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What’s my business worth? Built a tool for UK SMEs — looking for feedback

henryd
Banksbroo said:
Having started the business sale process with a professional broker (ie. not a we-buy-any-business type operation) I was struck by the detail of the scoping and discovery stage. Basic financials we're easy to answer. But more probing questions over things like customer longevity, order frequency, process documentation, formal contracts, credit control procedures, supplier analysis, risk analysis, stock control etc opened up a very useful insight into what could be improved, documented or refined to increase company value. I have a feeling that this background stuff, say as an efficiency / optimisation dashboard would have more value to a company than a "how much is it worth?" question. Improving these scores would give a company reason to use it as a regular tool. The market would be businesses with a growth and exit strategy with the exit years down the line, but using your analysis to help guide / monitor company progress towards an optimum sale proposition.
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That’s reassuring to hear, this is exactly the direction we’re thinking.

Beyond the quick valuation, we’re building more in-depth flows that help owners understand how sellable their business actually is, and what they need to improve to increase that over time. Some of those flows already exist inside the app today and have had businesses use them.
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Tax Calc for charities

Daybooks
eteb3 said:
Yes. Things get trickier when a single bank entry needs to be split between multiple funds. Currently I have a category “ignore this transaction”. I transpose it to another sheet where I do the splitting. I borrow double entry principles (I think…) to check that total ignored transactions = total on split transactions sheet

Your point about bespoke workbooks is well taken. A collection of manually consolidated sheets should work fine, and won’t break

PS one other headache is donations arriving in Bank net of transaction fees, e.g. from Just Giving type sites
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Keep things super simple. You probably want a standard chart of accounts structure encompassing a nominal name, project code and possibly another, say, organisation code for flexibility. Each has their own table which is used as to populate a drop-down list when entering transactions.

The project table contains the fund code if desired. This means you can record by projects within a fund simply through the project code.

Your cashbook is just your prime entry recording book.
When a bank entry spans multiple projects simply use as many individual lines as there are projects needed - on your cashbook. You have a ‘bank rec’ column on same cashbook whereby you reconcile it back to the Bank Statement.

Fees reduced from incoming receipts get handled in the same way. Simply create extra lines - meaning you have the gross income analysed by project and fees analysed to whatever project resolution you desire.

The heavy lifting of reporting is done on your consolidation workbook.
One solution; many uses.
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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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