Hi, looking for advice. I rent a unit from a private landlord. He told me he gets wholesale Electric supply, this means I pay electric bills to him. I have just two freezers on 24hrs and use the unit about 4 to 5 hours a month to produce food. My bill is higher than my neighbours that are regular. Three months came to £870. I refused to pay as I told him Iam not happy, they should check and see if something is wrong with my unit.
I got a letter at the top saying hand delivered. If I do not pay in 14 days they will lock my unit. Like bullying me. He also have my three months deposit which is not in the deposit scheme.
I need a lawyer or suggestions or advice please. Thanks

Hi all thanks for reading this, so I've started a reselling side hussle online, my question is, when you sell something do I reinvest the profits or reinvest how much I paid for the item? If you get me
Thanks again!

With the increasing financial pressures hitting us all personally and in business, I thought it would be a good idea if members shared their ideas and hacks to reduce costs, increase efficiencies and generally save money in business (not personal!).

Hi,

I recently dipped my toe into starting a service based business. I traded for a couple of weeks to check it was feasible and because it was I registered the Ltd company a couple of months back.

Before the company was registered, I paid for a domain, equipment, google ads etc which has amounted to a few thousand.

Am I able to claim these costs by classing the money as a directors loan paid to the company or should it be a business expenses which will be tax deductible at the end of the year?

Thanks in advance

Morning All,

I have two employees who I want to treat equally, so one is no worse off financially than the other, what is the best way to approach the cost of the mileage. Employee A is a sales person and is reimbursed for 20,000 miles @ 35p per business mile. Employee B is office based and travels 54 miles per day incurring the cost of the fuel, I know the guidelines from HMRC, but what can the business do to ensure both are treated equally?

Can anyone recommend a good Occupational Personality Assessment questionnaire/tool for use during recruitment? If it's free it would be a bonus! Thank you.

Hi! I hope you can help answer this. Here's the scenario, "I would like to set up a limited company in the UK (lets call it company b), with the sole purpose of investing excess profits into stocks and shares from another company, that I own (let's call this company a)". My question is what is the most accurate and the best industry SIC code to use - which banks would be comfortable with for opening a business bank account? and also which uk bank is most likely to allow me to open a business account for company b? Thank you for helping!

Hi All,
I'll try and keep this to the point.
Got taken to court, even though I'd offered refund.
Customer refused to send or allow collection of goods.
We end up in court and judge awards her 30% less than I originally offered and no court costs.
I had to pay because she had confirmed order electronically and I didn't send t&C's in this format. I had given them to her face to face at her property but the law doesn't see that.
I paid her what the court ordered within 14 days so I wouldn't get a CCJ to mine or my companies name. She has accepted receipt of the monies.
I sent boxes via courier to collect the goods. She refused to put the goods in the box for the courier stating she would only accept collection after 6pm on a weekday or at the weekend after 1pm.
So I've paid her, she's got the goods and to boot, she's gone all over Facebook on loads of public groups running me down.
What can I do?

Just did a website upgrade and will be great to know any thoughts and its called Eternal Wigs

Hi I am just starting up and after some advice if possible!

I initially did not think I needed to make international payments but have now realised I will. Therefore I am starting to look at my current business banks fees etc for international payments. I decided to look around and came across Wise’s business account. On the website it says you can use it along side your main account. Does that mean that I can keep my current business bank acc and have a Wise acc too? Also would that make sense or would it make more sense to just have one business bank account with Wise to use for uk and international payments? My current bank has cheaper fees for uk payments.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Hello everyone, I don’t like staying with “I want” but……

I’m a minority shareholder in a Ltd company. I no longer work for that company but still remain a minority shareholder. Company revenue circa 30M with extensive national network infrastructure assets - last post round valuation was ~200M

I’d like to know the following:

As a minority shareholder, what am I entitled to ask for / what is the company obliged to provide me with:

Example:

Can I ask to see the current Cap Table
Can I ask for the latest Shareholders agreement
Can I ask for confirmation of my share holding ?

Who would I contact to request the above?

Thanks in advance to anyone that reads and or replies with correct advice

Richard

??

Background: Limited Company delivering personal services - outside IR35. Living in Scotland. Income from pensions circa £68,000. Age 75. Shareholder and director of the LTD. Currently not taking any salary. Assume already taken the £2,000 tax free dividend. Company has only 2 directors/shareholders. My wife takes a salary of £670 per month, so no NI involved.

So, I am trying to compare the effect of taking money from the company as dividends or salary. So, assume that profits of the LTD are greater than £30,000.

I have assumed that the optimum approach is to minimise the tax paid to HMRC. So, taking the £30,000 out of the company:

Option 1: Dividends. LTD Pays £5,700 in corporation tax at 19% I pay £9088 in income tax at 37.5% on the remainder. So, HMRC get £14,788.


Option 2: Take a salary: LTD does not pay CT on the £30,000. I pay £12,600 income tax at 41% So, HMRC get £12,600. Am I right to assume no NI?


On the face of it I should take the salary. Does this seem right or am I missing something obvious?

A question please from the other side please if that’s ok.

I live in a very quiet old street which is all residential except for a historic 400yr old pub 2 doors along. The pub is great, a tourist attraction, noise levels in the beer garden are acceptable and all other potential disruptions acceptable in this fine old inn. Except, that is, for the noisy refrigeration units on the outside walls.

There’s a constant drone from them 24hrs a day. I hear it in my garden which I could live with but also inside my flat, even with the windows closed. In summer I’d like to open the windows at night but the drone is too loud.

I’ve been round to speak to them but they said for data protection reasons they can’t give me the manager’s contact details. I left my details and await a call back.

Helpful barman did say one of the units is a cellar cooling unit, only a year old and the quietest on the market. There are another 2 units on the back wall though and these are louder.

Pub owned by a premium country pub brand with lots of well known names so will have resources to fix this if there is a fix.

If it was ventilation units I could ask for them to be turned off at night. What can I do about refrigeration units though? Do you get silent ones? Is it worth contacting the Council if the manager doesn’t respond? Any advice appreciated.

As inflation hits a 30-year high, the cost of running a business has skyrocketed. Whether it’s cooking oil or building materials, electricity or eggs, fertiliser or second-hand vehicles – putting up prices as a business can only get you so far.

We’re keen to hear from anybody that has successfully renegotiated their terms or prices with their suppliers. If that sounds like you, what advice can you offer to other UKBF members feeling the squeeze? Any renegotiation tips to weather the storm?

Conversely, has anybody already tried to renegotiate with their suppliers but failed? If so, what did they say? What are you doing instead?

Any other thoughts on renegotiation generally are more than welcome, of course.

Good evening ladies and gents,

I plan to start a small mead brewery but I have some...blanks that need to be filled in.
Besides the alcohol license needed to sell the mead (plan on selling online) is there anything else that would be required (from a legal point of view)
Also, is it possible to start the brewery in a self storage unit? (again, from a legal point of view)

Many thanks

Hi, newbie here! ? I started my business alone earlier this year, things are going in the right direction but I'm thinking there are a few routes ahead of me the biz could take. Plus I'm finding things pretty lonely at the minute. So, I'm starting to think a mentor would be beneficial but I'm getting mixed views about the subject online.

I'm just wondering if any of you guys have used a mentor? Has it been beneficial or detrimental to your business? How did you find a mentor?

Thanks in advance

Hello, I started a Ltd company in July and purchased some products from China, my import costs for this are £1300, unfortunately my shipment has been detained at Felixstowe. They are testing it for compliance with British Standard and won't release it until tests are complete. The cost is already £2000 for 15 days it's been held at the port. My Ltd company has no money to pay these costs. Please could anyone explain the options I have?

Hi,

I am an Uber Eats restaurant partner as a sole trader. I am owed some money from Uber but haven't received it yet.

I am planning to change the business to a limited company.

Will I still be able to receive the money I am owed?

Thank you.

Hi

I am going on a business trip soon; however I don't have a credit card to pay for my expenses on the trip.

I was wondering what options do I/my employer have?

My manager has got a company business card.
Is it legal that we register this card on my phone for contactless mobile payment?

Thank you

Hi all,
Just joined this forum. I registered a company in the UK a year ago (Let's call it X Ltd) and started using it for contracts and other legal documents. We are planning to release an app. Initially, we called it "X App", but since it was a tongue twister, we started calling it "Y App." Now we are considering operating under the name "Y AI" (AI for artificial intelligence). Instead of registering for "Y AI Ltd" and moving all contracts and documents, can we just register somewhere that we are X Ltd but operating under the name "Y AI"? I think this is called DBA (Doing business as) in the USA. Is there something like that in the UK? If we register this, is everyone barred from registering the name "Y AI Ltd"? Or is it safe to just register "Y AI Ltd" and we can say we are X Ltd and "Y AI Ltd" is a subsidiary?

Any advice is much appreciated.

I run a small HR tech consulting business supporting companies to select and buy HR tech. Our normal client size is 1000 employees+ however we are currently doing a piece of work helping a small SaaS-based assessment technology business break in to the UK. Their product is aimed at the SME market and offers a range of simple data-backed assessments, etc to make the recruitment process more objective and robust.

Our role with them is to create a partnership model in the UK for them with anyone that supports the SME sector (HR consultants, accountants, etc) that would consider being a referral partner. They also have an open API so ATS/HRIS that support the SME sector also very interesting for integrations, though it can be used as a standalone.

They are paying us for time and the partnership agreement would be between them and the partner - so its not our service we are talking about. It's not HR in the context of the HR Forum which is much more operational from what I can see ?

Any thoughts ?

Thanks

Evening! I’m new here so please bear with me, this is probably going to be long. I have so many questions but no idea where to start. I’m a nurse currently working through an agency. I’m with an umbrella company, but I’ve been advised by colleagues to set up a limited company, I suppose to get more out of my hard earned money. I’ve heard about IR35 - don’t know much because the more I read about it the more confused I get. So my first question really is, is it worth setting up a limited company? My agency give me shifts in various hospitals in different cities/towns so I travel a lot but I’m unable to claim these expenses from my umbrella. Advise and suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

I have built this website as pilot project to help people to post there classifieds for free on freeadsz.com. This website serves into more than 180 plus countries to post classified ads from multiple countries/cities etc.

Its been 1 year now the website have huge amount of new/return visitors on daily basis. Website already got 4600 plus signups in couple of months. Lots of new ads and registrations are happening on daily basis without spending a single penny on marketing this website. Everything is automated in the backend to manage most of the stuff of this website.

The website have multiple revenue stream such as premium ad posts, Adsence, Banner ads, paid blog post by country/city.

Concern: Due to huge traffic, daily posts and registrations the website server cost is going up. I have already upgrade the website server within last 1 year but still its not enough to handle such big website which have huge potential to grow online.

Rather than scrapping this website i am looking for potential buyer who can buy this website and continue this as a business to become huge online market pioneer for buying and selling stuff online.

Please provide me right direction to connect with potential buyers to sell this classified website.

Hi,
Not sure if this has been covered before however. I have a fly angling small stillwater trout fishery business.

I’m aware of most Fisheries being slightly avoidance in what they put through the books however this is something I don’t agree with nor wish to do as I wish to make the business grow to a point where Incan sell it on to retire.

Let me explain why growing the business in this industry is an issue when it comes to VAT. Firstly perhaps reading these court decisions will help what we do and why decisions have already been made through HMRC being appealed against their views however they won.

I can’t post the web links on this thread so look up Google for the legal judgements.
Search

trout fishery to avoid VAT how can we cope
VATLP10200
and
On the hook the overall tax treatment on the activity of fishing

If we purchase to make our waters appeal to anglers to catch lots of fish we need to stock the waters regularly. For example say I was to purchase £85,000 worth of fish (no VAT when purchased as it’s a food item) then sold permits for anglers to fish and took in only £85,000 hence making no money the £85,000 would be standard rate VAT. Therefore I would always run a negative. We in reality need to probably put in around £45,000. So with even just myself and 1 staff (unachievable when we need to open 7 days a week from early til dark, so need time off at some point) with costs of just fuel getting to work, fuel to run generators, and a small wage we would hit the threshold very quickly. The more we take in, the more VAT ‘obviously’, but we cannot pass this onto the customer as we don’t sell them a guaranteed goods/products. So in essence we buy stock without VAT but using it counts towards VAT. How do we grow the business?

The main issue is 99.9% of anglers are sports only anglers so almost no one kills fish or even wants to. If we only charged a minimum fee for the fishing and a separate price per fish killed and taken this taking price would be zero rated. If we did this 99.9% are still not taking so we are none the better off.

It appears I have a business that will always run negative if we get better. How can this promote growing our type of business.

I love the business and can make it hugely profitable regarding income but this will always kill it. Does anyone have any ideas how to legally beat this?

Thanks