Recent content by Blackford Biz

  1. B

    UK State Pension Contributions Required

    Maybe this can be useful to others too? I'm 66 in December 2025. I want to know how much I am entitled to. My 65-18= 47 years of adult life has been spent as follows: 3 yrs - FTE University (no NIC?) 17 yrs - working in Middle East (paid for 3yrs NIC) 26 yrs - working in UK 1 yr - two half...
  2. B

    Expat Tax

    I have worked in Bahrain for 12 years. For 10 years I worked here and paid no tax. I retired 2 years ago. I didn't let HMRC know I was leaving UK in 2012. I have had resident visas up to June 2023, then have used renewable visit visas until now. Last year I withdrew £25k in March from my IOM...
  3. B

    ERP System for SME Marketing Communications Business

    What systems are out there for small marketing communications businesses (advertising, design, digital, media, medical writing) of 20-100 employees, 500 customer CRM, turnover $ 50 - 250m and 200 invoices/month. I used Netsuite with a previous company but is there any better suited alternatives...
  4. B

    Accounting for Companies House fee?

    You should probably have accrued for it while making final accounts. Now that it's done, it's not a material amount so the tax man won't be interested. I assume you transferred the bank balance into your personal account so the credit against that fee has been received by you already. (Netted off).
  5. B

    STAFF, Trainee jobs Youngsters, Where have they gone !!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhGb-BaGw2Q Global effect of what your seeing
  6. B

    Advice

    Sounds like a grey area but if you had a private car and stayed in hotels, these would have allowances so your camper van is a hybrid of these. I assume you'll get a mileage allowance for travelling fuel expense. For the camper van here's what I'd argue. Say cost is £12000 and you use for...
  7. B

    STAFF, Trainee jobs Youngsters, Where have they gone !!

    One constraint on the labour force is that this "younger" generation is smaller in numbers as the general population moves towards the retirement of the boomers. Younger people can go straight into college so there are less kids on the market, so it's not all about salary.
  8. B

    Greenwash

    There is no climate change emergency. This is a WEF Globalist agenda to make the rich richer. What there is however is a disastrous misuse of the world's natural resources and now as the "righteous" west outsource to China & India, we are hammering our own businesses and citizens for pollution...
  9. B

    Business Closure

    A business has year ended 31 May 2022 and covid has pretty much killed it. It's turning only £80 a month so needs to be shut down. For a final accounting period could 31 August 2022 be used providing bank account is closed by then, all creditors including HMRC paid and all marketing stopped? So...
  10. B

    What business awards are good?

    He's just as much of a w@nker in real life as he is on screen !
  11. B

    What business awards are good?

    I used to write cases and papers for business awards for our small (40 people, £11m) business. Our industry awards were for effectiveness/ROI/creativity so held some kudos. I had Lord Heseltine & Piers Morgan present me with two awards in 2006 which got us terrific press coverage. Getting press...
  12. B

    100% Renewable Energy ??

    The fact is there will always be a need for fossil fuels as renewables only provide electricity. Electricity accounts for only 20% of our energy which includes nuclear so there is a huge gap to fill until we are fossil fuel free. Energy is the world's biggest challenge going forward together...
  13. B

    Being ‘on retainer’ as a service provider

    I used to run a marketing agency and retainers were the backbone of our cash flow. We'd work with the client's annual budget and marketing plan and estimate hours from each service eg design, creative, account management etc then divide by 12. We'd then provide rates for additional time over and...
  14. B

    Best way to raise £500K

    If there was ever a time to enter the hospitality market, it's not now. The next generation of covid is being manufactured, sorry mutating, as we speak. The initial question I'd have is how long would it take for me to get back my £500k given the risk of business downturn or upturn. Using your...
  15. B

    Which should I study? Economics or accountancy?

    I did a BA Accountancy and it had two economics semesters. I did a Warwick Business School MBA and it had three economics/international business units. With all that behind me, I'd never do an economics degree as it was all based on assumptions and theories which drove me nuts as it was in...
See more
Top Bottom
Community
Articles
Menu