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Companies House Security Breach

K
companies house insist that it is a tedious hack and can only get 1 company at a time, and not a broad tool where hackers just extract the entire database in one go.

I can tell you that it's not going to be difficult of a task for a hacker to use sql injection to get all the companies house details one by one over time. Just run a script to automate this.

Dont think of yourself as safe if no details have been chnaged. With the directors DOB and home address, it's possible for any criminals to open a business bank account and get a business loan deposited to the bank account and cause some serious damage.
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USB Flash Drives

gpietersz
Marantzdigital said:
Hi

Thanks for sharing

What would be recommended for long term permanant storage eg for family photos which I am sure would apply to a lot of us on here who are not keen on uploading such personal items to a cloud or similar.

I used to use DVDs dual layer and CDs before this.

I think this is quite interesting given that we create and accumulate important data every day that would break us to lose.
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I you are worried about privacy you can use encrypted cloud backups.

You can also use multiple hard drives or good quality SSDs and rotate them which is cheaper than cloud.

If its stuff that really matters I would favour multiple independent backups whatever you do. Two less reliable devices are better than one highly reliable one. Especially when you consider risks such as theft and fire.
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Stress-testing an AI-built "Day 182" Calculator (Need UK HR Input)

The Resolver
Dylan

Its not yet an Act (not yet had all its 'readings' and currently called The Employment Rights Bill 2025 (not 2026)). When passed into law it will retain the 2025 year in its name

I suspect employers will simply be best advised to reduce the probationary period to, say, 5 months.

You need AI to deduct 7 from 182? Surely a simple app guiding users through the process so they can make informed choices when the period nears its end? Relying on AI will not itself lead to the dismissal being declared 'fair'.

Bear in mind that, if the senior exec responsible is not sure whether to dismiss before the 182 days have expired, then 'fair dismissal' requires a process including an investigation and meeting (and possibly appeal) before a decision to dismiss is made. So that's going to require more than one day before the 182nd. More reason to adopt the 5 month norm for probation.
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Energy Procurement Advice in the current climate

NickGrogan
Ozzy said:
The reason this is taking up a lot of us governors' time is that for many schools electric supply accounts for tens, sometimes hundreds, of thousands. One exceptionally large MAT has advised that their energy supply is £10M a year, and a 10% increase on that would be crippling.

For us, a small SAT by comparison, the price fluctuations right now are a teacher's salary, and we're having to make guesses on what the future holds or end up being forced to cut teachers. No government support, of course, as is normal, but the DfE is breathing down all schools' necks, demanding to know what schools are doing to balance the books.
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Ozzy, happy to chat about it any time.

In terms of the large MAT - if they are spending that much and budgets are that tight then the upcoming increases in standing charges are going to be a real issue, they are also much harder to reduce is they are based on location and usage.

These will add 10% long before the Iran prices hit them.

MHHS is another issue to consider as this will raise costs too - currently talking to a rather well known school with 93 electricity meters, and no practical way to reduce that.
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Old hand needs new web shop...........Shopify?

Paul Kelly ICHYB
Ozzy said:
you will need to move your domain name to Shopify
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You can just repoint the DNS - keeping the domain and server separate might.

@Lucan Unlordly Shopify & WP/Woocommerce actually work in similar fashions. Your choice would be based on how much you want to manage the platform - Shopify is managed, WP/WC needs installing/setting up (but it isn't difficult).
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Corporate & Commercial Lawyer - All queries welcome!

Paul Kirk
Hi everyone 👋

I’m a freelance corporate solicitor offering flexible, practical support to businesses of all sizes – from startups finding their feet to established companies needing extra bandwidth. By way of background, I am an ex-City lawyer with a wide range of experience in a variety of corporate, commercial and general business legal matters.

Always happy to have an initial chat 😊

Thanks!
Paul
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Website to book courier collections.

M
Thought it was time I updated this thread

We asked @fisicx to look at this for us and he explained things in terms a 5 year old could understand which was fantastic for me.
After lots of testing and breaking (mostly myself breaking it.. Garbage in and garbage out right!!)
So after lots of tweaks and me changing what we wanted and adding extras as we got further into it, We are now about to roll out the 5th and final phase.

What started as a simple site has grown behind the scenes and I can't thank Graham enough.

I think the hardest part for Graham was A: integrating with another 3rd part app especially if they change something which breaks it B: the customer breaking things..( a little bit of knowledge can be dangerous)


But a massive thanks the Graham

Defo owe you a beer!!
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Best Platform for a Food Business – Amazon or Shopify?

darwin_nguyen
Great discussion here. I'd say it depends on where you are in the journey. Amazon gives you instant traffic but you're competing with hundreds of sellers in the same category especially saturated ones like Himalayan salt. Shopify gives you more control over branding, margins, and customer relationships, but you have to drive your own traffic.

If you go the Shopify route, one thing I'd recommend early on is adding a live chat to your store. A lot of first-time buyers in the food/specialty space have questions - ingredients, sourcing, shelf life, shipping and if they don't get a quick answer, they leave. I've been using Chatty AI Livechat for this. It's an AI-powered chat app built for Shopify that handles those kinds of questions automatically, 24/7. Helps with conversion, especially when you're a new brand and people don't know you yet.

But honestly, before picking a platform, sort out your positioning first. Who exactly are you selling to? Home cooks? Health conscious consumers? Restaurants? That answer will tell you whether Amazon, Shopify, or even local markets make the most sense.
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How do we get Backlinks?

Shopclicks
AndrewEnt said:
Although I can see we need more support and it might be a good way to engage potential sponsors, I don't want to be selling snake-oil if they don't add any value?
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Most of your sponsors wouldn't know what a backlink for SEO purposes is, if it jumped up and bit them.
The usefulness of a backlink from your website should only be measured in the number of click-throughs it gets. A site offering backlinks for sale without high traffic volume is selling 'snake oil'. And even with a decent amount of traffic, unless it's done properly, adds no value.

As far as your own SEO goes, there's a lot more that could be done to build your own traffic but we can't go into specifics here as it would be called a website review (for paid members only).

Start a new thread if you want to get responses about other ways of raising money.
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Unwanted subscription issue...

Data Swami
Lucan Unlordly said:
To clarify the process...........
1. Sign up for a 1 month trial
2. The trial will renew for $3.99 per month billed yearly, one month after your trial starts or upon using your last coin.
4. You can cancel at anytime.

Believing I was on the free trial it appears I used more than the allocated 'coins' when trialling a video generator, which automatically triggers the yearly payment.

Yes you can cancel but it makes no difference to the payment - so you won't find a cancel button that effects the current situation.

I think it's sharp practice by 'Creative Fabrica'.
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Ye i would charge it back with the bank. Without knowing what platform was used and not knowing where the details of what the state here are listed for a consumer to see its very wishy washy and dodgy with the way theyve set it up likely looking to fleece people who just want to test out their app.
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Would you pay less if you knew your provider was using AI?

fisicx
Data Swami said:
Its a bit rich from Insurance companies that XD. They were caught not too long ago using dodgy algorithms full of bias for their underwriting
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And the big four accountants caught with their trousers down, the auto industry, utility companies and everyone else - they are all dodgy. And of course the tech industry breaking the law is so many ways then just paying fines and carrying on regardless.
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Companies House screws up again!

Ozzy
Aye, just linking to the original post;

www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk

Companies House Security Breach

This doesn't make great reading; https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/tech/tech-pulse/companies-house-security-blunder-leaves-director-data-exposed So on Friday a really simple way to breach confidential director information was made public, which as it turns out had been in place for ~5 months...
www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk
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I’m rethinking software. I’d value your input.

Frans VH
louis292 said:
Manual pain points I see a lot: quoting, chasing invoices, onboarding clients, moving data between systems, and reporting. None of it is sexy. All of it eats hours.
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I agree that moving data can be very timexonaing. But quoting and chasing invoices are part of the integrated systems like Odoo, Zoho and others. What in your experience are these systems missing that would make the process more efficient?
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UK subsidiary - with EU branches - wanting an EU VAT number. Is that possible?

MikeJ said:
Certainly traditionally, companies held stock in the UK to service GB and Ireland (as a whole). Honestly don't know now, but certainly pre-Brexit it would have been the natural thing to do.
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They still do but it does have both duty and VAT implications. If it’s not done properly either using bonded warehouses , transit or returned goods relief, duty becomes payable on reentry to the EU. It’s nonsensical but the text of The trade agreement doesn’t allow duty free reentry for EU goods once the goods have left the EU.
The storage of EU goods in the UK to service Ireland has been a big headache for even big companies.
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