Been meaning to write this post for a while as it's something I've been thinking about a lot recently through my work in the bathroom industry.

A few years ago if you mentioned acrylic shower panels to most homeowners you'd get a pretty dismissive reaction — "isn't that just cheap plastic cladding?" was a pretty common response. The reputation of the product category was honestly not great and I think that was largely down to the flood of thin, low quality PVC panels that dominated the market at the budget end and gave the whole category a bad name.

Fast forward to now and the landscape has changed almost completely. The panels coming through from quality manufacturers are genuinely impressive — 8mm and above acrylic with surface finishes that photograph so well you'd genuinely struggle to tell them apart from high end tiles in a lot of cases. Marble effects, concrete finishes, botanical prints, even licensed artwork designs. The design range has exploded.

What I find really interesting from a business perspective is how the customer conversation has shifted too. A couple of years ago most of the questions we'd field were "are these as good as tiles?" — now it's more "which brand and thickness would you recommend?" The product has clearly crossed some kind of credibility threshold with the mainstream UK consumer that it hadn't reached before.

A few things I think have driven this:

— The grout cleaning problem never went away and people are genuinely fed up with it
— Instagram and Pinterest have exposed a much wider audience to well-executed panel installations
— The quality of the top tier products has genuinely caught up with what sceptical buyers needed to see
— Installation time and cost savings are increasingly understood and valued

From a trade and retail perspective it has been a significant shift in how we talk about and position these products.

Curious whether anyone else in the trade or running businesses adjacent to home improvement has noticed the same thing — or whether you've had different experiences with customer perception in your area. Also interested whether anyone has thoughts on where the market goes next — more premium finishes? Larger format panels? Different substrates?

Would genuinely love to hear different perspectives on this, particularly from people working in different regions of the UK where the uptake might be different.

Really useful tool, thanks for sharing this. Just plugged in my postcode and it pulled everything through nicely - good to see the relief breakdown laid out clearly rather than trying to work it all out from the council's letter.

Quick question - is there any way to pull in the floor area data as well? Would be handy to see the m² that the valuation is actually based on, so you can sense-check whether the VOA's got it right without having to dig through their site separately.

Also, I've got a small unit in SE15 that doesn't seem to come up when I search. It's definitely on the VOA list so not sure why it's missing. Might be worth a look.

We switched to ClickUp about 18 months ago after trying most of the others. Agree with @paul what sold it was that we could mould it around our existing process rather than rebuilding everything to suit the software. Once we got clear on our own workflow first, the tool slotted in.

minimad99 said:

Oh I see, I just want to avoid assumptions. Looks like "total price" will be best then. Thank you

Click to expand...

"Price" is more than adequate.

WaveJumper said:

Anyone making use of AI in their accounting processes

Click to expand...

Yes, I do, and it has become a fundamental part of our business process.

The system I’ve developed interfaces with our CRM, Xero and our own internal systems to cross-check data reliability, preserve a single source of truth, support batch handling, and maintain auditability across the workflow.

It also helps with intelligence gathering and process governance, so decisions, handling rules and exceptions can be tracked properly rather than living in someone’s head or getting lost across emails and spreadsheets.

In practice, the real value comes from using it in a controlled way, so repetitive and document-heavy work moves faster without losing consistency or review discipline.

Jim Collins said:

That is a good call and what I had to. Was hoping for statements which for me can't be that hard for these guys to fulfil.

Click to expand...

Assuming you're after the PDF invoices, have you tried the mobile app? I've often seen the PDF editions going back quite far.

numbersrule said:

The Contract and their invoice is many times higher than the Small Claims Court Maximum.

Click to expand...

Then County Court action, after they have spoken to a specialist lawyer.

Newchodge said:

White collar crime is always treated more leniently than working class crime.

Click to expand...

Change 'always' to often and I may agree, but that's certainly not always the case.

The American voice on the xero training videos talks about there being different VAT in different states - you'd think they'd know VAT doesn't exist in the US

apricot said:

Is it 3Eur or 2Eur? Not much of a difference though! Either way, we are messed up!

Click to expand...

The French one is €2. There is also a planned EU-wide one of €3 I think ... but I don't know if that is on top of the French one, or will replace it.

Somebody needs to stop Trump!

Custom Geek is right. UPS invoices doesn't separate the charges on the invoices, it took me a while to sort out my delivery with them.
They charge for Delivery, Custom and VAT in one invoice and doesn't show the breakdown.

Thank you all. Claude suggested a company called SGS — they can carry out testing, review labels, and confirm whether the product is suitable for sale in both the UK and EU.

I hope I’m heading in the right direction! Wish me good luck!

Hello

Adwords have provided a new offer to me, which I am going to take up. Luckily it's only a slight increase in my monthly spend to qualify. And I'm going to increase by defining more keywords that are targeted.

Adwords to send out a lot of emails, so it's worth digging around your inbox to locate it.

You have to spend x amount within 60 days of activating the voucher, so if your account spend is less, be prepared to create the keywords,campaigns or bid increases to qualify.

UKSBD said:

Thanks,
what about minimum wage, is that based on when work was done, rather than payment date?

ie. if doing 50 yours in March, but paid in April is it still the 2025/26 minimum wage rate, even though it is paid in next tax year and after minimum wage rates change?

Click to expand...

Minimum wage rate is paid according to the pay reference period (PRP). That is the time for which you are being paid, maximum one calendar month. In your case the PRP is the calendar month. NMW rates apply at the rate that was payable on the first day of the PRP when the work was done. NMW increases with effect from 1 April, so all work done in the April PRP should be paid at the new rate. The March overtime can be paid at the old rate.

If an employer pays 4-weekly they may have a PRP that starts on 06 April, so their staff don't get the NMW increase until the PRP that starts on 4 May.

Incidentally it is a criminal offence not to pay at least NMW for all work done in PRP by the end of the following PRP.

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.

Click to expand...

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.

Ask me anything
If its business related I will try my best
If its anything else I might make it up

My first thought is that a lot depends on how big the agreed price range is.. I you are happy with the bottom end of the range that is one thing. I think the key negotiation is on this range before you start to worry about measuring performance

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

Click to expand...

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.

Each time you do a job, compare what you estimated against what it actually took and refine your estimates.

fisicx said:

Then as already suggested pay for invoice financing or trade credit insurance.

Click to expand...

Invoice finance companies generally won't fund any invoices over 90 days past due

QBO does have stock control with unique SKU's and bundles.

I think you need plus or higher subscription.

Interesting reading through the responses here, there’s a clear pattern emerging.

Most of the situations being described didn’t start as disputes.

They started as something small:
– a conversation that felt slightly off
– expectations not quite aligned
– communication drifting
– something that didn’t sit right, but wasn’t addressed

And in many cases, the reason it wasn’t addressed early was simple:
no one wanted to make it awkward or it just wasn’t picked up at the time.

By the time it’s clearly recognised as a “dispute”, it’s often no longer just about the original issue, it’s about everything that’s happened (or not happened) in the meantime.

That’s usually what makes it more time-consuming, more expensive, and more draining to resolve.

Feels like the real challenge isn’t disputes themselves, it’s recognising and dealing with things earlier, while they’re still manageable.

fisicx said:

In order to improve a business you don’t start with AI. You first look at current processes. You may use AI tools to do this but AI isn’t the start point.

Click to expand...

Like this?

Data Swami said:

it requires planning nd understanding of your business processes to then identify where the value is in adding AI and Automation not just piping in claude to your business and expecting it to fix everything

Click to expand...

and of course we need to remember AI doesn't fit everywhere like;

Data Swami said:

AI is being touted to take jobs really only by the ones that want to expand their revenue and reduce costs without having people. MS and a couple of businesses already tried it last year and rehired engineers back as it screwed up.

Click to expand...