on it.

What are the legal steps thath can we make here? Should we ask the supplier to change the invoice stating clearly that it is a 'reverse charge' and 20% VAT rate? Can we amend the invoice by ourselves? Should we make a second version of an invoice to HRMC?



We will be thankful to any helpful information from anyone! Thank you!

Hi everyone I need some help I attended the Book Keeping & Accountant session last Tuesday and I have miss laid the Lady who was being interviewed details. Does anyone have her details? because I am after an accountant.

Thanks in advance.

Hi,

My name is Alex, our company is B2B and B2C designing services. We are planning to open a business in the UK and become VAT registered as well. We deal with a lot of supplies from non-EU/EU countries on which the reverse charge procedure will be applied.

Unfortunately, we have not found any HMRC information regarding non-domestic reverse charge invoices anywhere. So far we have determined only domestic reverse charge procedures, that require stating ‘reverse charge applies’ and mentioning a VAT rate on the invoice (That will be used for VAT return but not to be included in the overall payment of the invoice).

Do the same requirement apply for non-domestic invoices in our case? Or are there any sources that we missed explaining our question?

We will be thankful for any helpful information from anyone! Many thanks in advance!

Hi All,

I am really struggling at the moment with delivery and would love to hear your thoughts. I am trying starting my home food business and want it up and running end of this month or beginning of December but I need a system where customers can pre order so Just Eat, Deliveroo and Uber are out of the question as they only let you preorder on the same day. Whereas I need at least 2 days in advance as I already work full time.

In the UK I realised we are not as lucky with delivery options as they are in the US.

My question or struggle is-

1- Do I just do the delivery myself for a 2.5 mile radius but then will have to cut the amount of orders I plan to recieve as I will be delivering it (10-15 minutes drive each way) so basically will lose 30 minutes per order

2- Hire someone- It will be costly for a at home small business, if I give then £10 over 30 hours( opening hours) = £300 a week for 1 driver when I guess I will make £600- Half my pay is going on a driver and I have not looked into process of actually hiring someone

I can not offer click and collect , so this is not an option.

I hate both options! I dont want to be driving around delivering food when I need to be cooking the food but I also hate the idea of paying a driver hald my earning per week.

Help please!

Hi,
I'm trying to register for CDS with HMRC, but because I had a different EORI number prior to registering for VAT (which gave me a a new EORI number) it is now impossible to register for CDS (the old EORI is still linked to my tax account).

I'm trying to get this fixed by HMRC for over 6 months now, but they aren't able to and now started to just ignore any enquiry about this topic.

Has anyone here had similar issues and managed to get them solved and if so, how?

When CHIEF will be deactivated in a few weeks I'll have enormous isdues/cost importing goods without access to CDS.

I am registering as a sole trader but I run two unrelated businesses. One is a website & the other one is a live streaming company. Can I register with my names been the company and then have these two businesses as trading names ? Would it mess up how I sort my tax etc?
Thanks!

I'm trying to figure out how much money I'll need to spend on an accountant. I need the following services:

Yearly ltd company accounts
VAT registration in the UK
VAT registration in the EU
VAT returns in both UK and EU
Help with finding any relevant funding opportunities (R&D tax credits etc.)
Bookkeeping

Ideally, I'd like to pay monthly, so I don't have a massive bill at the end of the year. I don't have much money so I'm really looking to cut costs as much as possible.

Hello all,
We have a small brick-mortar shop selling childrenswear and footwear complemented by an online shop.
We are going to close our brick-mortar shop but would like to continue with the online shop, running it from home.

My question is: since we are running it from home, we do not want returns to be posted to the residential address.

Can anyone recommend postal mailbox services or similar, suitable for small family run businesses?

At the end of 2020 to the start of 2021 I applied for a startup loan from:


I was successful and received the money. Unfortunately the business didn't work out as planned and I had to close it down. I'm still paying off the debt as it was a personal loan. The thing is I learnt so much from my mistakes that I'm sure I won't make them again. I'm just wondering if you can apply for a second startup loan or whether you are restricted to just one? I intend to pay all debts back as required.

I'm working on a minimum viable product, I'm also conducting market research and I have the numbers worked out in my business plan. I'm not planning on applying for a few months but I just want to know if I can apply for a second loan?