-
New to the Small Biz Moneysaving board? Start here
Useful guides from MoneySavingExpert.com Do I need a business bank account?Coronavirus Self-Employed & Small Limited Company Help
-
Booking say I owe them £4,000 - they are holding my host payments
So there have been quite a few glitches with booking.com recently. a, they changed my bookings to instant bookings without my knowledge b, They, suddenly started sending my notification emails to my safety email address, which I do not check. c, they have been paying me on the wrong payout date Recently, I had to cancel a…
-
Being cheap with being 'Making Tax Digital"
Hello all, I wonder if anyone had any thoughts on this. I recently started using FreeAgent, but because I'm cheap I'm using the Landlords version. I only provide a service and don't sell products. Does anyone know if this will be ok with the taxman? The landlord version gives me everything I need, Landlord is £10 and…
-
Do customers get more frustrated by lack of updates than by the delay itself?
Something I’ve noticed recently in a small business/admin role is that customers often seem more frustrated when they don’t know what’s happening than by a short delay itself. For example, if a transfer/refund/order is taking longer than expected but there’s clear communication and updates, most people seem fairly…
-
When customers start paying from different company accounts, do you see it as normal or a warning si
We’ve started noticing more situations where invoices are issued to one company name, but the actual bank transfer arrives from a different entity or account name entirely. Sometimes it’s clearly a parent company or related trading name, other times it’s much less obvious. At small scale it’s mostly just an…
-
Defendant dies before deadline to serve a document on him expires
I would like to know what happens to an order from the court requesting the claimant to serve a document on the defendant by a deadline if the defendant dies before this deadline expires .I would like to know if an order to strike out a claim because the claimant has failed to serve a document on time on the Defendant is…
-
How do you avoid chasing final invoices?
I’m starting to notice a pattern with a few project-based clients and wondered how other small businesses handle it professionally. The work itself gets reviewed and approved quickly, communication is great throughout the project, but once the final invoice is sent things suddenly slow down. Replies become vague, finance…
-
Need some advice
Hi everyone, I need some advice regarding opening a business. I have never opened or done business and neither has anyone in my family so I thought this would be a good place to ask. My friends and I (there are 3 of us) are looking to open a children's residential care home in London. We are each investing an equal amount…
-
New Business Startup Questions - Business from home
I’m in the process of setting up my small business which is home based baking and catering for small events. It’s an idea I have been brewing for a few years now and I have practiced with baking various things (always enjoyed and been good at basic baking) and have been practicing cake decorating techniques and taking my…
-
HSBC Business Banking - Extremely Poor
Hi I don't often post on forums, but HSBC Business Banking has left me enraged. I own and run a small building maintenance company, one of the company credit cards has stopped working, I called the customer services to resolve. I was passed to 6 different people over the course of an hour, asked to verify myself 4 times…
-
Reducing time spent chasing overdue invoices
I work in a small business where overdue invoice follow-ups seem to end up back with the same people who originally dealt with the customer. It’s becoming quite time-consuming, especially when most of the work is just sending reminders and checking whether payment has arrived yet. I’ve been looking at whether automated…
-
Automating overdue invoice reminders — worth it?
I help with admin/accounts for a small IT services business and overdue invoices are becoming a bit of a time drain. At the moment reminders are mostly manual emails and follow-ups, which works but takes more time as client numbers grow. I’ve recently come across systems that can automate payment requests/reminders…
-
When evidence should be provided when filling an N244 application notice
During a hearing the judge has given permission to the Defendant to make an application within a specific number of days. The Defendant has filed a N244 application notice within this number of days putting some explanation in Section 10 of this form but without attaching any witness statement to it. The court has listed a…
-
SumUp - referral code to yourself (free/cheap new card reader)
SumUp users may be familiar with SumUps referral links & £50 bonus if your contact buys a card reader etc. I’ve used that to create an additional account for myself to tidy up my payments for HMRC, I referred myself which gave me half price deals on the new account, but it also worked to be paid a £50 bonus on my original…
-
Are some Open Banking services more reliable than others?
Following on from my earlier thread about payment checks and Open Banking, I’ve been trying to understand whether there’s much real-world difference between the various providers/services behind these systems. A lot of them seem to offer similar features on paper, but I’m more interested in the practical side — things like…
-
How do businesses protect against payment delays?
I help with finance/admin for a small business as a side hustle and we recently had an issue where a scheduled customer payment collection was delayed unexpectedly by our payment provider. The delay only lasted a couple of days, but it still created a lot of chasing, customer confusion, and cash flow stress. It also made…
-
Cost-effective ways to check source of funds for larger client payments?
I help run a small but growing SaaS business and we’re starting to take on some higher-value business clients. We’ve been looking at doing a bit more due diligence on where payments are coming from, mainly to avoid issues later on. At the moment, proper checks seem quite manual or require specialist support, which can get…
-
Cutting refund fees for online orders?
For those running small online shops, how are you handling refunds without losing too much to card fees? We process ~2,000 orders/month and fees on refunds add up quickly. Are there lower-cost refund methods people are using, or ways to reduce those charges?
-
Two jobs, one PAYE, one self employed - how to work out NI contributions
I don't know if this goes here, but I am trying to work out some stuff before I actually do it. So i have a primary job, earning around £28k/year. I freelance on weekends as an instructor and can make up to £250 on the weekends (but wouldn't always work every weekend). So my intention is never to cross out of the 20% tax…
-
Construction Industry Scheme questions - insurance.
My son is 18 and has started working on site under the CIS scheme. He is sorted for with the Inland Revenue with his self assessment number and he’s registered with the CIS scheme. He is paid an hourly rate and the contractor he works for is deducting 20%. All ok so far, I think. We will keep all receipts for tools and…
-
Making tax digital questions
Hi, I’m a taxi driver and up to now I’ve written all my income and expenses in a book which I total up at the end of the year and send to my accountant that then does my SA. I have some questions about MTD, my accountant has said that I don’t need to do anything different other than give him the figures every quarter is…
