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An AI back office for UK small businesses: the books, the front desk and the admin in one system. It reads your bank feed, your inbox and your phone, keeps a proper double-entry ledger underneath, and asks you when it is not sure rather than guessing.

Underneath, yes — a real double-entry ledger, reconciled daily, with your accountant on a free login. But the same system answers the phone, runs the inbox, keeps the customer record and runs payroll. One brain with several views, not forty apps with a chatbot bolted on.

Owner-run businesses in the UK: trades, salons, cafés, studios, small practices. One person doing everything, or a small team with the phones ringing. It is not built for a finance department, and it does not pretend to be.

Bizzle is in early access, launching in phases. Founding members get their first three months free and a direct line into what gets built next. If you want a finished product with every edge sanded, wait a little; if you want to shape it, join now.

Connect your bank and your email and Bizzle rebuilds recent activity from what is already there. Most businesses are running within a day. The receptionist is quicker: a UK number in minutes, or forward the line you already have.

Most of what needs you is a question with two buttons, a receipt to photograph or a digest to read over the kettle, and all of that is phone work. The full ledger is happier on a bigger screen, but nothing is locked to a desk.

A flat price per business: Solo £39, Team £69 and Growing £119 a month, excluding VAT. Never per seat. Everyone who needs a login gets one at no charge, including your accountant.

Solo is the books: bank feeds, invoicing, receipts and the morning digest. Team adds the AI phone number, the unified inbox, CRM and bookings, and staff leave and records. Growing adds payroll, cashflow forecasting, the compliance vault and multi-entity.

No. Logins are unlimited on every plan. The only usage charges are call minutes past your allowance, at a flat 20p a minute, and payroll, which is billed per payslip run. Nothing else scales with headcount.

Founding members get their first three months free while Bizzle is in early access. There is no permanent free tier, because a back office that costs nothing tends to be one that does nothing.

Yes. Bizzle Phone is the AI receptionist on its own: a new number or your existing line, trained by chatting to it. When you are ready for the rest, the receptionist and everything it has learned come with you.

No. Plans are monthly, and you cancel from the portal without ringing anyone to be talked out of it. Your export access stays after the plan stops.

No. Bank connections run through FCA-regulated Open Banking providers and are read-only: Bizzle sees transactions, cannot make payments, and never sees or stores your bank credentials. You can revoke the connection at your bank at any time.

No. Your documents, transactions and conversations are never used to train foundation models. The rules Bizzle learns from your answers belong to your business and nobody else's.

Data is encrypted in transit (TLS 1.2+) and at rest (AES-256). Access inside Bizzle is role-based: owner, staff, bookkeeper and accountant each see what they should and nothing more.

Not yet. Both are on the roadmap and will be published on the trust page when certified, not claimed before. What is listed there is true today, which is the only kind of security page worth reading.

A person. The trust page states plainly what is true today, and anything it does not say we will not claim. Ask, and you will get a straight answer rather than a badge.

Bizzle does not require one, but it does not replace the professional judgement and the statutory responsibility that come with the role. For most limited companies the honest answer is still yes; what changes is how much of their time you burn.

No. It replaces the Sunday-night reconciliation, the shoebox and the 'what was this £340?' email chain. Your accountant gets current records, the full audit trail and a login, and keeps the year end, the filing and the difficult calls.

No. Their login is free, forever, on every plan, with their own role and the whole audit trail. Charging the person who checks the books is a strange way to encourage checking.

All of them. Every entry clicks through from journal to bank transaction to source document to the confirmation that filed it. No simplified view hiding the ledger, which is what makes some products awkward at year end.

Not really. They can work from their own login, or take full exports in standard formats whenever they want. Statutory filing stays with them and their tools; Bizzle keeps the records that feed it.

It reads: bank transactions, receipts, supplier invoices, the email that explains them. It proposes matches and categories. It never posts. Every journal entry is written by deterministic double-entry code, balanced to the penny and linked to the document that caused it.

It asks. One question, two buttons, and the answer becomes a rule it keeps forever, so the same question is not asked twice. Rules learned from you fire first; the AI only handles what is new.

Trust the audit trail rather than the AI. Every automated action is logged with its reasoning, and anything wrong is reversed with a proper reversing entry, never a quiet edit. Your accountant can audit the machine the way they audit you.

A real ledger. Double-entry, journals visible to you and your accountant, every entry tracing from journal to bank transaction to source document to the confirmation that filed it. You do not need to think in debits and credits; it does that underneath.

It keeps the figures current rather than assembling them in a panic the week before, and prepares an MTD-ready return your accountant can check. Filing and the final declaration stay with you, because you are the one signing it.

Yes. Quotes are drafted from an enquiry in your format at your prices. Invoices are sent, paid in one click and politely chased when late, in your wording, on a schedule you set once.

No, and it never will. Language models read the receipt and propose the match; deterministic double-entry code posts the entry, balanced to the penny and linked to the document that caused it. Every posting is logged and reverses properly.

Yes. Statutory filing, year end and the judgement calls stay with them, and so they should. What changes is that they open a reconciled ledger with the evidence attached — on a free login — instead of a spreadsheet and a phone call.

Going forward, the photograph is the filing: snap it, forward it, or let Bizzle find it in your inbox. A genuinely chaotic prior year is still a human job, and a bookkeeper is better at it than software.

Reconciled as transactions land rather than on a Sunday night. Cash position, VAT liability and who owes you what are today's figures, because the ledger is today's ledger. What waits for you is the handful of things only you can answer.

It uses regulated Open Banking, which is read-only: it can see transactions and cannot move money. You grant it, and you can revoke it from your bank at any time without contacting us.

Unmatch it and correct it. Every automated action is logged with its reasoning and reverses with a proper reversing entry rather than a quiet edit, which is what keeps the audit trail honest.

Most UK business accounts are supported through Open Banking. Where a feed is not available, statements can be imported, though you lose the daily rhythm that makes the rest of it work.

Yes. Connect each account, including savings and credit cards, and transfers between them are recognised as transfers rather than posted as income on one side and a cost on the other.

No, provided the digital copy is complete and legible. HMRC accepts digital records, which is fortunate given how quickly thermal paper becomes unreadable.

It is captured with the currency it was issued in and converted for the books. Worth checking the rate applied if the amount is material.

It will ask rather than guess. A blurred total is flagged for you to confirm, because a confidently wrong number in your books is worse than a question.

Yes. Logins are unlimited, so anyone who buys things for the business can photograph the receipt themselves. It lands in the same queue, matched to the card transaction that paid for it, rather than in a jacket pocket until month end.

Standard and cash accounting are the common cases and both are handled. Flat rate has its own arithmetic — worth confirming the treatment for your percentage before your first return.

You can file whatever the software holds, but a return built on incomplete records is a correction waiting to happen. Reconcile first; it is usually faster than fixing it afterwards.

Small errors within the correction threshold can generally be adjusted on the next return; larger ones need separate disclosure to HMRC. Telling them before they ask is treated very differently.

Yes. Quarter end and the filing deadline sit in the diary with everything else, and the return is flagged for review once the period is reconciled. Your accountant can check it from their own free login before anything is submitted.

It prepares the figures and keeps the records that support them. Filing and the final declaration remain yours, which is how it should be — you are the one signing it.

They are visible as they accrue rather than arriving as a January surprise. This is the single most common cash shock in a second year of trading.

Yes, and it belongs on the same return. Self Assessment looks at your whole position, so employment, self-employment and property income are considered together.

It estimates the liability as the year goes, from what has been recorded so far, so January is not the first time you see the figure. Treat it as an estimate and confirm with your accountant — it cannot know about reliefs you have not told it about.

Ordinary subsistence on a normal commute is not allowable. Reasonable subsistence while travelling to a temporary workplace can be. The distinction is the journey, not the coffee.

Add it later with the date and purpose. A late but honest record is fine; an invented one is not, and journeys reconstructed months afterwards are exactly what an enquiry probes.

The business proportion does. Work out a reasonable split, apply it consistently, and keep a note of the method — that is what HMRC expects rather than precision to the minute.

Yes, though the treatment differs. A van bought for the business is usually claimed on actual costs and capital allowances rather than the mileage rate, and the choice is fixed once made. Your accountant will know which suits you.

Thirteen weeks is the practical horizon for a small business: long enough to act, short enough to be based on real invoices rather than guesses.

Yes, and it should. VAT and payments on account are the two liabilities that most often turn a comfortable balance into an uncomfortable month.

Then the forecast is more useful, not less. Ranges based on your own history beat the alternative, which is finding out in real time.

Every time the books change, which with a daily bank feed means every morning. A forecast built on last month's figures is an opinion; one rebuilt from yesterday's reconciliation is worth acting on.

It keeps the ledger and produces the figures. Statutory filing stays with your accountant, who has the professional responsibility and the judgement calls that go with it.

Migration rebuilds a great deal from your bank feed and inbox, but a genuinely chaotic prior year is a human job. That is exactly what a bookkeeper is good at and software is not.

With current records, days rather than weeks — and most of that is your accountant's review rather than your input.

Yes. The accountant login is free, permanent and has the full ledger and audit trail, so adjustments are made in the same file rather than sent back in a spreadsheet for you to re-key.

No. It runs underneath. The reason it matters to you is that it catches errors and satisfies your accountant, not that you have to think in debits and credits.

Yes, and so can your accountant. Hiding the ledger behind a simplified view is common and it is precisely what makes some products awkward at year end.

You correct it, and a reversing entry records the correction. The original stays visible, because an audit trail that can be edited is not an audit trail.

Yes, and so can your accountant. It is logged like any other entry, with who posted it and why, so a manual adjustment is no less traceable than an automated one.

It answers every call on your Bizzle number, at any hour, without a hold queue. It knows your services, prices and hours, books the job into the calendar you already use, and transcribes the call into your inbox with the caller matched to their history.

No. Take a new UK number from the portal, or forward the line you have had for fifteen years. The number on the van stays the same.

A missed call gets a text back within a minute with a booking link. Textbacks are free and do not count against your minutes. This alone recovers work that would otherwise have rung out to voicemail.

The question comes to you once, and the answer is kept. Anything it should not handle, a complaint, a price it has not been given, goes to a human with the context attached rather than a name and a number.

Give it your price list, your website and your terms. Chat to it, or ring it and talk. Every correction becomes a rule. You hear it take a booking in a private sandbox before a customer does; nothing goes live until you press go.

150 a month on Team and 400 on Growing, counted as connected talk time only. Past that it is a flat 20p a minute, itemised on your invoice. Textbacks, transcripts and web chat are free at any volume.

Whatever you feed it — price list, website, terms — plus your services, hours and diary from the rest of Bizzle. Then you train it by chatting to it or ringing it, and every correction becomes a rule it keeps.

The question comes to you once, and the answer is kept forever. Anything it should not handle — a complaint, a negotiation — goes to a person with the context attached rather than a name and a number.

Yes. There is a private sandbox: ring it, take a booking, check it lands in your calendar, adjust the wording. Nothing goes live until you have heard it and pressed go.

Yes. Bizzle Phone is the receptionist on its own, and everything it learns comes with you when you move the books across. It is already included in the Team and Growing plans, so do not buy it twice.

No. Take a Bizzle number, or forward your existing line to it. Nothing about the number on your van has to change.

It does not pretend to be one. It answers, it is useful, and it books the job — which is what most callers to a trade or salon actually want.

The same thing as during them. That is most of the point: enquiries arrive in the evening, and a business that answers then is competing against voicemail.

150 a month on Team and 400 on Growing, counting connected talk time only. Beyond that it is a flat 20p per minute, so a busy month costs more and a quiet one does not.

Missed-call textbacks are not charged as call minutes. Only connected talk time on your Bizzle number counts against your allowance.

They get a short, polite text. That is a small cost against the job you would otherwise have lost, and most people ignore it without irritation.

Yes. Set the wording once so it sounds like you, and it goes out that way every time without anyone remembering to send it.

Yes. Replies land in the same inbox as WhatsApp and web chat, against the customer's record, so a text that turns into a booking is handled in the conversation rather than on your personal phone.

It syncs two ways with the diary you already use, so a booking made on the phone appears where you would look for it and a block you add yourself is respected.

You can require confirmation rather than letting it book directly. Most people start there and relax it once they trust what it is doing.

Yes — regular customers on a cycle are booked forward, which is what turns a one-off visit into a standing slot.

It offers the nearest slots that are, rather than booking over something else. If none suits, it takes the details and passes them to you — it will not squeeze a job into a day that cannot hold it.

Yes. Many businesses take bookings normally during the day and escalate only genuine emergencies overnight, which keeps the phone useful without it waking you for a quote request.

Covered like any other day, and they are often the ones that matter most — a Christmas boiler failure goes to whoever answers.

No. Calls are calls, and the allowance and per-minute rate are the same whatever the hour.

Whatever you say does. You define the triggers — no heating in winter, a leak, a lockout — and the escalation route. Anything that does not match is booked into the morning with a transcript waiting.

Yes, and it connects to Bizzle so messages arrive in the same inbox. Your existing number and history stay yours.

Within limits you set. Many businesses let it answer routine questions and book appointments, and hand anything about price or complaints to a person.

One script on the page. It answers using what it knows about your services, hours and availability rather than a generic script.

Yes. Logins are unlimited and cost nothing extra, so whoever is free picks up the next message, and everyone sees the same history rather than a screenshot forwarded from someone's phone.

Recording and transcription carry notification obligations, and the announcement is part of how calls are answered. Check what applies to your business, and keep the notice in place.

They are your data, kept with the customer record, and exportable at any time. Retention should be a deliberate decision rather than an accident — set it to what your business actually needs.

Good on clear calls, less so with heavy background noise — a building site is harder than an office. The summary is usually reliable even where individual words are not.

Yes — by customer, job, date or a word that was said. Finding the call where a price was agreed takes seconds, which is the point of having the text rather than a recording nobody replays.

Yes. A forwarded number was never ours to begin with, and a Bizzle number can be ported out. Your number is your property either way.

Connected talk time counts against your plan's included minutes, then a flat 20p per minute. Missed-call textbacks, transcripts and web chat are not charged as minutes.

Yes — separate numbers for different trades, locations or campaigns, all answered with their own instructions and reporting separately.

Yes. Set the divert to unanswered-only or after a number of rings, and you pick up when you can; Bizzle takes what you miss. Many people run it that way permanently.

Email, web chat and WhatsApp in one place, with history following the person rather than the channel. A caller who emailed last week is the same contact, and whoever picks it up can see that.

The routine, within limits you set: a supplier invoice filed on arrival, a payment reminder in your wording on your schedule, a booking confirmed against real availability. All of it logged and reversible.

Quotes, because prices go out under your name. Answers to anything it has not been asked before. And anything touching the ledger, where the AI proposes and only audited code posts.

It reads what arrives at the account you connect. Most email is not work: what needs you rises, what does not is filed with the job it belongs to, and the rest stays out of your way.

One rundown, first thing: what happened overnight, what is at risk, and the two things that need you. The idea is that you read it over the kettle instead of opening six tabs.

It files supplier invoices, sends payment reminders in your wording, and books confirmed slots into your diary. Quotes, anything new, and anything touching the ledger wait for you. You can move that line, except the ledger one.

Yes. The schedule and the wording are yours, set once, and you can pause chasing for a customer or an invoice when there is a reason. The default is polite, then firmer, then firmer again.

Reading email and extracting paperwork is part of the money core, so it arrives early. The unified inbox — chat and WhatsApp alongside email — comes with the front desk, which follows close behind.

Yes, and that is the point. An invoice raised in the van when the customer signs off is the one that gets paid quickly.

Raise a credit note rather than deleting or editing the original. Editing an issued invoice breaks the audit trail and is exactly what an enquiry looks for.

Yes, per customer if you want. Terms agreed before the work starts and printed on the invoice prevent most disputes about when payment was due.

Yes. Set the schedule once for a retainer or a maintenance contract and the invoice goes out on the day, with the payment link, without anyone remembering. Chasing then applies to it like any other.

A quote is generally an offer that becomes binding when accepted, unlike an estimate which is an indication. The wording matters, so use whichever you actually mean.

For anything made to order or requiring materials up front, yes. The deposit terms belong in the quote, not in a conversation afterwards.

Yes — a previous quote for similar work is the fastest starting point, and a template built from your own history prices better than a generic one.

You are told, the job is ready to book, and the accepted quote becomes the invoice with nothing retyped. The acceptance is kept against the customer's record, which settles most later arguments about what was agreed.

Not if the tone is right and the schedule is sensible. Businesses that pay on time never see the later messages at all, and those that pay late expect to be chased.

Yes. Pause chasing for a specific customer or invoice when there is a genuine reason, without turning the whole thing off.

The statutory commercial interest regime applies to business-to-business debts. For consumers, any interest must be a fair term of your contract, so the reminders should be about payment rather than penalties.

Yes. Payment reconciles against the invoice and the sequence stops that moment, so nobody is chased for money that arrived this morning — the fastest way to lose the goodwill the reminders were protecting.

Card processing carries a fee per transaction, set by the payment provider. It is recorded as a business cost, and it is usually much less than the value of being paid three weeks sooner.

Yes. The link is an additional route, not a replacement, and for large business-to-business invoices transfer often remains the sensible option.

Yes, and a refund is recorded against the original payment so the audit trail stays intact rather than showing an unexplained outgoing.

That depends on the payment provider rather than on Bizzle: card settlements typically take a few days, and a bank transfer through the link is usually quicker. The invoice is marked paid when the payment is confirmed, not when the money lands.

Photographs, PDFs and emailed documents. Where extraction is uncertain it asks rather than guessing, because a confidently mis-filed document is worse than an unfiled one.

Yes. Automatic filing is a default rather than a cage — you can move, retag and add documents by hand whenever the automatic answer is not the one you want.

Export everything in standard formats, documents included. Records outlive subscriptions, and any product that makes that difficult is telling you something.

Yes. Insurance, licences and certificates carry their expiry dates, and a renewal appears as a task ahead of the date rather than as a discovery on site. How far ahead is yours to set.

Yes, on the Growing plan: payslips, Real Time Information submissions on or before payday, auto enrolment assessed every period, and statutory sick, maternity, paternity, shared parental and adoption pay. The wage cost lands in the same ledger as everything else.

No. Payroll is billed per payslip run, so someone who works two shifts in December costs you two payslips, not a year of subscription. Staff records and leave tracking are free for any number of employees.

Yes, and they are free and unlimited. Each person sees what their role allows. Shared logins wreck an audit trail, and we would rather you never had a reason to share one.

Yes, at no charge for any number of employees: entitlement, requests and balances, including accrual for irregular hours. You do not need to run payroll through Bizzle to use it.

At the start of a tax year rather than mid-year, and separately from the books. Two smaller changes are far safer than one large one, and a clean boundary means nothing is split across two systems.

Payroll runs in-app on the Growing plan, billed per payslip on top. Staff records and leave tracking are free on every plan for any number of employees, because knowing who is on holiday should not be a paid feature.

Yes. The submission goes on or before payday, which is the deadline small employers most often miss. You see the run before you confirm it; Bizzle handles the filing that follows.

That is the case it was priced for. A month with no payroll costs nothing, and their leave and records are free regardless. The obligations apply whenever they work, so the setup is worth having.

Yes. Their login is free and sees the same payroll, so either of you can run it and both can see what was filed. No exports, no emailed spreadsheets.

Yes, provided the employee can access them. Electronic payslips are acceptable; the requirement is that they receive it on or before payday, not that it is on paper.

They are employees for payroll purposes when they work. Hours vary, the obligations do not, and this is where small employers most often slip.

If the company pays a salary, yes — PAYE registration and RTI submissions apply even for a single director on a small salary.

It is billed per payslip run rather than per employee or as a flat add-on, so three casual staff paid in a quiet month cost less than a full-time team in a busy one. Staff records themselves are free.

Correct it in the next FPS, or with an earlier year update where the year has closed. Corrections are normal; leaving an error uncorrected is what causes problems.

Yes — an Employer Payment Summary tells HMRC no payments were made. Silence looks like a missed submission rather than a quiet month.

By the 22nd of the following tax month if paying electronically, the 19th by post. Quarterly payment is available for smaller employers below a threshold.

Yes. The Full Payment Submission goes to HMRC when the payroll runs, so the report accompanies the payment rather than being a separate job for the following Monday. You still choose the payday.

Yes. Automatic enrolment duties start from the moment you employ someone, and a single eligible employee triggers them.

They can opt out themselves within a set window and get a refund of their contributions. You must not induce anyone to opt out, and doing so is a specific offence with penalties.

A company with only directors and no employment contracts may be exempt, but you have to tell The Pensions Regulator rather than simply ignoring the letters.

Yes, at re-enrolment roughly every three years, and sooner if they ask to opt back in. Their earlier opt-out does not carry forward, which is exactly the point of the re-enrolment duty.

They can. An employer may include them within the 5.6 weeks or grant them on top. What matters is that the contract says which, clearly.

Leave accrues based on hours worked. The rules for irregular-hours and part-year workers have changed in recent years, so check the current position rather than relying on older guidance.

Accrued but untaken statutory leave is paid in the final payslip. Getting this wrong is a common source of disputes at exactly the point goodwill is lowest.

Yes. Logins are unlimited, so an employee can see their balance and put in a request, and you approve it from the same place — which ends the version where approvals live in a text thread nobody can find.

Yes, and many employers do through a contractual scheme. The statutory amount is a floor, and enhanced pay is a contractual matter on top of it.

You must tell them, and for sick pay that means issuing the appropriate form so they can claim elsewhere. Simply not paying, without explanation, is the mistake.

Yes, typically from April each year. Payroll software applies the current rate for the period, which is one of the better reasons not to run payroll on a spreadsheet.

It applies the service and earnings tests from the payroll history it already holds, and asks for what it cannot see — the date notice was given, for instance. Where the position is marginal, confirm it with your accountant before paying.

No. Records assemble themselves from calls, invoices, jobs and messages. A CRM that needs data entry competes with billable work and loses, which is why most sit empty three months after setup.

The one you already use. Bookings sync two ways, so a slot taken on the phone appears where you would look for it and a block you add yourself is respected.

Yes: by phone, web chat or WhatsApp, against real availability. If you would rather approve bookings first, require confirmation. Most people start there and relax it once they trust what it is doing.

After the job is done and paid, when goodwill is highest, and never on a job that went badly. Replies go out on-brand, which is more than most businesses manage by hand.

Services due, certificates expiring, customers who have gone quiet. It surfaces work you have already earned without anyone maintaining a spreadsheet to find it.

No. Records assemble from calls, invoices, jobs and messages, which is the only kind of CRM that is still populated three months later. If you have a list already, import it by CSV.

Yes, two ways. A booking taken on the phone appears in your diary; a block you add yourself is respected. The point is one diary rather than three that disagree.

Every completed and paid job, by default, because timing beats wording. It never asks on a job that went badly, and you can exclude any job yourself. Replies are drafted for your approval before anything is published.

Team and above. Every plan has unlimited logins, so whoever answers the phone can see who is calling, what was done last time and whether they have paid.

Yes, by CSV. Bizzle will also assemble records from your bank feed and inbox, which usually produces a more complete and more current list than the spreadsheet you were keeping.

Yes, and a business can hold several contacts. For trades working with both landlords and tenants, that distinction matters for who is billed and who is on site.

Not in the pipeline-and-forecast sense. It is a record of your customers and everything you have done for them, which is what a small business actually needs.

Yes. Automatic assembly is the default, not a restriction — the gate code, the dog, the preference for mornings all belong on the record, and whoever answers the next call will see them.

Google is where most small business discovery actually happens, and it is the primary target. Others can be linked, though for a local trade Google is where the effort belongs.

Asking is fine. Incentivising, filtering out likely negatives before asking, or writing them yourself is not, and platforms penalise it heavily when they detect it.

Exclude the job and deal with the complaint directly. A review request is not a way to avoid a difficult conversation, and it usually makes one worse.

Yes. Set the wording once and it goes out that way, or require approval per job if you would rather. Most people approve the first few and then let it run.

The common ones, two ways. The point is that you keep using the diary you already use rather than learning a new one.

Yes. Block time, set working hours, cap bookings per day, and require confirmation for job types you would rather approve yourself.

Confirmations and reminders help substantially, and deposits help more. Together they are the most reliable lever an appointment business has.

Move the job in your diary and everything downstream follows — the customer is told, and the slots after it shift with the buffer you set. What it will not do is quietly overbook to make up the time.

Yes. Your staff, your bookkeeper, your accountant — everyone gets their own login with the right permissions, at no charge, on every plan. Shared logins wreck audit trails; we'd rather you never have a reason to share one.

Connected talk-time on your Bizzle number, rounded to the second. Missed-call textbacks, transcripts and web chat cost nothing. Past your allowance it's a flat 20p/min, itemised on your invoice — no connection fees.

Per payslip run — a small flat fee each time Bizzle processes a payslip, shown before you confirm the run. Staff records and leave tracking are free for unlimited employees; you only pay when payroll is actually processed.

Prices shown exclude VAT, the standard for UK business software. If you're VAT-registered you'll reclaim it.

It's yours. Export everything — ledger, contacts, documents, call transcripts — in standard formats, any time, cancelled or not.

Connect your email and bank, and Bizzle rebuilds your books from what's already there — invoices in your inbox, transactions in your feed. CSV and QuickBooks/Xero importers cover the rest. Most businesses are running in under a day.

First 3 months free while Bizzle is in early access, and a direct line into what gets built next — founding members shape the roadmap while the product is still forming.

Yes, from the portal, no call required. Monthly plans stop at the end of the billing period; you keep export access after.

It runs the back office of a small business: reads your bank feed and inbox, files and matches the paperwork, chases what is owed, answers the phone and books the job. Anything it is not sure of becomes one question for you, with two buttons.

No. There is a real double-entry ledger underneath, but you confirm rather than operate it. Your accountant gets their own free login to check the workings, which is where the debits and credits belong.

Bizzle is in early access and rolling out in phases — the money core first, the front desk close behind. Join the list and we tell you when your part goes live. Founding members get the first three months free.

Typically the accounting software, the receipt app, the booking tool, the CRM, the answering service, review management and the leave tracker. One flat price per business from £39 a month, never per seat, replaces the lot.

Senses are the connections: bank, inbox, calendar, phone, web chat, WhatsApp. The brain is one permanent record where AI reads and proposes and audited code executes. Views are the books, inbox, CRM and calendar — lenses on that record, not separate apps.

Because the work lives in the seams. A call has to become a job, a job an invoice, an invoice a reconciled payment, and every join between two products is where that chain breaks. One record, one system, no join.

By asking. Anything it cannot resolve comes to you once, and your answer becomes a rule that fires before the AI does from then on. The receptionist learns the same way: chat to it, or ring it and correct it.

It stops and asks rather than guessing. You get a short question with a one-tap answer, and anything it does on its own is logged with its reasoning and reversible. Confidently wrong is the failure mode we designed against.

No. Bizzle is in early access and rolling out in phases — the money core first, then the front desk, then the rest. The list is the whole system; the order it arrives in is on each pillar page.

No. One flat price per business, set by plan, never per seat. The only meters are call minutes past your allowance and payslips, and both are printed on the pricing page.

Yes. Solo is the books and invoicing; Bizzle Phone is the receptionist on its own. The parts share one ledger, one customer record and one calendar, so each one you add removes a seam rather than adding one.

Answer a question — 'that £62 is client meetings' — and it becomes a rule that fires before the AI does. The second identical transaction is filed silently. Rules are yours to see and change.

Typical UK list prices for each category, kept deliberately round. Your own invoices are the real answer, and if you have them to hand, use those figures instead.

No. The sums happen in your browser, nothing is sent anywhere, and there is no email gate. Tick, read the number, close the tab; we never know you were here.

No, and that is the bigger number. The subscriptions are the smaller cost; the five to ten hours a week of admin after the tools clock off is the larger one. The arithmetic for that is on the page, and you have to do it yourself.

For most small teams, yes, but that is not the argument. Cancel what you do not use first — including ours. The case for Bizzle is that one system removes the hours, not that it undercuts eight subscriptions.

No. Bank connections run through FCA-regulated Open Banking providers and are read-only: Bizzle sees transactions, never your credentials, and cannot pay anyone. You can revoke the connection at your bank without asking us.

Never. Your documents, transactions and conversations do not train foundation models, ours or anyone else's, and the rules Bizzle learns from your answers belong to your business alone.

Not yet. Both are on the roadmap and will be published on the trust page when certified, not before. What is true today: encrypted in transit and at rest, and role-based access inside the product.

Owner, staff, bookkeeper and accountant each get their own login and see what their role should, nothing more. Every automated action and every confirmation is logged with who or what made it, so the trail is auditable.

Nothing, on any plan, forever. Not a trial and not a seat the client has to justify. Every client who invites you gets you a login with the full audit trail, because a shared login wrecks one.

The journals. Every entry clicks through to the bank transaction, the source document and the confirmation that filed it. Corrections are reversing entries, so history is never quietly rewritten.

They mostly do not, which is the point. The 'what was this £340?' conversation happens in-app in the moment, between the client and Bizzle. What reaches you is the genuinely ambiguous, already reconciled to yesterday.

It is being built now with a small group of UK practices, which is why the early access list exists. Join it, tell us what review, VAT season and onboarding need, and your clients get founding-member pricing.

Yes, on terms we agree up front rather than a scheme you discover afterwards. The business you refer gets founding-member terms, and you get paid for the introduction.

Founding-member pricing — the first three months free while Bizzle is in early access — and a practice login for you on every one of their accounts, free and permanent.

Not published yet. While Bizzle is in early access, integrations are built in conversation with the partner, which is faster than a scavenger hunt through documentation on both sides.

Join the early access list and say which track you are on — practice, referrer or integration. We come back to you directly. We are early, and would rather agree terms with a person than post a form.

Bizzle Ltd is a UK company. The product is built to work in any currency, language and timezone its customers trade in, because the back office of a small business looks much the same everywhere. The tax and payroll pieces are UK-specific.

Bootstrapped, on purpose. No investors pushing growth over care, and no pressure to make the product louder than it is useful. We grow when a customer's invoices, website and phone line introduce us to the next one.

Small — one product and the people who build it, led by a founder who has started, run, scaled and sold small businesses. There is always a human reachable, which is on the no-list for a reason.

No. Never per-seat pricing is the first item on the no-list, and the no-list is who we are. Growing your team should never grow your software bill.

No. Each business gets a page because its specifics are worth explaining — CIS, chair rent, tronc — but the system underneath is the same. A business that is not listed still gets the ledger, the phone, the invoices and the inbox. It just does not get a page yet.

One subscription covers one business, from £39 a month, with as many logins as you want to hand out. Taking on staff, a bookkeeper or a second accountant changes nothing on the bill. Two separate companies are two subscriptions.

Both, which is the awkward part. Underneath is a real double-entry ledger, the same as accounting software. On top of it the phone is answered, invoices are chased and the inbox is dealt with — the back office a small business normally does at nine at night.

Less than you would expect. Connect your bank and inbox and Bizzle rebuilds recent invoices, receipts and payments from what is already there; most businesses are running within a day. The parts needing your judgement arrive as questions rather than as settings.

Not legally, provided your records are complete and you can produce them when asked. The real question is whether you want to rebuild every year in January, and Making Tax Digital is turning digital records from a preference into a requirement for many sole traders. Check gov.uk for whether and when it reaches you.

Only you can say, but the comparison is not with a free spreadsheet. It is with the evenings spent on admin, the calls that went to voicemail and the invoices nobody chased. Founding members get the first three months free, which is long enough to find out.

The call is picked up, the caller is dealt with and, if they want to book, it goes straight into your diary. Anything that slips through is texted back within seconds, which is usually before they have rung the next name on the list.

You can export everything at any time, and you should keep the export somewhere durable, because HMRC expects records kept for years after the return they support. Nothing is held back to make leaving awkward.

Many sole traders do not, and many still choose to. Software keeps the records and prepares the figures; an accountant tells you what to do about them — whether to incorporate, how to handle a large purchase, what a change in the rules means for you. Bizzle gives your accountant their own free login, so if you use one they work from the same live books rather than a folder you email in January.

Legally yes, provided the records are complete. Two things eventually break it: Making Tax Digital for Income Tax requires digital records kept in compatible software, and a spreadsheet has no idea whether an invoice was paid, so chasing stays entirely manual.

Reconstruct rather than panic. Bank statements give you the spine of the year, and email gives you most of the invoices and receipts. Bizzle's migration does exactly this: connect your inbox and your bank, and it rebuilds the books from what is already there.

Yes. All income is taxable regardless of how it was paid, and cash deposits that do not match declared turnover are one of the more common triggers for an HMRC enquiry.

Yes. You can either work out the business proportion of your actual costs — rent or mortgage interest, council tax, electricity, broadband — by rooms and hours used, or use HMRC's flat monthly rate based on hours worked at home. The flat rate is simpler and usually close enough, unless a large part of your home is genuinely given over to the business.

For a personal car used for work, the mileage rate is usually simpler and often more generous, because it covers fuel, servicing, insurance and depreciation in one figure. For a van used only for the business, actual costs plus capital allowances may come out higher. You choose per vehicle, and the choice sticks for as long as you have it.

Correct it. You can amend a Self Assessment return for a period after filing, and telling HMRC before they ask is treated very differently from being found out. Innocent errors are usually a matter of paying the right tax plus interest; deliberate ones are not.

Keep the receipt. A bank line proves money left your account; it does not prove what it bought or that the purchase was for the business. For small cash purchases a note made at the time is better than nothing, but a photograph of the receipt takes two seconds and settles it.

There is no fixed threshold, and anyone quoting one is simplifying. The saving depends on how much you need to draw, current dividend and corporation tax rates, and what your accountant charges for company filings. The reliable approach is a projection on your own numbers rather than a rule of thumb from a forum.

Yes. Plenty of people run one trade as a sole trader and another through a company, and being a director does not stop you trading personally. You will have Self Assessment obligations covering both.

Mostly, and not absolutely. The company's debts are its own — but lenders and landlords often ask a director for a personal guarantee, which puts your assets back on the line, and the protection does not cover fraud or wrongful trading. Read what you sign.

Some of it. Your name as a director, the registered office address, the nature of the business and a set of accounts appear on the Companies House register. You can use a service address rather than your home, but the company itself is on the public record by design.

Yes, though it is more work than going the other way — the company has to be closed down properly, which takes time and has tax consequences depending on what is left in it. Worth knowing before you incorporate, not after.

Incorporation itself is usually same-day online. The rest — bank account, VAT, contracts, insurance, asset transfer — realistically takes a few weeks, and the bank account is normally the slowest part. Start that application early rather than last.

Yes. You tell HMRC the sole trade has ceased and file a final Self Assessment return covering trading up to that date. You do not come out of Self Assessment altogether if you still need to file, which as a director taking dividends you generally will.

You can apply to transfer it to the company using form VAT68. It keeps continuity for customers, but it also transfers the registration's history and any liabilities with it, so it is worth asking your accountant whether a clean registration suits you better.

It does not transfer. The company is a different legal person and needs its own account. Keep the old one open long enough to settle anything outstanding from the sole trade, then close it.

No. Contracts are with you personally, so they have to be assigned or re-signed with the company. Most customers treat this as a formality; larger ones may want new paperwork, supplier onboarding, or evidence of the company's insurance.

Occasionally — some clients and agencies genuinely will not contract with a sole trader. But it is a real ongoing cost in fees and filings, so check whether the clients you actually want care, rather than assuming they do.

It keeps the ledger and audit trail the accounts are built from, and puts the filing dates on the calendar. The statutory accounts and corporation tax return are still prepared and signed off by you or your accountant, who has a free login to the same file for exactly that reason.

A one-person company files the same things as a twenty-person one: accounts, a confirmation statement, a corporation tax return, and payroll if you take a salary. The price is per business rather than per head, so the small company pays the same flat rate for the same obligations.

You can, and Bizzle will record it as what it is: money you owe the company. That is the point — it shows as a director's loan while there is still time to sort it, rather than as a surprise at year end. Your accountant can explain why that matters.

No. Payroll is there if you want it, charged per payslip, and it is convenient because the salary is in the accounts the moment it is paid. If you already run payroll elsewhere, keep it there for now; if you move it, do it at the start of a tax year.

No. A director is an office holder, not automatically an employee, and there is no legal minimum you must pay yourself. Many directors take a small salary anyway, because at the right level it can count towards a qualifying year for the state pension while costing little or nothing in National Insurance.

Yes, provided there are distributable profits each time and each dividend is properly declared and documented. Regular dividends that look like a salary in all but name attract attention, so keep the paperwork right and the amounts tied to actual profit.

If it is not repaid within nine months and a day of the year end, the company pays an additional tax charge on the outstanding balance. It is reclaimable once the loan is repaid, but reclaiming it is slow. Repaying before the deadline is almost always the better move.

Yes, and it is common when starting up. The company owes you, which you can draw back later without tax, and the company can pay you interest on the loan — though the company must deduct tax on that interest and you declare it as income.

Not necessarily. Lenders vary: some take salary plus dividends, some take salary plus your share of retained profit, and a very low salary can make affordability calculations awkward. If a mortgage is coming, say so before you set the split for the year.

Yes. Corporation tax is charged on profit, not on what you withdraw. Leaving profit in the company defers your personal tax on it, not the company's corporation tax.

HMRC charges interest from the day after the due date, accruing until you pay. Filing the return late is separate and carries its own penalties, which escalate the longer it goes. Interest paid to HMRC is not deductible.

Salary yes, dividends no. A higher salary is a deductible cost and reduces company profit, though it brings income tax and National Insurance with it. Dividends come out of profit already taxed, so they change nothing at company level.

It can. The thresholds for the small profits rate and marginal relief are divided between associated companies, so owning two can push both into a higher effective rate than either would face alone. Worth checking before incorporating a second one.

Yes, if the company is active. A company with no corporation tax to pay still files a return and accounts. A genuinely dormant company has lighter obligations, but it has to actually be dormant — not merely quiet.

Quoting, invoicing, receipt capture and the diary are built to be done from the van with one hand. The parts that suit a bigger screen, like going through the year with your accountant, still work on a phone; they are simply nicer at a desk.

It books them. It has your real diary, so it offers times you actually have and puts the job in. Where a job needs a look before it can be quoted, it books the visit instead, and anything it is unsure about comes to you with a summary rather than a guess.

Yes, on both sides: deductions taken from you as a subcontractor and deductions you make as a contractor, with the statements that go with them. The domestic reverse charge for VAT is handled where it arises. Whether CIS applies to you at all is a question for gov.uk.

With the job and the property, not in a camera roll. A gas certificate or a handover photo from two years ago is found by the address in seconds, which is usually when a customer or their solicitor is asking for it.

They can each have one, and it costs nothing extra; the price is per salon, not per chair. Each person sees their own column and their own clients, and you decide who sees the takings.

It replaces the phone ringing out mid-colour, which is a different thing. Salons with a receptionist keep them for the front desk and let Bizzle take the overflow and the calls after closing. Salons without one get a phone that is finally answered.

Chair rent is recorded as rent rather than as your turnover, and the stylist's invoice to you is treated as their sale, not yours. Whether an arrangement is genuinely self-employed is a question for your accountant, and worth asking before HMRC does.

Yes, and they all land in the same diary, so a slot taken in a chat is not offered to a caller a minute later. Deposits and reminders work the same way whichever route the booking came in by.

The phone assistant takes what it needs to book: a name, contact details and what the appointment is for. Clinical notes live with the patient record and you control who in the practice can see them. Your data protection obligations do not change because software is answering, so keep taking that advice from whoever gives it to you now.

Yes. Insurer invoices go out with the reference they need and are chased on the schedule you set, and the income is kept apart from self-pay so you can see which is late. It cannot make an insurer pay faster than their own terms; it makes sure nothing is forgotten.

One subscription covers the practice, with a login for each practitioner at no extra cost. Each keeps their own diary and their own recalls; the books underneath are one set, which is what your accountant wants to see.

You set the interval per treatment once, because that is a clinical judgement. From then on the follow-up is created from the appointment you just finished and the nudging happens without you, which is how next quarter's book fills from patients you already have.

Photograph it or forward the email; either way it is read and matched. Suppliers who email their invoices need no photographing at all. A delivery note with no prices is matched to the invoice that follows rather than filed as a cost.

It works from purchases against takings, which is a fair approximation week to week and an accurate one over a month. A periodic stock count corrects it. It does not replace counting; it shows you the drift between counts, which is what you cannot see annually.

Yes. Payouts arrive net of commission, fees and refunds; Bizzle matches each one back to the orders behind it so the gross sales, the commission and the refunds are each recorded. What you learn is what the channel really costs, which is often when the prices on it change.

Yes. Hours go in each week, holiday accrues on them, and RTI goes to HMRC with every run. It is charged per payslip, so a quiet week costs less than a busy one. Tronc is handled as tronc, which is the part most payroll set-ups get wrong.

Yes. Upload or photograph the certificate and it is filed against the customer, the address and the job that produced it, so a landlord asking for a copy three years on is a search rather than an archaeology project. It does not fill the certificate in for you.

Notification is a step on the job rather than a memory. Bizzle records whether the scheme submission and the customer's copy have been done and flags the ones that have not. Which work is notifiable is between you and your scheme.

Photograph them at the counter and they are matched to the job that used the materials, with the image kept as evidence for VAT. The ones that live in the van door pocket for six weeks are the ones you never claim.

It keeps certificates, notifications and job records in one place with the books, which is most of what an assessor wants to see. The assessment itself, and the standard of your work, remain very much yours.

Yes. The phone is answered around the clock, the job is triaged and booked into your real diary, and anything it cannot handle is texted back within seconds. Whether you get out of bed is still your decision.

That is the intended use. Sign the job off on your phone, the invoice goes out with a payment link, and it is chased on a schedule you set if it goes quiet. Most are paid while you are still in the van.

Photograph the merchant receipt and Bizzle matches it to the customer who needed the part, so the invoice reflects what you fitted rather than what you think you remember. Stock you carry and use later is assigned when you use it.

Yes. Any service or landlord check you complete sets its own reminder, and the customer hears from you before it is due rather than after they have found someone else. It turns a callout into a regular, which is cheaper than any advert.

Yes. Verification, the deduction at the rate HMRC gives you, the monthly return and the payment and deduction statements are recorded as you pay each subbie rather than reconstructed at month end. The rates and the deadlines are HMRC's; check gov.uk.

Each retention is recorded against the job with its release date, and it sits on your outstanding list until it is invoiced and paid. Money held twelve months out has a habit of being forgotten by everyone except the person owed it.

Stage payments are set up when the job is, each invoiced when its stage is signed off and chased if it goes quiet. What has been billed, what is still to come and what is held back are visible per job, not just per month.

Where you are the subcontractor, the deduction a contractor takes is recorded against their payment, so your books show what you actually received and what has been suffered on your behalf. Reclaiming it is a year-end job for your accountant.

It files the record you issue against the property and the landlord, sends both a copy, and produces last year's when the managing agent asks. The inspection and the signature are yours; Gas Safe's rules on who can do that do not bend for software.

Upload them and they are filed as business and staff records, so you can see when each runs out before a customer points it out on the doorstep. Registering with Gas Safe is done with Gas Safe; Bizzle just remembers that you did.

Yes, if you tell it which is which when you sign the job off. Parts and hours on a manufacturer warranty call land in a different place from a chargeable repair, so you can see what warranty work actually costs you to do.

Let it ring somewhere else. Bizzle answers every call, books what it can into your diary and texts back the rest within seconds, so the customer with no heating hears from you before they try the next engineer. It cannot fix the boiler.

The jobs that slipped are moved, the customers who need telling are told, and the gap is offered to work already waiting. It reads the diary, not the sky, so calling the day off is still your call.

Yes. The hire invoice lands against the roof it was hired for, including the extra weeks, so the job's true cost is what you paid rather than what you quoted. A quote that assumed a fortnight and a hire that ran to five weeks is a pattern worth seeing.

Yes. The quote goes out with a deposit request on acceptance, the balance is tracked against it, and the final invoice knows what has already been paid. Work quoted in March and done in July is easier to fund that way.

You cannot; merchants do not consult you. What Bizzle does is keep the materials receipts against the job so the gap between quote and actual is visible on each roof, and the next quote is priced from what the last one really cost.

Yes. Timber, ironmongery, finish and workshop hours go into a quote you can send the same evening, and the last one like it is the starting point for the next. It prices what you tell it; it does not know what oak costs this week.

Almost certainly, since nobody else will buy someone else's staircase. Bizzle requests the deposit with the quote acceptance and tracks it against the balance, so the timber is paid for before it is cut. The size of the deposit is your call.

Record hours against each half separately and Bizzle keeps them apart in the accounts, so the margin on making and the margin on fitting are visible as two numbers rather than one. The answer surprises most people.

One business is one flat price with unlimited logins, so a partner, an apprentice and your accountant each have their own login at no extra cost. If you are two separate businesses sharing a bench, that is two Bizzles.

Yes. Each regular customer is invoiced on their own cycle with a payment link, chased if it goes quiet, and the ones who quietly stop paying show up immediately rather than when you notice in spring. You still have to cut the grass.

Hire invoices land against the project that hired the machine, including overrun days, so a build is priced next time from what the last one actually cost. Grab lorry and skip charges go the same way.

See it coming. The cashflow forecast reads the shape of your maintenance book and the builds in the diary, so the winter dip is visible in October while there is still autumn work to sell into it. It cannot make it rain less.

Yes, and most people should. Both sit in the same ledger at one flat price, with the rounds billed on their cycle and the builds costed per project, so you can see which half carried the year without keeping two sets of books.

It shows you. Hours and materials are recorded against each job, so the margin on your day-rate work and your fixed-price work sit side by side. Which one you then charge is a judgement it will not make for you.

Assign the tins to the job when they are opened rather than when they are bought, and the bulk receipt is split accordingly. It is less tidy than a receipt per job, but it stops four coats of the wrong white being absorbed into the month.

Yes. Bizzle keeps who you did what for and when, and surfaces the customers due a follow-up rather than leaving it to a scroll through two years of messages. The message itself is yours to send or not.

Record it as cash against the invoice and the ledger is correct; the books do not care how you were paid, only that it is written down. The payment link on the invoice is there for the ones who would rather not carry an envelope.

Yes. The call is answered, triaged for urgency and location, and booked into your diary, and a call it cannot take is texted back within seconds. Whether that is fast enough depends on how cold the customer is.

Send a payment link to the customer's phone while you are packing up. It is matched against your bank feed overnight, so doorstep jobs stop being an envelope of unrecorded cash. A card reader still works if you prefer one.

Each job carries the address, the work done and any photos, filed against the agent or insurer as the customer, so the paperwork they ask for later is already assembled. Which jobs need evidence is something the insurer will tell you.

It knows what you paid, from the supplier receipt, and what you invoiced, so each callout type shows its real margin and the ones that are effectively unpaid driving become obvious. Setting your prices is still yours.

Yes. Photograph the factor receipt, match it to the vehicle, and the markup you have set is applied, so the invoice reflects both the part and the trip to fetch it. The percentage is yours; it will not suggest one.

Send a payment link to the customer's phone before the tools go back in the van, and it reconciles against the bank feed overnight. No invoicing evening, and no drive back to collect a cheque.

Yes. Every vehicle you work on sets its own reminder from the dates you record, so the customer hears from you before the MOT is due rather than from whoever comes up first on their phone. It does not check the DVLA for you.

Jobs are filed against the vehicle as well as the customer, so what has been done to a car is one record rather than a search through invoices, and a customer with three vehicles is still one customer.

Yes. The erect is invoiced once; the hire is billed for every week the structure stands, automatically, until you record it as struck. An overrun becomes revenue rather than something you notice when the lorry goes to collect it.

Handover documents and the regular inspection record are filed against the site and the client, so when the principal contractor asks for the trail it is produced rather than reconstructed. Doing the inspections on time is still a person on a ladder.

Yes. Tube, boards and fittings are recorded out against the job they went to and back when they return, so what is missing is visible while you still know where it went. It counts what you tell it; nobody has yet automated counting fittings.

One business is one flat price with unlimited logins, so every gang leader can have their own login without the bill going up, and payroll runs per payslip when you pay them. Who works where is still your call.

Yes. Rent is invoiced on its own cycle and recorded as rent rather than turnover, which is what keeps your own VAT position honest. Whether a stylist is genuinely self-employed is a question for your accountant, not the software.

That is the point of it. Calls are answered in your salon's name, booked into the real diary with the right service length, and any call that does get missed is texted back within seconds.

Bizzle tracks each client's usual cycle and nudges them before they slip, with a link to book. It does not replace asking at the till, which still works better than anything automated.

Yes, and it costs nothing extra: the price is per business, never per seat. Each stylist sees their own column and their own clients; you see the whole salon.

Walk-ins and bookings sit in one queue, so a full-looking diary never sends someone away while a chair is empty. The waiting time it quotes on the phone comes from that same queue.

Yes. You log the day's cash total and Bizzle matches it against what reaches the bank through the Open Banking feed. A gap is flagged the next morning rather than at year end.

It invoices each barber's rent on the agreed weekly cycle and sends the reminders automatically. Having the conversation when someone is three weeks behind is still yours to do.

Takings can be recorded per chair, so what the shop earned and what each self-employed barber earned are kept apart. That separation matters when your accountant works out whose turnover is whose.

Yes. A course is recorded as money received and sessions owed, ticked off as each one is delivered. What remains unused stays visible as a liability rather than quietly disappearing into a good month.

Set a deposit per treatment and it is requested with a payment link in the confirmation, then applied against the bill on the day. The refund terms go out in the same message, which is what makes the deposit stick.

It does. Stock you sell and stock you use are different lines with different margins, and Bizzle keeps them apart so you can see which one is actually paying for the shelf.

Patch test dates and consultation notes are filed against the client, and a repeat test that is due is flagged before the appointment. Whether the record satisfies your insurer is worth checking with them.

It learns each client's usual gap and nudges them before they are due, with a link to book. A client who books at the chair is still the best outcome, but the nudge catches the ones who meant to and did not.

Yes. A deposit is requested with the booking confirmation and applied on arrival, with the terms in the same message. It will not stop every no-show, but it makes each one cost less than the slot plus the journey.

Product goes out in amounts too small to notice and too many to ignore. Recording what a full set uses shows what a set actually earns after product, which is usually less than assumed and tells you what to charge.

It is built for exactly that. The phone is answered while your hands are busy, rebooking runs itself and the books tidy themselves from the bank feed, so the admin fits into gaps rather than late evenings.

Yes. Six and twelve month recalls set themselves from the completed appointment and go out by text or email with a booking link. It does not decide the recall interval; that stays clinical.

A lab invoice is matched to the patient and treatment that ordered it, so you can see the real margin on crown and denture work. That is a very different picture from one monthly lab bill set against all your takings.

Each is recorded as its own income stream with its own timing. Your accountant will want them apart at year end, and it is far easier to record them that way than to unpick them afterwards.

Calls are answered in the practice's name, booked into the real diary and anything missed is texted back within seconds. It cannot greet a patient at the desk or take a card in person; that is still a human job.

It raises the invoice with the insurer's reference and authorisation number, then chases it on a schedule until paid. Which insurers you are registered with, and their tariffs, remain your arrangement with them.

Reminders go out at the intervals you set, and you can require a deposit from patients with a DNA history. Neither is foolproof, but a slot that is reminded and part-paid is far more likely to be filled.

Yes: paid for, used and remaining, updated each time an appointment completes. Unused sessions stay visible as work still owed rather than vanishing once the money has landed.

Notes can be filed against the patient, but Bizzle is a back office, not a clinical system. If you need a full clinical record with outcome measures, keep that where it is and let Bizzle handle the booking and billing around it.

Yes. Each practitioner's sessions are logged against the room and invoiced on the cycle you agree, then chased if unpaid. Room hire becomes income you can see instead of a spreadsheet someone updates in arrears.

It keeps consent forms, treatment notes and staff documents filed against the person they belong to, and produces them on request. It does not make you compliant; whether your governance meets the standard is an inspection question, not a software one.

They are recorded as separate streams because they behave differently: one pays on the day, the other pays later with a reference. Kept apart in the ledger, the clinic's cashflow becomes legible.

Yes. Calls are answered and booked into the real diary at any hour, and missed calls are texted back within seconds. Most people ring a private clinic after work, so that is usually where the new patients are.

Each completed session comes off the client's block, so both of you can see used and remaining without arguing about it in month three. A block that runs out triggers a nudge to buy the next one.

Weekly and monthly clients are invoiced on their own cycle with a payment link, and the ones who quietly stop paying surface immediately. That is usually two free months you get back.

Yes. Sessions that pay and sessions that do not look identical until rent, travel and time are set against each one, and costing per client is how you find out. What is deductible is a question for your accountant.

Cashflow is forecast from the bank feed and the sessions still owed, so a January that is all up-front money shows its real shape early. What you do with the warning is still up to you.

It records service charge and tips as they come in, distributes them by the rules you set, and runs the payroll treatment that goes with a tronc. Who operates the tronc and how its rules are written is something to agree with your accountant, because the tax consequences hinge on it.

Forward the email or photograph the delivery note and the lines are extracted, matched to the supplier and filed. A price rise on a staple line is visible the week it happens, not at year end.

Purchases from those invoices are set against takings from the till, and the margin becomes a number you see every week rather than every year. Wastage still needs counting by a person; the software cannot see what went in the bin.

Hours, shifts and holiday for a mixed team of full-time and casual staff are recorded and paid per payslip through the same system as the books. Writing the rota itself is still yours.

Yes. The till total, cash, card settlements and any delivery platform payouts are matched against the bank each morning through the Open Banking feed, so the day either balances or tells you why not.

On margins this thin, yes. Coffee usually carries the business and food often does not, and costing per line shows which items earn their place on the counter and which are there for goodwill.

Variable hours are recorded per person and paid per payslip, with holiday accrued correctly on irregular patterns and RTI filed. The rules on holiday for irregular hours are gov.uk's, and Bizzle follows them rather than approximating.

They should, because a bag of beans has a different margin, a different supplier and a different customer from a flat white. Kept apart, retail often turns out to be worth pushing harder.

It matches each platform payout back to the orders behind it, so commission, fees and refunds are visible line by line rather than absorbed into a smaller number than you expected. Whether a channel is worth keeping becomes a calculation.

Hot takeaway food and cold items are treated differently, and Bizzle applies the treatment at the point of sale rather than at the return. The exact rules are on gov.uk; for anything borderline, ask your accountant.

Yes. Counter cash, card and platform income are counted as one day's takings and reconciled against the bank. The total is a fact rather than something reconstructed from memory.

Hours are recorded per driver and paid per payslip with holiday accrued correctly. Whether a driver is an employee or self-employed is a status question with real consequences, and one to settle with your accountant first.

Yes. Drinks and food are recorded as separate lines with their own purchases, so each has its own margin. Run together they hide each other, which is how a good kitchen ends up subsidising a bad cellar, or the other way round.

Deliveries in are set against sales out from the till, so the gap between what was bought and what was rung through is a weekly figure. It will not tell you whether that gap is over-pouring or staff drinks; finding out is a stocktake and a conversation.

Weekly runs, variable hours, holiday accrual and RTI are handled per payslip, in the same system as the takings. Starters and leavers who last a fortnight are recorded without ceremony.

Tied deliveries are read like any supplier invoice, so a price rise on a tied line shows the week it lands. Modelling what the tie costs against a free-of-tie rent is something to do with your accountant or your trade body.

Yes. Weekly, fortnightly and monthly contracts go out on their own cycles with a payment link, and unpaid ones are chased. Nobody rebuilds the billing list each month and nobody gets cleaned for free.

Hours, travel and materials land against the site that consumed them, so a contract's margin is visible while it can still be repriced. The site that always overruns stops being a feeling and becomes a number.

Hours are recorded per person and per site, paid per payslip with holiday accrued and RTI filed. DBS checks and right-to-work documents are kept per cleaner with their expiry dates; deciding who needs which is yours.

The call is answered, logged against the client and flagged to you immediately, and a missed call is texted back within seconds. Finding cover is a human job, but you will know within the minute rather than the afternoon.

Yes. Reminders go out on a schedule you set, politely and with the payment link, and stop the moment the money lands in the bank feed. You never have to write the awkward email.

Time against client and project becomes the invoice without re-typing anything, at the rate you set. The fortnight between finishing the work and billing it disappears, which is where most freelance cashflow goes.

A retainer is invoiced on its own cycle automatically, and the client who quietly stopped paying two months ago surfaces at once. Scope creep on a retainer is not something software can see; that is a conversation.

Bizzle keeps a proper ledger either way, with data export any time, so switching later is not painful. Which structure suits you depends on your income and circumstances, and is a question for your accountant, who can log in for free.

Yes. A payout is matched back to the orders behind it, with fees, refunds and reserves shown separately. Revenue is recorded as revenue and the platform's cut as a cost, rather than netting into whatever the bank deposit happened to be.

Cost of goods, shipping and channel fees are set against each line sold, so a bestseller that loses money stops being promoted. It needs your cost prices recorded once; after that it runs on the orders.

The treatment is recorded at the point of sale per channel, and the figures build through the quarter. Cross-border sales have their own rules on gov.uk, and for anything outside the UK, talk to your accountant before the first return rather than after.

Refunds are matched to the original order and recorded as reversing entries, so revenue and fees stay honest. A product with a high return rate is visible per line, which is often the first sign a listing is misleading.

Yes. The monthly PDF is extracted line by line so gross rent, fees and deductions are recorded separately. Booking the net figure the agent sends is the commonest landlord bookkeeping mistake, and it understates both income and expenses.

Income and expenses per property build continuously, so each quarter is a review rather than a rebuild. When you fall within MTD, and the thresholds involved, are set out on gov.uk and change; check them there rather than here.

Compliance dates are tracked per property and warned early enough to book the engineer rather than scramble. It reminds; it does not book, and a lapsed certificate is still yours to explain.

Each deposit is recorded against the tenancy with the scheme and the date it was protected, and the date the tenant must be given the details is flagged. The deposit itself sits with the scheme, not Bizzle, and the rules are gov.uk's.

Yes. Restricted funds are tracked against their purpose and unrestricted ones separately, so spending a grant on the wrong thing is caught by the system rather than by a trustee later. Reports come out by fund and by activity.

Eligible donations and declarations are recorded at the point of giving, so the claim is assembled rather than reconstructed. Submitting it to HMRC is still done by you or your accountant; the rules on what qualifies are on gov.uk.

Trustees get their own logins at no cost, with reporting in a form that answers the questions a board actually asks. What they do with it is governance, which no software provides.

Volunteer expenses are captured with their receipts and paid back through the ledger, so they are a record rather than a note in a drawer. Anything that starts to look like pay rather than expenses is one for your accountant before it becomes a habit.

Yes, from real burn: cash out against cash in from the bank feed, updated daily. It is a fact about the past projected forward, not a forecast of the round you are hoping to close.

The monthly figures assemble from the ledger, so revenue, burn and cash are the same numbers the accounts hold. The narrative around them is yours; investors can tell when it is not.

Staff time and costs are tagged against qualifying projects while the work happens, which is what a defensible claim looks like. Whether a project qualifies, and the claim itself, are for a specialist adviser; the rules have tightened and gov.uk has the current position.

Nothing, except more payslips. Starters, leavers, pensions and RTI are handled per payslip, logins are unlimited and the price stays flat per business, so growing does not mean changing system.

For understanding what a thing is and roughly how it works, yes. For a decision with money on it, no, and the guides say so where it applies. An hour of a good accountant's time is cheap next to getting it wrong. General guidance, not tax advice, is the honest label.

Because rates, thresholds and dates move at Budgets, and a number printed here would quietly become wrong. We state what does not change, explain the mechanism, and point at the one source that is updated on the day.

No. Nothing here requires an account, an email address or the product. Where Bizzle does something relevant the guide says so, briefly, and then gets on with the answer. They would have been worth writing if the product did not exist.

Each one carries the date it was last reviewed, which is the most useful thing tax content can tell you. If that date is older than the last Budget, treat any figure with suspicion and check gov.uk before acting on it.

If your total self-employed income is under the £1,000 trading allowance for the tax year, you generally do not need to register. Above that, you do. Registering voluntarily can still be worthwhile if you made a loss you want recorded.

The online part takes about ten minutes. The wait is for the UTR and activation code by post, usually a couple of weeks — so do not leave it until the week of a deadline.

Yes, and it is very common. Your employer handles PAYE on the job; you declare the self-employed income on your Self Assessment return, and the two are considered together to work out what you owe.

Register as soon as you notice, rather than waiting for HMRC to write. A 'failure to notify' penalty exists, but it is worked out on tax paid late rather than on the missed date itself, so registering and then filing and paying by the following 31 January usually limits the damage.

There are rules allowing an exception where the breach is temporary and you can show turnover will fall back below the deregistration threshold. You have to apply for it, with evidence, rather than simply deciding it applies.

Yes, if taxable turnover falls below the deregistration threshold. There are consequences on assets and stock you reclaimed VAT on, so it is worth checking the numbers before deregistering.

HMRC backdates your registration to when you should have registered and expects the VAT from that date, even for sales where you did not add VAT. Penalties apply on top. This is the expensive mistake in this area.

Within limits, yes: goods you still hold that were bought in the four years before registration, and services in the six months before, provided you have the VAT invoices. The time limits have been stable for years; the 'still on hand' test is where claims usually fall down.

Small errors within the correction threshold can usually be adjusted on the next return. Larger ones need separate disclosure to HMRC. Telling them before they find it is treated very differently from the alternative.

Yes, if you are VAT registered. Making Tax Digital requires digital records and filing from compatible software with digital links — manually retyping figures into a portal is not permitted.

Contact HMRC before the deadline rather than after. Time to Pay arrangements exist and are far easier to agree before you have defaulted. Interest still accrues, but penalties and enforcement are what really hurt.

Yes. A nil return is still a return, and not filing one earns a penalty point exactly as a late one does. If you had purchases with VAT on them it is also a repayment, which is the one kind of VAT return worth looking forward to.

Yes. Either apportion your actual costs by rooms and hours used, or use HMRC's flat monthly rate based on hours worked at home. The flat rate is simpler and usually close enough unless a large part of the home is genuinely given over to the business.

For a personal car, the mileage rate — long standing at 45p for the first 10,000 business miles and 25p after — is simpler and often more generous, because it covers fuel, servicing, insurance and depreciation together. For a van used only for work, actual costs plus capital allowances may be higher. The choice sticks per vehicle.

Keep it. A bank line proves money left your account; it does not prove what it bought or that it was for the business. A photograph takes two seconds and settles the question years later.

Often, yes. Costs from the seven years before you started that would have been allowable had you been trading can generally be treated as incurred on day one. Equipment usually goes through capital allowances rather than as a running cost, so keep the receipts and let the return sort the category.

The day after the due date you agreed. Where nothing was agreed, commercial debt legislation implies 30 days from delivery or from the invoice date, whichever is later.

The statutory commercial regime applies to business-to-business debts. For consumers, any interest has to be a term of your contract and must be fair — the rules are different and stricter.

Occasionally, and usually one you are better off without. Polite, consistent chasing is normal commercial behaviour, and businesses that pay reliably are not offended by it.

For a business customer, yes — the statutory right exists whether or not you wrote it down, though a customer who has never seen it in your terms will push back harder. For a consumer, no: any charge has to be a fair term of the contract they actually agreed to.

An advance payment towards next year's tax bill, due in two instalments on 31 January and 31 July, each normally half of last year's liability. It catches people in their second year of trading, when a tax bill arrives alongside an advance for the year ahead.

An automatic penalty applies immediately for Self Assessment, and it escalates with time. VAT now uses a points-based system where repeated small slips accumulate into a penalty. Interest runs on late payment separately from penalties.

The structural ones — 6 April, 31 January — are stable. Rates, thresholds and Making Tax Digital timings change at Budgets, so treat any figure as needing a check against gov.uk before you act on it.

For most of them the date is the date, and where a payment has to clear by it a weekend means paying on the Friday before. The PAYE payment deadline is the one that catches people: it moves earlier, to the last working day before the 22nd, not later.

No. Any payment for work falls under PAYE rules, and there is no threshold below which employment becomes informal. Whether tax is actually deducted depends on the amount and the employee's code — but the reporting obligation exists either way.

If the company pays the director a salary, yes — it is an employer with an RTI obligation. Directors taking dividends only are a different case, and worth an accountant's view rather than a guess.

Correct it in the next submission rather than quietly adjusting the next payslip. HMRC's records come from what you file, so an uncorrected error follows the employee into their tax code and their year-end figures.

Yes. Send an Employer Payment Summary saying there was nothing to report, by the 19th of the following month. Miss it and HMRC assumes you simply have not filed, estimates what you owe and sends a bill for it — which is considerably more admin than the EPS was.

You must give a written statement of the main terms on or before the first day. A fuller contract is not legally required but is worth having — it is where notice, confidentiality and anything specific to your business actually live.

You can use a probation period inside a normal employment contract, with shorter notice during it. What you cannot do is treat someone as having no rights because they are new — most rights, including minimum wage and holiday, start on day one.

Part-time employees have the same rights as full-time ones, pro-rata. There is no threshold of hours below which employment law stops applying, and no level of earnings below which the paperwork disappears.

Either an online check using a share code, for people with digital immigration status, or by seeing and copying original documents for British and Irish citizens. It must be done before they start, and you keep the copy for two years after they leave. gov.uk lists exactly which documents count.

Contractors must register before taking on their first subcontractor. Subcontractors are not obliged to register, but not registering means a 30 percent deduction instead of 20, so almost everyone does.

No. CIS deductions do not make you an employee and carry none of the employment rights. If the working arrangement actually looks like employment, that is a separate question — and one HMRC is willing to ask.

Very common, and you do both sets of obligations. You suffer deductions on what you are paid, and you verify, deduct and file on what you pay out.

Only from your side. A householder having their own home worked on is not a contractor, so nothing is deducted from what they pay you. If you then bring in another trade to help on that job, you are the contractor for them, and CIS applies to what you pay out.

Usually not. A day rate invites comparison against other day rates and says nothing about how long the job will take you. Price the job, and keep the hourly figure as the tool you build the price with.

Give a range with the assumptions stated, and say plainly what would move it. That is more honest than a precise number you will have to renegotiate, and customers respond to it better than most trades expect.

Give notice, apply it to new work rather than jobs already agreed, and do not apologise or over-explain. A short, factual message lands better than a paragraph of justification.

Usually not for a straightforward visit — it is part of the cost of winning work and belongs in your hourly figure. For large or design-heavy jobs where the quote is itself a day's work, a survey fee deducted from the price if you win is fair, and it filters out people who were never going to book.

No, and you should not. Bring in opening balances at the changeover date plus any invoices and bills still outstanding. The old detail stays in the archived spreadsheet, which remains a valid record for the periods it covers.

Only with bridging software that files the submission, and only where the records themselves are kept digitally with the links intact. It is a workable arrangement for some businesses and an awkward one for most.

They usually prefer it. Most of what an accountant charges a small business for at the year end is tidying rather than advice, and starting from reconciled records moves that time into work worth paying for.

Then the spreadsheet has an error, and you have found it at the cheapest possible moment. Trace the difference before going live — it is nearly always a duplicated line, a missed transfer between accounts or a formula that stopped copying — rather than posting an adjustment and hoping.

If there is no monthly fee and the hardware is cheap, usually yes — being paid on the day beats a bank transfer that arrives whenever the customer gets round to it. If the reader carries a monthly commitment, payment links on invoices will cost less.

Not to consumers, for either debit or credit cards. Business-to-business card surcharges are treated differently, but for most small businesses the practical answer is to build the cost into your prices instead.

Only if the fees are ignored. The sale is the gross amount and the provider's fee is a separate business expense — netting them off understates your turnover. Software that imports payouts and splits them handles this without you thinking about it.

Yes. No UK law obliges a business to accept cash, and a growing number do not. Say so before the work starts rather than at the point of payment — a customer who turns up with notes and no card is a dispute you created.

For VAT, yes: digital records, digital links and filing through HMRC's API. For Income Tax the records and quarterly figures are kept ready continuously. Check HMRC's own list of recognised software for the current position on any product, ours included, before relying on it.

Only through VAT, for now. MTD for VAT already applies to any VAT-registered business, company or not. MTD for Income Tax is for sole traders and landlords, and corporation tax is not in the current programme. gov.uk is the place to confirm what is planned.

For VAT, filing without compatible software is already not permitted, and penalties apply for late or missing submissions. For Income Tax, a points-based penalty system attaches to missed quarterly updates. The practical consequence is worse: four reconstructions a year instead of one.

No. If the records are kept as you go, a quarterly update is a review and a button, which is the point of doing it from software. Many people keep their accountant for the final declaration and the judgement calls, and give them a free login so they can see the quarters as they happen.

No. Payment dates are unchanged. The quarterly updates are reporting summaries, not tax bills, and this is the single most common misunderstanding about the regime.

Only with bridging software providing a digital link to HMRC, and the records themselves must be digital. A spreadsheet alone does not satisfy the requirement for those in scope.

You stay on Self Assessment as now, though thresholds fall over time as the regime phases in. Check gov.uk for where the line currently sits and when it moves.

Late updates earn a point under the same points-based penalty system VAT uses; a financial penalty follows once you reach the threshold, and points expire after a period of compliance. One missed update is not the disaster a missed final declaration is, but four in a year add up.

Yes. Annual accounting scheme users are still within MTD for VAT and must keep digital records and file from compatible software.

Yes, with bridging software that creates a digital link to HMRC, and provided the underlying records are digital. What you cannot do is manually retype summary figures into the HMRC website.

You are in scope from registration. Set the software up before your first return rather than after — the first return is the worst time to discover a missing digital link.

No. It is the record of each transaction — date, value, VAT rate — that must be digital, not the invoice behind it. You still have to keep the invoices, and scanning them is the sensible way to do that, but a paper file in a drawer is not a breach.

The tax treatment of holiday lets has changed and the rules differ from standard letting. Check the current position, because guidance written before the changes is misleading.

Income is apportioned according to each owner's share, and the threshold test applies to each person individually on their share.

Only if you are in scope. Below the threshold you can continue as now — but recording per property is a good habit regardless, because the thresholds fall over time.

One update covering your whole UK property business, with a separate one for any overseas property. HMRC does not want per-property figures in the update itself. You keep per-property records because they make the update trivial and tell you which flat actually pays, not because the form asks.

HMRC publishes recognised software separately for MTD for VAT and MTD for Income Tax on gov.uk. Check the list for the regime you are actually in, because the two are not the same.

If you are VAT registered and filing successfully from it, it is compatible for VAT. Income Tax recognition is a separate question, and being on one list does not imply the other.

Yes, provided every step between them is a digital link. The chain is what matters, not the number of products.

Yes. HMRC's list includes free products for both regimes, some limited by turnover or features, and a few that are only free for the first submission. Check what 'free' covers before building a filing process around it — the constraint is usually the digital link to your records, not the price.

Free, with no signup and no email address, and they stay that way. The catch, if there is one, is that a template will not send itself, chase itself or file itself, which is what the rest of this site is about.

They contain what UK law requires and what good practice adds, and each field is marked as one or the other. Validity depends on what you put in them, which is why the explanation of the fields takes up more of the page than the document.

Yes. They are yours to alter: add a logo, remove what does not apply, keep the fields marked as required. The layout is the least important part of any of these documents, and the one people spend longest on.

The invoice, because it is the one that gets paid or does not. Then the quote, so that what you charge for is what was agreed. The rest are for when the first two have generated enough work to need them.

No. If you are not registered you simply do not show VAT, and you must not add it or imply it. Charging VAT without a registration is a serious error rather than a technicality.

No — issue a credit note and a new invoice. Editing an issued document breaks the audit trail, and the customer already has the original.

Answer in writing, referring to the description and any signed acceptance. This is precisely why scope belongs on the invoice rather than in a conversation.

The invoice must carry an address at which the business can be contacted, and for most sole traders that is home. A virtual office or accountant's address is acceptable so long as correspondence genuinely reaches you there. A limited company must show its registered office regardless of where it trades from.

Generally it becomes binding when the customer accepts it, which is why the scope and exclusions matter so much. An estimate does not fix the price in the same way.

Before it is accepted, yes. After acceptance you have a contract. An expiry date is the clean way to close the window without a conversation.

It depends who you are quoting. Businesses often want one; consumers sometimes use it to price-shop each line. A summary with detail available on request is a reasonable middle.

Price them in writing before you do the work, however small, and get a yes back. A variation agreed on the doorstep and invoiced at the end is exactly the line that gets queried, and by then the work has already been done for free.

Usually, for business customers. A clearly marked paid invoice with the date and method recorded serves the same purpose, provided the customer can produce it.

They evidence the payment but rarely describe what was bought. Keep them, and pair them with your own record of the job.

The same retention as the rest of your records — at least five years after the 31 January deadline for the relevant tax year for a sole trader, six years from the period end for a company.

Not legally, unless you are VAT registered and asked for one. Do it anyway. A deposit is the payment most likely to be disputed later — 'I paid you cash in March' — and a receipt stating it is a part payment against a quoted job settles that in a sentence.

Yes, provided the employee can access them. The requirement is that they receive it on or before payday, not that it is printed.

Correct it in the next pay run and tell the employee what happened. Unexplained deductions are both a compliance problem and the fastest way to lose trust.

If the company pays a salary, yes — PAYE and RTI apply even to a single director on a small salary.

No. The legal minimum is gross pay, itemised deductions, net pay, and hours where pay varies by time. Holiday taken and remaining is not required, though showing it answers the question you would otherwise be asked in person, usually in December.

Weekly for the first thirteen weeks, monthly beyond that. Monthly hides the fortnight where the balance dips and recovers, which is exactly the fortnight that matters.

Directionally right beats precisely wrong. The purpose is to spot the week that goes negative, not to predict the balance to the penny.

Weekly, and it takes minutes if your books are current. A forecast built on three-month-old records is fiction.

In two places. The VAT on each sale arrives in the bank with the sale, so the money-in line is gross. The net VAT owed then goes out as a single line on the payment date for the quarter. Forecasting net sales and forgetting the quarterly payment is the classic way a forecast looks fine and the bank does not.

You can produce a figure, but it is an estimate rather than a record, and an enquiry will treat it that way. Contemporaneous logging is the difference between a claim and a guess.

The approved mileage rates apply to cars and vans regardless of fuel type. Company car arrangements are different and have their own advisory rates.

Not if you are claiming the mileage rate — it replaces actual costs. Keep them if you claim actual running costs instead, which is the other route.

Yes. HMRC does not require paper, and an app that records trips as they happen is closer to a contemporaneous record than most notebooks. The test is whether the entry was made at the time and carries the five things above, not what it was written on.

Occasionally, and usually one you are better off without. Polite, consistent chasing is normal commercial behaviour and businesses that pay reliably are not offended by it.

When an invoice is materially overdue and unexplained. Continuing to deliver for someone who has not paid is how a small debt becomes a large one.

For modest debts it is designed to be used without a solicitor, and the fee is recoverable if you win. Weigh the time, not just the money.

Email for the reminders, because speed matters more than ceremony. The letter before action is worth sending by post as well, with proof of posting — if it ends up in court you want to show it was received, not that it left your outbox.

Monthly for any customer with more than one open invoice. It is routine rather than confrontational, which is exactly why it works.

For the period covered, yes — it lets the customer reconcile their side. What matters is that the closing balance is unambiguous.

It is evidence of the account, not a contract. Enforcement rests on the underlying invoices, which is why those need to be right.

Ask for the date, the amount and the reference they used, and check the bank. A payment made with no reference is usually sitting unallocated on your side, and the statement has just found it — which is a result, not an argument.

Because most of the questions we get asked are not about software. People want to know what an accrual is, or whether a P60 matters, before they can decide anything else. Answering plainly costs us nothing and saves an evening of searching.

No. They are plain-English explanations for someone running a business, with a worked example each. Where a term has a precise legal or HMRC meaning, the page says so and points at gov.uk rather than paraphrasing it.

Only where a rate has been stable for years, such as the standard rate of VAT. Anything that moves at a Budget is left as 'the current figure on gov.uk', because a glossary that quietly goes out of date is worse than one that sends you to the source.

Yes, through the contact page. The list started with the sixty terms that come up most in conversations with small business owners and their accountants, and it grows from what people actually ask.

A liability. It is money the business owes and will have to pay, usually within a few weeks, so it is classed as a current liability on the balance sheet. The matching asset on the other side is whatever was bought — stock, equipment or, for services, simply the expense already recognised.

Yes, if suppliers give you credit. Anyone who receives an invoice and pays it later has accounts payable, whatever the legal structure. Sole traders on the cash basis do not record the invoice until it is paid, so the figure does not appear in their tax accounts, but it still exists in reality.

Direction. Accounts payable is what you owe suppliers; accounts receivable is what customers owe you. One is a liability, the other an asset. A healthy business collects its receivables faster than it pays its payables, which is what keeps cash in the bank.

Record every invoice the day it arrives, so the list is complete. Pay on the due date rather than early or late. Review the list weekly against the bank balance. Most problems come not from the size of the figure but from not knowing what it is.

The sale behind it is. Under the accruals basis, income is recognised when the invoice is issued, so the sale is already in the profit and loss. The receivable is the asset that sits on the balance sheet until the customer pays. Collecting it does not add income a second time.

Yes. The customer owes the full invoice amount including VAT, so that is what is recorded as the receivable. The VAT element is separately owed to HMRC and appears as a liability. Only the net amount is counted as sales in the profit and loss.

For tax purposes, nothing is recorded until the money arrives, so the receivable does not appear in cash-basis accounts. It still exists commercially — customers still owe you — and any decent system will still list unpaid invoices so you can chase them.

Whatever your payment terms say, and no longer. Thirty days is common between businesses; consumers are usually expected to pay on receipt. Measuring the average number of days invoices stay unpaid, and watching it drift upwards, is the earliest warning most small businesses get of a cash problem.

Only if you use the traditional accruals basis. Most sole traders now use the cash basis by default, which records costs when they are paid, so there are no accruals to make. Limited companies must use the accruals basis and account for them at every year end.

No. A creditor is a supplier invoice you have received and not yet paid, so the amount is known exactly. An accrual is a cost you have incurred but not yet been invoiced for, so the amount is an estimate. Both are liabilities, shown on separate lines.

It is reversed on the first day of the new period. When the actual invoice arrives it is recorded normally, and the reversal cancels it, so the cost lands only once, in the year it belonged to. If the invoice differs from the estimate, the difference falls into the new year.

Related, but not identical. Accruals-basis accounting is the whole method of recording income and costs when earned or incurred rather than when paid. Accruals are one specific adjustment within it, made at a period end for costs not yet invoiced.

Same money, different view. Accounts receivable is the total customers owe you. An aged debtors report breaks that total down by customer and by how long each invoice has been outstanding. The total on the report should always equal the receivables figure on the balance sheet.

Weekly is sensible for most small businesses, and always before the monthly VAT or cash review. If invoices are chased automatically the report becomes a check rather than a to-do list, but it is still worth a look, because a customer who ignores three reminders needs a person.

Either, depending on the system, and it matters. Ageing from the due date shows how late a payment actually is; ageing from the invoice date shows how long the money has been out. Check which yours uses before comparing it with anyone else's.

The same report pointed the other way: every unpaid supplier invoice grouped by how overdue it is. It tells you who you are late paying, which is worth knowing before a supplier stops delivering. Together the two reports are the quickest picture of short-term cash there is.

Yes, in everyday use. Allowable is HMRC's word for a cost that can be deducted from income before tax is calculated. Tax-deductible means the same thing. The distinction people actually need is between revenue costs, which are deducted as expenses, and capital costs, which go through capital allowances.

You can claim a cost you genuinely incurred, but you need evidence of it. A bank statement line, an emailed order confirmation or a supplier statement will usually do. What does not work is a round number with nothing behind it. Photographing receipts as they arrive is the low-effort fix.

If you are VAT registered and reclaim the VAT, claim the net amount, because the VAT comes back separately on the return. If you are not VAT registered, or cannot reclaim the VAT on that item, the VAT is part of the cost to you and you claim the gross figure.

Training that keeps up or refreshes skills you already use in the business is allowable. Training that gives you a new qualification to start a different trade has traditionally not been, though HMRC's guidance has softened on updating and adjacent skills. Check the current position on gov.uk for anything substantial.

For a private limited company, at Companies House within nine months of the accounting reference date, and a first set of accounts can have a different deadline. Late filing penalties are automatic and rise with delay. The corporation tax return has its own, separate deadline with HMRC.

For limited companies, yes. Whatever is filed at Companies House can be viewed by anyone free of charge. Small companies can file a reduced set that omits the profit and loss, which is why most do. Sole traders file nothing, so their figures stay private.

Legally, no — a director can prepare and file them. In practice most small companies use one, because the accounts must follow a recognised accounting standard and the corporation tax computation that goes with them has rules of its own. Clean bookkeeping is what keeps the fee small.

The simplest form of accounts a very small company can file, containing a short balance sheet and minimal notes. A company qualifies by staying under size limits on turnover, balance sheet total and staff, which are set out on gov.uk. Filing them is optional; most eligible companies do.

Yes. The van is an asset at its full cost, and the finance owed is a separate liability. Recording it that way shows both what the business uses and what it still has to pay. As repayments go out, the liability shrinks; as the van ages, the asset depreciates.

Yes, a current asset. Money customers owe you is something the business is entitled to receive, so it counts. It is only as good as the customers behind it, though, which is why invoices that will never be paid are written off as bad debts rather than left sitting on the balance sheet.

Fixed assets do, through depreciation, which spreads the cost over the years the asset is used. Current assets are usually carried at what they cost or what they will bring in, whichever is lower. Land is the main exception; it is not depreciated.

Assets are what the business has. Equity is the owner's share of it once every liability has been paid — the same figure as net assets. If a company has £50,000 of assets and £30,000 of liabilities, equity is £20,000. The balance sheet shows both sides adding to the same total.

Yes, if you are on the standard VAT scheme and have already paid the VAT to HMRC. The debt must be more than six months past its due date and written off in your books; you reclaim the VAT on your next return. On the cash accounting scheme there is nothing to reclaim.

No. A credit note cancels the sale, as if the work was never done or was faulty. A bad debt keeps the sale and records that the customer failed to pay. They are different things, they are treated differently for VAT, and using a credit note to hide a bad debt misstates what happened.

Not in the accounts. Under the cash basis, income is recorded only when it is received, so an invoice that is never paid is never recorded as income and there is nothing to write off. The loss is real, but it has already been reflected by the money not arriving.

Reverse the write-off: record the receipt as bad debt recovered, which is income, and if you reclaimed VAT as bad debt relief, pay that VAT back on the next return. It happens more often than you would think, particularly when a liquidator eventually distributes something.

Not for HMRC. The Self Assessment return asks for profit, not the balance sheet, and sole traders on the cash basis rarely produce one. It is still the only document that shows what the business is worth, and lenders and mortgage brokers often ask for it, so many prepare one anyway.

The business owes more than it has. For a company this is called being balance-sheet insolvent, and it obliges the directors to take care, because trading on while unable to pay creditors carries personal risk. It is common in a company's first year and worth fixing quickly after that.

Usually timing. The balance sheet shows the reconciled book balance, which includes payments made and receipts recorded that have not yet cleared. If the difference is not explained by uncleared items, something has been recorded twice or missed, and the bank reconciliation will find it.

For a limited company, yes. The balance sheet is the one statement every company must file at Companies House, even under the smallest filing options, so anyone can look it up. Sole traders and partnerships file nothing and theirs stays private.

Yes, though the job changes. The feed imports the transactions; it cannot know which invoice a payment settles or which category a card purchase belongs to. Reconciling is confirming those matches. Software that proposes them well turns it into a few minutes a week rather than an afternoon a quarter.

Find the difference and explain it, item by item. Start with the amount: a difference of £38 is a bank charge; a difference that is exactly one invoice is a missed receipt; a difference that is double something is a duplicate. Do not adjust the books by the difference to make it go away.

A transaction that legitimately appears in the books but not yet at the bank, or vice versa, at the reconciliation date. A payment sent on 31 May that clears on 2 June is the classic case. The reconciliation lists them so the two balances can be shown to agree after allowing for timing.

You can, but every personal transaction has to be identified and posted to drawings or the director's loan account, which is tedious and error-prone. A separate business account costs little and turns reconciliation into a check rather than a sorting exercise. Most people who mix accounts stop after the first year-end.

Yes. Every business must keep records sufficient to support its tax returns, and companies must keep accounting records under the Companies Act. What form they take is up to you, but Making Tax Digital requires VAT records to be digital, and is extending that to income tax for many sole traders and landlords.

Sole traders keep records for at least five years after the 31 January filing deadline of the tax year they relate to. Companies keep them for six years from the end of the accounting period. Keep them longer if anything is disputed. Digital copies are fine; the paper can go.

Yes, and most small businesses do, or let software do most of it. The skill is habit rather than expertise: record things as they happen, match the bank every week, and ask when something is unclear. Where people go wrong is not lack of knowledge but leaving it until it is a job rather than a task.

For a very small business with no VAT registration, it can be, though the risk of a broken formula or a missed line grows with every row. Once you are VAT registered it is not: Making Tax Digital requires digital records and filing through compatible software, and a spreadsheet alone does not qualify.

Yes, but differently from a van. Cars do not qualify for the annual investment allowance. They go into a pool and are written down each year at a rate that depends on the car's emissions, with new zero-emission cars historically treated most generously. The current rates and bands are on gov.uk.

Mostly not. Under the cash basis, spending on equipment, vans and most other plant is deducted as an ordinary expense when paid. Cars are the exception and still go through capital allowances. If you use the traditional accruals basis, capital allowances apply in full.

A capital allowance that lets a business deduct the full cost of qualifying plant and machinery in the year of purchase, rather than over several years, up to an annual limit. The limit has changed several times, so check the current figure on gov.uk before relying on it for a large purchase.

The sale proceeds are brought back into the calculation. If you claimed the full cost and then sell the asset for £3,000, that £3,000 is added to taxable profit as a balancing charge. It is not a penalty; it corrects for relief that turned out to be more than the asset actually cost you to use.

In the UK they are two things with one idea. The cash basis is how sole traders and partnerships can calculate taxable profit, on money received and paid. The VAT cash accounting scheme applies the same idea to VAT. A business can be on one without the other.

For VAT, yes: the VAT cash accounting scheme is open to companies under the turnover limit. For corporation tax, no: companies must prepare accounts on the accruals basis, recording sales when invoiced and costs when incurred, whatever the state of the bank.

Usually. You are not taxed on income until it arrives, and on the VAT scheme you do not pay HMRC the VAT on an invoice until the customer has paid you. The trade-off is that you cannot deduct costs until you have paid them either, so a business that pays suppliers slowly loses some of the benefit.

A little. There are no accruals or prepayments to adjust for, and the numbers follow the bank. But you still need to raise invoices, keep receipts, reconcile the bank and know who owes you what. The saving is in year-end adjustments, not in the weekly routine.

A projection of money in and money out, usually week by week or month by month, starting from the bank balance today. Known items — rent, wages, VAT, loan repayments — go in first, then expected receipts from invoices already issued. The point is to see the low point before it arrives.

No. A business can have positive cash flow and no profit — by taking a loan, collecting old debts or delaying paying suppliers — and a profit with negative cash flow, by buying equipment or growing faster than customers pay. Over a long enough period they converge; over any given month they do not.

Get paid faster. Invoice the day the work is done, take deposits, offer card or instant bank payment, and chase on the due date. Those four change the timing of money already earned, which is faster than finding new sales, and they cost nothing but a little discipline.

Not by small companies. A cash flow statement is one of the primary financial statements in full accounts, but small and micro companies are exempt from including one. Sole traders never file one. It remains the most useful of the three statements for actually running the business.

No. There is no statutory UK chart; the accounts you file have to follow a format, but the codes and names behind them are yours. Most businesses start from their software's default because it maps cleanly onto the year-end accounts, and adjust from there.

The chart is the list of accounts. The general ledger is those accounts with the transactions in them. One is the index; the other is the book. You can print a chart of accounts on one page; the general ledger for a year is every entry the business made, grouped under those headings.

Adding an account is harmless at any time. Renaming or merging accounts is fine as long as the year-end reports still make sense. Deleting an account with transactions in it is not usually possible, and reclassifying old transactions to a new account should be done deliberately, so comparisons with earlier periods stay meaningful.

If you use any bookkeeping software, you already have one, whether you looked at it or not. A sole trader on the cash basis needs fewer lines than a company — no share capital, no corporation tax — but the same structure of income, expenses, assets and liabilities still applies, and the Self Assessment return asks for expenses by category.

If you pay subcontractors for construction work, yes, regardless of the size of the job. Domestic homeowners paying for work on their own house are outside the scheme, but a trader paying another trader is inside it.

It means HMRC has agreed that contractors pay you in full, with no deduction. You have to apply, pass turnover and compliance tests, and keep your tax affairs in order to retain it. It helps cash flow considerably for larger subcontractors.

Sole traders claim them on their Self Assessment return, where they are set against the tax due. Limited companies offset them against PAYE and CIS liabilities through the year, and reclaim any surplus from HMRC after the tax year ends.

Yes. Contractors verify subcontractors using their UTR, and a subcontractor without one is treated as unregistered and has 30% deducted. Getting the UTR sorted before the first job is the single most useful piece of CIS admin.

No. Companies House registers companies and holds the public record; HMRC collects the tax. A limited company deals with both, with different deadlines, and filing with one does not count as filing with the other.

An automatic penalty, which increases the longer the accounts are outstanding and doubles if you were late the previous year too. Persistent failure to file can lead to the company being struck off the register.

Yes. Filed accounts are public and searchable for free. Small companies can file abridged versions with less detail, but the balance sheet is still visible, and the rules on what small companies must file are tightening.

Yes, within 14 days of the appointment or resignation, using the relevant online form. The same applies to changes of registered office and certain changes to shareholdings, which the confirmation statement then confirms.

No. The company calculates its own liability, pays it, and then files the return that shows the working. HMRC sends a notice to file and reminders, but the amount comes from you, which is why the books need to be right.

Yes. Salary paid through PAYE is a cost of the company and reduces taxable profit. Dividends are not a cost; they are paid out of profit after corporation tax has been charged.

No corporation tax is due. The loss can usually be carried forward against future profits, or in some cases carried back against the previous year's profit to generate a refund. Both need the return filed to be claimed.

Nine months and one day after the end of its first accounting period. HMRC needs to be told the company has started trading within three months of doing so, which sets the period running.

Not once it has been sent. The customer has a copy, and if it has been included in a VAT return it is part of a filed record. Issue a credit note for the wrong invoice and a fresh invoice for the right amount.

Yes, if the original invoice had VAT. The credit note shows the VAT being reversed so both parties adjust their returns correctly. A credit note without VAT against a VAT invoice leaves the VAT overstated.

It should not be. A credit note reduces a specific invoice, so it cannot exceed it. If you owe the customer more than the invoice, that is a separate transaction and needs its own paperwork.

Yes. A supplier who overcharged you or took goods back sends you a credit note, and it reduces what you owe them and the input VAT you reclaim. Record it against the original purchase invoice, not as a new bill.

Almost. Accounts payable usually means trade creditors only, the suppliers with unpaid invoices. Creditors is the wider term and also covers tax owed to HMRC, loans, and anything else the business has to pay.

Yes. An overdrawn bank account is money you owe the bank, repayable on demand, so it is a current liability. It is one of the easiest creditors to forget because it looks like a bank balance with a minus sign.

Only if there is a discount for doing so. Otherwise, paying on the due date rather than early keeps cash in your account for longer at no cost. Paying late, on the other hand, damages the relationship and can trigger interest.

Record every supplier invoice when it arrives, not when it is paid. A creditors ledger, or an aged creditors report, then shows who is owed what and when. If bills only enter the books when the bank pays them, you never know the true figure.

Nothing, in practice. Accounts receivable is the term more common in software and in American usage; debtors is the traditional UK term. Both mean the total of unpaid customer invoices.

Whatever your invoice says, and the invoice should say something. Thirty days is common; fourteen or seven is perfectly reasonable for small jobs. If no terms are agreed, the law treats 30 days as the default for business customers.

When you conclude it will not be paid: the customer has gone bust, vanished, or refused and you decide not to pursue it. At that point it is written off as a cost, and VAT already paid on it can be reclaimed once the debt is six months overdue.

Anything the business owns that will last more than a year and cost enough to matter: vehicles, machinery, computers, furniture, fit-out. Land is not depreciated because it does not wear out. Stock and consumables are costs, not assets, and are not depreciated.

Estimate how long the asset will genuinely be useful to you. Computers three years, vans four or five, machinery longer. There is no HMRC rule because HMRC ignores depreciation for tax; the aim is a fair picture in the accounts, applied consistently.

Not directly. It is added back in the tax computation and replaced with capital allowances, which are what actually reduce taxable profit. The two often come to different amounts in any given year, which is expected.

If you prepare accounts on the traditional accruals basis, yes, for a true profit figure. Under the cash basis you simply deduct most equipment when you pay for it, and depreciation does not arise. Vehicles are the usual exception.

Yes, and it is recorded in the director's loan account. Larger loans need shareholder approval, and if the balance is outstanding nine months and one day after the year end the company pays a temporary tax charge until it is repaid.

Nothing happens at the year end itself. You have nine months and one day to repay it, declare a dividend against it, or vote a bonus. Miss that and the company pays a charge that is refunded once the balance is cleared, so it is a cost of timing rather than a permanent one.

Yes. Cash you introduce, and business costs you pay personally without reclaiming, are credited to your loan account. The company owes you that money, and you can take it back whenever the company can afford it, with no tax to pay.

For small, short balances a clear ledger entry is usually enough. For larger or longer loans a written agreement stating the amount, any interest and the repayment terms is sensible, and your accountant will want to see the balance explained in the year-end accounts either way.

No. Dividends are paid out of profit after corporation tax, so they do not reduce it. Salary does, because it is a cost of the company. That is one reason the usual approach is a mix of both rather than dividends alone.

As often as the company has profit to cover it and the directors declare one. Monthly interim dividends are common. Each one needs its own minute and voucher, and each has to be covered by profit available at the time.

One paid when the company did not have enough distributable profit to cover it. It does not disappear: the shareholder has to repay it, and in the meantime it is treated as a loan and sits in the director's loan account with the consequences that follow.

Personally, by the shareholder, through Self Assessment. There is a tax-free allowance and then rates that depend on your other income, all of which change at Budgets and are set out on gov.uk. The company deducts nothing at source.

Not to run it day to day, if your software handles the entries. It helps to understand them when something looks wrong, when reading a balance sheet, or when talking to your accountant, and the basics take an afternoon to grasp.

Not by name. What is required is records sufficient to show the business's position and to support the accounts and tax returns. For a limited company that effectively means double-entry, and for a sole trader it is the only reliable way to produce a balance sheet.

They are the two sides of every entry. Debits increase assets and costs and decrease liabilities and income; credits do the reverse. The words carry no judgement, and the confusing part is only that your bank statement uses them from the bank's point of view.

Yes. You enter opening balances for what you owned and owed at the switch date, so the ledger starts balanced, and record transactions from there. Doing it at a year end or VAT quarter end keeps the join cleaner, but any date works.

No. It ignores changes in working capital, such as customers paying late or stock building up, and it ignores capital spending, loan repayments and tax, all of which are real cash. It is a rough proxy for operating cash generation, not a substitute for a cash flow statement.

Because it strips out the seller's financing and tax position, which the buyer will replace with their own, and it removes depreciation, which reflects historic purchase decisions. What is left is the earning power they are actually buying, to which they apply a multiple.

The calculation works for any business, but it is rarely used for sole traders, where the owner's drawings and personal tax blur the picture. For a limited company, especially one being sold or borrowing, it is the more common measure.

The same idea as depreciation, applied to intangible assets such as goodwill, software licences or a patent, whose cost is spread over their useful life. Most small businesses have none, in which case EBITDA and EBITD are the same number.

Not in the year you buy it. It goes on the balance sheet and reaches the profit and loss gradually as depreciation. For tax, capital allowances often let you deduct most of the cost immediately, which is a separate calculation from the accounts.

If you have more than a couple of assets, yes. It lists each item with its purchase date, cost, depreciation to date and net book value, supports the balance sheet figure, and tells you what to do when an asset is sold or scrapped. Accountants ask for it every year.

It comes off the register, and the difference between what you receive and its net book value is a profit or loss on disposal in the accounts. For tax, the sale proceeds are brought into the capital allowances computation, which may create a balancing charge or allowance.

It depends on the lease. Under a finance lease or hire purchase, where you effectively own it at the end, it is treated as your asset with the finance as a liability. Under a simple operating lease or contract hire, it is a rental cost and stays off the balance sheet.

The chart of accounts is the list of accounts: the names and codes, with nothing in them. The general ledger is those accounts with every transaction posted to them. One is the filing cabinet's labels; the other is the cabinet full of paper.

If they use accounting software, yes, whether or not the software calls it that. A sole trader keeping a spreadsheet of money in and money out has something simpler: a cash book. It works until they need a balance sheet, a VAT return with any complexity, or an accountant to trust the figures.

Usually, under a report called 'general ledger', 'nominal activity' or 'account transactions'. It is worth knowing where, because it is the report that answers 'why is this number what it is' when the summary screens cannot.

HMRC expects records kept for at least five years after the Self Assessment deadline they relate to for sole traders, and six years from the year end for companies. A ledger that has been running continuously since day one is far easier to defend than one that was restarted or rebuilt.

Anything spent directly to deliver the work: subcontractors, materials supplied to the client, and the wages of staff whose time is billed. A consultant working alone may have almost no cost of sales, in which case gross profit and turnover are nearly the same and the useful line is net profit.

No. Turnover and costs are both shown net of VAT if you are VAT-registered, because the VAT is HMRC's money passing through. Including it inflates both sides and distorts the margin. If you are not registered, VAT on purchases is simply part of the cost.

It depends entirely on the trade. Retail and construction with heavy materials sit lower; consultancy and software sit very high. The useful comparison is your own margin over time, and against others in your trade, rather than an all-purpose number.

For a sole trader, drawings are never a cost at all. For a limited company director, salary is usually an overhead unless you are billing your own hours as the product, in which case some businesses include it in cost of sales. Whichever you choose, apply it consistently.

Output is on your sales, going out to customers. Input is on your purchases, coming in from suppliers. If you find them easy to muddle, remember that the return is output less input, and that the result is normally a payment, because you sell for more than you buy.

Yes, within limits: goods still on hand bought in the four years before registration, and services in the six months before, provided you have VAT invoices. The claim goes on your first return. The time limits have been stable for years.

Small amounts can be included on the next return as an adjustment, up to the correction limit on gov.uk. Larger errors need a separate disclosure to HMRC. Either way it is not lost, and there is a four-year window for catching up.

On standard VAT accounting, yes: the VAT is due by reference to the invoice date, paid or not. The cash accounting scheme changes that, so VAT is accounted for when money moves, and it is worth considering if customers pay slowly.

No. An invoice asks for payment and is issued before the money arrives; a receipt confirms payment has been received. Many small businesses issue an invoice, get paid, and then mark the same document as paid rather than producing a separate receipt, which is fine.

No. Any business can invoice. If you are not VAT registered you simply do not add VAT or show a VAT number, and the invoice must not describe itself as a VAT invoice. Charging VAT without being registered is an offence.

Not by editing it. Once issued, an invoice is a record for both parties. If it is wrong, issue a credit note to cancel all or part of it and then a fresh invoice with the correct figures, so the numbering and the audit trail stay intact.

Whatever you agreed with the customer, stated plainly. Thirty days is common but nothing requires it; seven or fourteen days is normal for small jobs. If no terms are agreed, the law treats payment as due within 30 days, so writing your terms down is the only way to shorten that.

Only if they prepare accounts on an accruals basis. A sole trader using cash basis accounting records money in and out and little else, so journals are rare. Once you are adjusting for prepayments, accruals or depreciation, you are posting journals whether you call them that or not.

Historically the journal was the day book where transactions were first written down in date order, and the ledger was where they were then sorted by account. In modern software the distinction has mostly collapsed, and 'journal' now means a manual adjusting entry posted directly to the ledger.

Yes. A payroll journal, for example, might debit gross wages, credit net pay owed to staff, credit PAYE owed to HMRC and credit pension contributions owed to the provider, all in one entry. The only rule is that the debits and credits add up to the same total.

Reverse it if it was simply wrong, so the original and its reversal sit together and the story is obvious. Post a new journal if the original was right at the time and circumstances have changed. Never edit a posted journal in place; the trail is worth more than the tidiness.

Debt is one kind of liability — money borrowed that must be repaid, usually with interest. Liabilities are broader and include everything the business owes for any reason: unpaid bills, tax due, deposits held for customers, and wages earned but not yet paid.

If the director has lent money to the company, yes: the company owes it back and it appears as a liability. If it is the other way round and the director has taken more out than they put in, the company is owed money and the balance is an asset, with tax consequences if it is not repaid.

Not in themselves. Every trading business owes its suppliers something, and a loan that bought a van earning £500 a week is a liability worth having. The question is whether the business can meet them as they fall due, which is what the split between current and non-current is for.

As a current liability if you owe HMRC — VAT charged on sales exceeds VAT reclaimed on purchases — and as a current asset if HMRC owes you a repayment. It is one net figure, and it is one of the liabilities most often forgotten when someone looks at the bank balance and thinks it is all theirs.

Yes. A company needs at least one director and one shareholder, and the same person can be both. Most small UK companies are exactly this: one owner, one director, one employee, all the same individual wearing different hats.

Sometimes, and less often than it used to. The answer depends on profit level, how much you take out, and how the corporation tax, dividend and National Insurance figures line up in a given year. Do the comparison with current numbers rather than trusting a rule you heard a few years ago.

Not without recording what it is. Money taken out is salary, a dividend or a director's loan, and each has its own tax treatment. Drawing cash and sorting the label out later is how directors' loan accounts get out of hand and attract a tax charge.

The company pays no corporation tax for that year and can usually carry the loss forward against future profits, or in some cases back against the previous year's. The loss belongs to the company, though, not to you, so it cannot be set against your personal income the way a sole trader's loss sometimes can.

No. It changes how records are kept and how returns are sent, not what is taxable or the rates applied. Some people do end up paying more because digital records catch income that a shoebox lost, but that is the same tax, more accurately counted.

Partly. A spreadsheet can hold the digital records, but it must link to bridging or accounting software that submits the return, and the link must be digital — a formula or import, not copying and pasting. In practice most people find software alone is simpler than the spreadsheet plus a bridge.

It depends on your gross income from self-employment and property combined, measured against thresholds that are being lowered in stages. Both the thresholds and the start dates have moved before, so check the current position on gov.uk for your own income rather than planning around a date from an article.

Yes, for VAT returns filed from the ledger, and for the quarterly updates and final declaration under MTD for Income Tax. The records are kept digitally as a matter of course because that is how the bookkeeping works; the submission is a review and a button rather than a separate job.

It depends entirely on the trade. Food retail can survive on a few per cent net; a consultant may keep half of turnover. The useful comparisons are your own margin over time and the norm for businesses like yours, which your accountant or trade body will know.

Divide the markup by one plus the markup. A 50% markup is 0.5 divided by 1.5, so a 33% margin. Going the other way, divide the margin by one minus the margin: a 33% margin is 0.33 divided by 0.67, so a 50% markup.

No. Both the selling price and the costs are taken excluding VAT if you are registered, because the VAT is HMRC's and passes through. Working margin on VAT-inclusive prices makes it look better than it is, and that is a common way a job that seemed profitable turns out not to be.

Usually because costs rose and prices did not, or because the extra sales came from discounting. Occasionally it is a bookkeeping issue: a cost posted to cost of sales that used to sit in overheads will drop gross margin without anything real having changed. Check the postings before changing the prices.

No. The mileage rate is designed to cover fuel along with everything else, so claiming both would count the fuel twice. The choice is mileage rate or actual costs for a given vehicle, and once made it stays until you change the vehicle.

Yes. It applies per tax year, from 6 April to 5 April, so the counter goes back to zero each April and the first 10,000 business miles of the new year are again at the higher rate.

Yes. HMRC can ask for evidence, and a round-number claim with nothing behind it is the kind that gets disallowed. Date, start and finish, purpose and miles for each journey is enough. Recording them as you go is far easier than reconstructing a year from a diary.

Yes, on the same basis as any employee: the company reimburses business miles in the director's own car at up to the HMRC rate tax-free, and claims the cost as an expense. If the company owns the car, different rules apply and the mileage allowance is not used.

Both terms are used, so check which. In a set of accounts, 'profit before tax' and 'profit after tax' are shown separately. When a sole trader talks about net profit they almost always mean before tax, because their tax is personal rather than a cost of the business.

Close, but not identical. HMRC adjusts net profit for costs it does not allow, such as client entertaining and depreciation, and replaces the latter with capital allowances. The result is taxable profit, and it can be noticeably different from the accounts figure.

In a limited company, yes: the director's salary is an overhead like any other wage. For a sole trader, no: the owner's drawings are not a cost, because the net profit is the owner's income. This is one reason a sole trader's and a company's net profit cannot be compared directly.

There is no universal number. Net margins of a few per cent are normal in food and retail; 20% or more is common in services with low overheads. What matters more is the trend, whether it covers what the owner needs to live on, and whether it turns into cash.

No. The ranges above are a common UK convention, but software differs and any business can customise its own chart. What matters is that codes are used consistently within one set of books, not that they match anyone else's.

Not the numbers. Most software shows account names and hides the codes unless you ask. What you need is a sense of which category a cost belongs to — materials or overheads, expense or asset — and that is a judgement about the business, not the software.

Yes, and it is worth doing where a category matters to you. A café might split sales into food, drink and takeaway; a builder might separate subcontractors from materials. Keep the additions in the right range so the reports still group them sensibly.

A nominal code whose balance is made up of many individual balances held elsewhere. The debtors control account, for example, equals the sum of every unpaid customer invoice; the VAT control account holds the net of VAT charged and reclaimed. They are the link between the detail and the totals.

Only for whatever you put in on day one. If you opened a business bank account with £2,000 of your own money and bought a laptop, the opening balances are the bank, the laptop and your capital. A business that starts from nothing has none.

The first day of an accounting period, ideally the start of your financial year. Switching mid-year is possible, but it means the year's accounts have to be stitched together from two systems, which is the kind of job accountants charge for.

Then something is missing or wrong, and the answer is to find it rather than force it. Common culprits are a forgotten loan, VAT owed, or a bank balance taken from the wrong date. Software will offer a suspense account for the difference; treat that as a to-do, not a solution.

Yes, and if you have a set of year-end accounts that is the best source. The closing balance sheet from those accounts is, line for line, the opening balances for the next year. Ask for the trial balance rather than the published accounts, because it has the detail.

It depends on whose. Staff who do the work that is sold — a cleaner, a fitter, a stylist — are usually cost of sales, because their hours rise with jobs. Staff who keep the business running — admin, a manager, the owner's salary in a company — are overheads.

Nearly. Fixed costs are those that stay the same regardless of activity; overheads are indirect costs, most of which are fixed. A cost like electricity is an overhead but is semi-variable, rising a little in a busy month. In everyday use the two terms are swapped freely.

Start with the list and the total, because most owners have never added it up. Then ask of each line whether it earns more than it costs. The usual findings are subscriptions nobody uses, insurance never re-quoted, and premises bigger than the work needs. Every pound cut drops straight to profit.

As a sole trader, no: drawings are you taking profit out, not a cost of making it. For planning, though, it is sensible to add what you need to live on to the overhead total, because the business has to generate that much gross profit before it is genuinely working.

Yes. An employer must provide one when employment ends, regardless of why it ended or how short the employment was. Payroll software produces it as part of processing the final pay, so it costs nothing to do and something to withhold.

Yes. HMRC accepts P45s issued as a PDF or through an employee portal, provided the employee can access and keep it. A paper copy is no longer required, though some employees still ask for one.

No. Plenty of people start work without one, either because it has not arrived or because they had no previous job that tax year. The starter checklist covers the gap. Having the P45 just means the tax is right from the first payslip rather than after a correction.

The old employer corrects their payroll and reports the corrected figures to HMRC; they do not reissue the P45. The new employer should use the figures from HMRC's records, which they can request, rather than an amended paper form. If in doubt, HMRC's own year-to-date figures are the ones that count.

Yes, if they are paid a salary through the company's payroll and are on it at 5 April. A director paid only dividends is not an employee for this purpose and gets no P60; the dividends appear on their Self Assessment return instead.

Ask the employer for a duplicate, which they can produce from the payroll records and should mark as such. If the employer no longer exists, the same figures are available through your personal tax account on gov.uk, and HMRC or a lender will usually accept that.

Not directly. The pay figure on a P60 is taxable pay, so if your pension contributions were taken before tax, they have already been deducted from it. The contributions themselves appear on your payslips and your pension provider's statement, not on the P60.

No. A P60 is a PAYE document produced by an employer. A self-employed person's equivalent is the Self Assessment tax calculation, sometimes called an SA302, which HMRC produces after the return is filed and lenders accept in the same way.

Usually, yes. Registration is required once any employee is paid above the threshold on gov.uk, has another job, or receives a pension or benefits. In practice almost any real job crosses that line, and registering before the first pay day avoids a scramble.

If the company pays you a salary, yes. A director is an employee for PAYE purposes, and the company operates payroll for you exactly as it would for anyone else, including the real-time submission each pay day. Dividends are not salary and sit outside PAYE.

Interest runs from the due date, and repeated late payments in a tax year attract penalties that scale with how often it happens. The first late payment in a year is usually let go; the second is not. Setting up a direct debit for the PAYE bill removes the problem.

A short code, such as one ending in L, that tells payroll how much tax-free pay an employee is entitled to and how to apply it. HMRC issues it and can change it mid-year. The employer applies whatever code HMRC has issued and is not expected to judge whether it is right.

Because HMRC collects Self Assessment tax partly in advance, using last year's bill as the estimate. It is a deposit rather than an extra tax: whatever you pay on account is deducted from the real bill when the return for that year is filed.

Yes. If you expect next year's bill to be lower, you can ask HMRC to reduce them, online or by post, giving your estimate. If you reduce them below what turns out to be due, interest is charged on the difference, so be realistic.

Class 4 National Insurance is included, because it is worked out on the same profit and collected through the same return. Anything collected separately, such as capital gains tax, is not — it is paid with the balancing payment in January.

The excess is set against the balancing payment and the next year's first payment on account. If there is still something left over, HMRC refunds it, either automatically or when you ask on the return.

No. A sole trader is not employed by the business and takes drawings rather than wages, so there is nothing to itemise. A director of a limited company on the payroll does get one, because the company is the employer.

Yes. Anyone who is an employee or a worker, on any hours, is entitled to an itemised statement on or before payday. Only the genuinely self-employed, who invoice you, fall outside it.

Yes. Electronic payslips are fine provided the employee can access and keep them. It is sensible to make them downloadable rather than only viewable, so a leaver still has a record after their login is closed.

Correct it in the next pay run, showing the adjustment as its own line so the year-to-date figures come right. Because PAYE is reported to HMRC each payday, the correction is reported the same way; a wrong slip is not a problem, an uncorrected one is.

Yes. Income statement is the international and US term; profit and loss account, or P&L, is the traditional UK one. Company accounts filed in the UK may use either heading for the same statement.

Monthly, if the bookkeeping is up to date enough to make it meaningful. A profit and loss account seen once a year, at year end, tells you what happened too late to do anything about it.

Because profit and cash are different measures. Unpaid invoices count as sales, unpaid bills count as costs, equipment is spread over years as depreciation, and drawings, loan repayments and VAT move cash without touching profit at all.

Not as a formal document, but the figures on a Self Assessment return are exactly a profit and loss account — turnover, expenses by category, profit — so in practice every sole trader prepares one, whether or not it is called that.

Corporation Tax was paid when the profit was made. When it is later paid as a dividend, the shareholder pays dividend tax at their own rate. So the profit is taxed at both levels, but at different times and on different people.

Yes. If accumulated losses and dividends exceed accumulated profits, the reserve is negative, and the company cannot pay a dividend until it has been rebuilt by future profits. The balance sheet will show it as a deficit.

Not in the accounting sense. A sole trader's profit is theirs personally the moment it is made, and is taxed as such whether or not they withdraw it. Retained profit is a company concept, because the company and its owners are separate.

On the balance sheet, under capital and reserves, usually labelled profit and loss account or retained earnings. The movement for the year — opening balance, profit after tax, dividends, closing balance — is shown in a note or a separate statement of changes in equity.

Yes, if the company pays you a salary through PAYE. A one-director company on the payroll files an FPS each time it pays, or an EPS for periods with no pay, exactly like any other employer.

The FPS reports payments to employees and goes every payday. The EPS reports things that are not payments — no one paid, statutory pay recovered, Employment Allowance claimed — and goes only when one of those applies, by the 19th of the next tax month.

HMRC allows one late submission per tax year without penalty. After that, a monthly penalty applies, scaled by the number of employees. Persistent lateness is also what prompts a compliance check, which is more expensive than the penalty.

Yes. Correct it in the next FPS, which carries year-to-date figures that overwrite the earlier ones. For an error discovered after the tax year has closed, an earlier-year FPS is sent instead. Sending a duplicate of the original is the one thing not to do.

No. The online return is designed to be completed by the taxpayer, and for a straightforward sole trader with tidy records it is. An accountant earns their fee where there are several income sources, capital gains, or decisions about what to claim.

Sales invoices, receipts for expenses, bank statements, and anything supporting a claim such as a mileage log. Keep them for at least five years after the 31 January filing deadline they relate to. Digital copies are fine.

A fixed penalty applies the day after the deadline, whether or not any tax is owed, and further penalties and daily charges accrue as the delay lengthens. Interest runs separately on unpaid tax. Filing on time and paying late is much cheaper than the reverse.

Yes, from 6 April, as soon as the tax year ends. Filing early does not bring the payment date forward — the tax is still due 31 January — but it tells you the bill months in advance and gets any refund sooner.

Yes. Sole means the business has one owner, not one person. A sole trader can employ staff, in which case they register as an employer, run PAYE and file RTI like any other employer.

Not legally, but practically, yes. Mixing business and personal transactions in one account makes the bookkeeping slower and the expenses claim weaker. Many banks' terms also require a business account for trading activity.

Almost. Self-employed describes the tax status; sole trader describes the business structure. A partner in a partnership is self-employed but not a sole trader. In ordinary use, for a one-person business, the two words mean the same thing.

Yes. VAT registration depends on taxable turnover, not on business structure. A sole trader whose turnover passes the threshold must register, and one below it can register voluntarily if it suits the business.

No. A statement shows document totals, gross of VAT, because it tracks what is owed rather than what was supplied. The VAT breakdown lives on the invoices the statement refers to.

Monthly is the norm for customers on credit terms, sent in the first few days of the month. Sending one only when an account is overdue makes it read as a demand; sending them routinely makes them read as housekeeping, which gets a better response.

They can, and many do, but the payment should be allocated to the specific invoices it covers rather than left as a lump against the account. A payment that cannot be matched to invoices is the start of the next reconciliation problem.

Ask them for their version and compare line by line. The difference is nearly always a payment they made that you did not allocate, an invoice that never reached them, or a credit note one side forgot. The statement is the tool for finding which.

Something has been posted one-sided or with different amounts on each side. Halve the difference and look for a balance of that size on the wrong side; or check for a figure equal to the difference posted once. In software this is rare and usually means a manual journal was forced.

No. The trial balance lists every account including income and expenses; the balance sheet shows only assets, liabilities and capital, with income and expenses collapsed into a single profit figure. The balance sheet is prepared from the trial balance, after adjustments.

Because it is the compact form of the whole ledger — one line per account — and it is what they start from. Given a trial balance and access to the underlying transactions, they can prepare accounts without re-entering anything.

At year end, always, and at any point you want to check the ledger before relying on it — a VAT quarter, a management accounts month. Since software produces it instantly, there is no cost to running it whenever a figure looks odd.

After, for a VAT-registered business: the VAT charged on sales is collected on HMRC's behalf and is not income. A business that is not VAT registered has no VAT to strip out, so its turnover is simply what it invoices.

No. Turnover is total sales; profit is what is left after costs. Two businesses with the same turnover can have entirely different profits, and turnover on its own tells you the scale of a business, not its health.

Trading income is turnover; the rest is not. Tips are income but usually shown separately, grants are other income, and bank interest is not trading at all. The distinction matters for the VAT threshold, which counts only taxable sales.

The total of your sales for the accounting period, on whichever basis — invoiced or received — you use for tax. It goes in the turnover box on the self-employment pages, before any expenses, and it is also the figure HMRC uses to decide which version of the pages you must complete.

Usually around ten working days after registering for Self Assessment, by post, though it can be longer at busy times of year. A company's UTR is sent to its registered office shortly after incorporation. There is no way to speed it up, so register early.

Not unless you also have to file a Self Assessment return. Employees taxed entirely through PAYE have no UTR because they have no return to file. One is issued the moment you register for Self Assessment for any reason.

No. The company number is issued by Companies House and is public; the UTR is issued by HMRC and is private. Both are needed at different times — the company number for filing accounts, the UTR for filing the Corporation Tax return.

Only with HMRC, your accountant, and a contractor verifying you under CIS. It identifies you to the tax system, and someone with your UTR and a few other details can attempt to file a fraudulent return or claim a repayment in your name.

It depends who your customers are. If they are VAT-registered businesses, they reclaim what you charge, so registering costs them nothing and lets you reclaim your own input VAT. If they are the public, VAT is a straight price rise or margin cut.

Only on purchases used for the business's taxable activities, with a valid VAT invoice. Client entertaining and most cars are blocked. Purchases used partly for private purposes are apportioned. Anything bought from an unregistered supplier has no VAT to reclaim.

The reference HMRC issues on registration, which must appear on every VAT invoice you raise. It is different from your UTR and your company number. A customer can check a VAT number on gov.uk, which is worth doing before reclaiming VAT on a large purchase from a new supplier.

Often not, but the rules differ for goods and services and by destination, and getting it wrong is expensive either way. If exports or overseas clients are a material part of the business, it is one of the few VAT questions worth paying for advice on.

Generally no; the flat rate percentage already allows for it. The exception is a single purchase of capital goods above the threshold set on gov.uk, where the VAT can be reclaimed in the normal way. Everything else is included in the flat rate.

One whose spending on goods is below a small fraction of its turnover, or below a fixed annual amount, whichever is higher. It has to use a higher flat rate percentage regardless of sector, which removes most of the saving for many consultants and contractors. The tests and figures are on gov.uk.

Yes, at the normal rate for the goods or services you supply. Your customer sees an ordinary VAT invoice and reclaims the VAT shown if they are registered. The flat rate is purely about what you pay HMRC, not what you charge.

Write to HMRC, or use your online account, giving the date you want to leave. You must leave if turnover exceeds the exit limit, and you can leave voluntarily at any time. You then return to standard VAT accounting from the leaving date, and cannot rejoin for twelve months.

Any VAT-registered business selling eligible goods — second-hand items, works of art, antiques and collectables — that were bought without VAT being charged, typically from private individuals or other margin scheme dealers. Precious metals, investment gold and precious stones are excluded.

No. The invoice shows the total price with a note that the margin scheme applies, and no VAT amount. The buyer, even if VAT registered, cannot reclaim anything, because there is nothing shown to reclaim.

A simplified version of the margin scheme for low-value, high-volume goods, where VAT is worked out on the total margin across all eligible purchases and sales in the period rather than item by item. Losses on individual items then offset gains, which the standard scheme does not allow.

The VAT on the margin goes in the output VAT box, and the full selling price, not the margin, goes in the sales box. The purchase price goes in the purchases box, with no input VAT. Software with a margin scheme setting does the split for you.

One calendar month and seven days after the end of the VAT period, for both filing and payment. A quarter ending 31 March is due by 7 May. Direct debit payments are taken a few working days after that, which is the only extension available.

Errors below a set limit can be corrected on the next return by adjusting the boxes; larger ones, or deliberate ones, must be reported to HMRC separately. The current limits are on gov.uk. Keep a note of what was corrected and why.

File the return on time anyway — the penalty for late filing is separate from late payment, and HMRC's time-to-pay arrangements are far easier to agree when the return is in. Interest runs on the unpaid amount from the due date.

Yes, and you must if you had no sales or purchases in the period. A registered business that files nothing is treated as late, gets an estimated assessment, and starts collecting penalty points regardless of how quiet the quarter was.

No. Working capital is a position at a point in time — what is owned less what is owed, short term. Cash flow is the movement of money over a period. Weak working capital is usually what a cash flow forecast shows arriving a few weeks out.

Yes. A business with large cash balances, heavy stock and slow-paying customers has plenty of working capital and is using it badly. The cash could be earning, the stock could be smaller, and the customers could be paying sooner.

The cash from a loan increases current assets. The repayments due within twelve months are a current liability; the rest is long-term debt. So a loan improves working capital by the amount not due in the next year, which is why long loans help and short ones barely do.

Enough to cover the gap between paying for a job and being paid for it, across all the jobs running at once. A business on cash sales needs very little; one on sixty-day terms with materials bought up front needs two or three months of costs on hand.

Yes, by notifying Companies House. It can be shortened as often as you like and lengthened, to a maximum of eighteen months, usually only once in five years. Changing it moves every filing deadline, so check the new dates before you do.

One that falls in a quiet trading month, so the stock count and the invoicing push do not collide with the busiest fortnight of the year. Many choose 31 March to line up with the tax year, which keeps the company's and the director's affairs on the same calendar.

No. Business carries on; year end is a bookkeeping cut-off, not a pause. What matters is that transactions are dated accurately either side of it, and that anything physical, like stock, is counted as close to the date as possible.

For a company, the accounts must reach Companies House within nine months, and the Corporation Tax is due a day later than that. For a sole trader, the figures feed the Self Assessment return due the following 31 January. Both are the last date, not the target.

As fair as we can make them from one side of the table. Each page names where the other product is the better choice and says that Bizzle is early, with fewer years of edge cases fixed. If you find a claim that is wrong, tell us and we will change it.

The short version is that Bizzle is a double-entry ledger with the phone, the inbox and invoice chasing on top, at one flat price per business. Compare that with what your current stack does and costs in total, tools around the ledger included, and the answer is usually clear without a page.

It means the ledger, the phone, invoicing and the inbox are live and in use, and that some edges the incumbents sanded down years ago are still being found. Founding members get the first three months free in return for putting up with that and telling us where it falls short.

Add up everything, not the accounting subscription alone: receipt capture, invoice chasing, the answering service, per-seat charges, and the bookkeeper hours spent joining them up. The cost saving calculator does this with typical list prices and asks for no email.

You can run them side by side while you evaluate, and plenty of people do exactly that for a period. What you should not do long term is keep two ledgers, because reconciling between them costs more time than either saves.

Ask them. Some practices are Xero-only by policy and that is a legitimate constraint. Bizzle gives your accountant a free login with a full audit trail, and exports in standard formats, which is what most practices actually care about.

Usually, once you count what you would add alongside it — receipt capture, chasing, an answering service. On the base subscription alone it depends on their current plan pricing, which changes; check theirs against our £39/mo flat before deciding on price.

No. Xero has a decade of depth in areas we have not built yet, particularly around multi-currency, inventory and its app marketplace. We would rather say that than have you find out in month two.

For the ledger, invoicing, receipts and VAT, yes. For the wider QuickBooks ecosystem and its longer feature tail, not yet, and we would rather be clear about that up front.

Yes. Export from QuickBooks and import into Bizzle, or connect your bank and inbox and let Bizzle rebuild recent activity from what is already there. See the switching guide for the order to do it in.

If you want the cheapest simple route to a tax return, their self-employed tier is hard to argue with. If you are a sole trader whose phone rings while you work, that is a different problem and QuickBooks does not solve it.

Not as QuickBooks does it. Its background mileage tracking is genuinely better than anything we offer, and if you claim a lot of business miles that is a fair reason to stay with it rather than a detail to overlook.

For a small team on standard arrangements, it does the job and it lives in the same place as your books. For genuinely complex payroll, Sage is deeper, and we would rather tell you that than have you discover it in month two.

You can, and some businesses will want to. It means two systems and a reconciliation between them, which is a real cost, so it is worth being deliberate about rather than drifting into it.

Only if something is actually wrong. Long-standing Sage setups usually carry years of configuration that works; the case for moving is admin load elsewhere, not dissatisfaction with the ledger.

No. Payroll is billed per payslip on top of the flat per-business price, so three staff paid monthly means three payslips a month and nothing for anyone who is not paid. For a handful of employees on standard arrangements that is simpler; for a large or complicated payroll the comparison is less clear-cut.

FreeAgent, in most cases. It was built for that person, the time-to-invoice path is central rather than bolted on, and the tax timeline answers the question contractors actually lose sleep over.

Bizzle, for the same reason in reverse. A plumber does not need a timesheet; they need the phone answered while they are under a sink, the invoice sent from the van, and the receipt filed without a laptop being opened.

Not as the central billing model. Time can be recorded against a job, but if your entire invoicing flows from tracked hours, FreeAgent is built around that and we are not.

FreeAgent, deliberately — it does less. Bizzle covers more ground because it is doing more jobs, so there is more of it to meet. Whether that is a cost or a benefit depends on how many of those jobs you currently do by hand.

Yes, in either direction. Export the ledger, connect your bank and inbox to the new system, set opening balances at a clean date. It is the same migration as any other and takes most small businesses under a day.

Less so than Xero, QuickBooks or Sage. If your accountant charges by the hour, unfamiliarity has a cost — worth asking them before deciding.

Not today. Bizzle is deliberately one system rather than a hub of connectors, which is a strength if you want fewer moving parts and a limitation if you are committed to a suite.

Depends on their current plan and how many of our functions you would otherwise buy separately. Compare the whole stack rather than the headline subscription.

Bizzle includes a CRM, but it is the small-business kind — contacts, jobs and follow-ups sharing one record with the books and the inbox. If you run a proper sales pipeline in Zoho CRM, it is not a substitute, and the honest answer is to keep it.

Not currently. Bizzle's capture is built in, which is why there is no publish step — the trade-off is that you get ours rather than choosing your own.

On ordinary documents, comparable. On genuinely awkward ones, Dext is a specialist and it shows. What Bizzle removes is the sync between capture and ledger, which is its own source of errors.

No. It captures and categorises documents and publishes them into accounting software. You still need the accounting software, which is the main thing to understand when comparing costs.

If their practice runs Dext across all its clients, that workflow has real value and you should talk to them before changing it. Bizzle gives them a free login to the same documents and ledger, but it is a different workflow from the one they have standardised on.

It does not pretend to be a person. It answers, it is useful, it books the job. Most callers to a trade or a salon want an appointment rather than a conversation, and speed matters more than warmth.

It takes the details and passes them to you rather than guessing. For businesses where most calls are genuinely complex, a human service is the better answer and we would say so.

Yes — some businesses route overflow and out-of-hours to software and keep humans for daytime. It costs more than either alone, and for some it is worth it.

The same as during the day. Bizzle answers at any hour, books into your diary, and texts back any call it could not take. Human services do cover evenings and weekends, usually as a separate arrangement, which is worth checking against how many of your calls arrive after five.

It takes the details and hands them to you rather than improvising. A missed nuance is recoverable; an invented answer is not.

Often, yes. The customer standing with a burst pipe is working down a list — being the one who replies within seconds is frequently what wins the job, even if you call back later.

Yes. Forward your existing line, or take a new number and forward it. Nothing about your published number has to change.

It books. It reads your real diary, offers times that are free, and puts the appointment in, so the customer hangs up with a slot rather than a promise of a callback. Message-taking is the fallback for calls that need you, not the default.

It replaces the data entry part of their job, not the judgement part. Most people find their bookkeeper's hours drop and the conversations get more useful, which is a better outcome than either extreme.

Rates vary widely by region and complexity, so compare quotes rather than averages. The relevant comparison is not software against a bookkeeper, but software plus a few review hours against full-service bookkeeping.

Yes, with their own free login and the full audit trail. That is the intended setup rather than a workaround.

A person, first. Reconstructing a backlog is judgement work — deciding what a cash withdrawal was for, or which of three near-identical payments was the duplicate. Bizzle can rebuild the transactions from the bank feed and inbox, which shortens the job, but someone still has to make the calls.

Yes, provided the records are complete and you keep the evidence behind them. The constraint is Making Tax Digital: where it applies, records must be kept digitally in compatible software, and a spreadsheet alone does not satisfy that.

Usually chasing. Nobody updates the paid column reliably, so debtors age quietly and you find out when cash gets tight rather than when the invoice went overdue.

Yes. CSV import covers the history, and connecting your bank and email lets Bizzle rebuild recent activity on its own — usually a faster route than tidying the spreadsheet first.

Yes, and many people do — a job costing sheet or a cashflow forecast is a perfectly good use of one. The rule is that the ledger lives in one place. A spreadsheet for analysis is fine; a second copy of the books is where the trouble starts.

For a small UK business, yes: it has the same double-entry ledger underneath, which is the part your accountant cares about. It is a poor fit for a larger business with several entities or a long list of integrations it depends on, and the pages say so.

Keep a note for a fortnight of where the admin hours actually go. If they go on entering and categorising, a better ledger helps. If they go on chasing, filing receipts and calling people back, swapping ledgers moves the problem to a new login.

Sometimes, but rarely on the subscription alone. The saving that matters is usually the stack around it: the receipt tool, the chasing app, the answering service and the per-seat charges. If those add up to little, staying put is the honest answer, and the pages say so.

Ask them why. Often it is the one their practice is trained on, which is a real reason and worth weighing. Bizzle gives them a free login and a full audit trail, which answers most of the practical objections, but a reluctant accountant is a cost in itself.

Usually one of three things: the subscription has crept up as add-ons accumulated, the business has outgrown or undergrown the product, or the accounting was never the problem and the admin around it is. Which of those applies decides where you should look.

Only if something is actually costing you. Xero is good software with an accountant on every corner, and moving a ledger is a day's work plus a parallel month. If the books are fine and the pain is elsewhere, look at what sits around the books rather than replacing them.

QuickBooks. Comparable depth, a similar accountant network and the same category of product. If what you want is Xero with a different interface or pricing shape, that is the one to trial first; the others are each a different shape of product.

The others are accounting software; Bizzle is a back office that happens to include the ledger. It answers the phone, chases invoices and files receipts, at one flat price per business with unlimited logins. If you would otherwise add three tools to Xero, it is worth a look; if you only need books, it is more than you need.

The common reasons are cost creep as the business grows, an accountant who prefers something else, or discovering that the books were the easy part and the phone, the chasing and the paperwork are what actually eat the week. The first two point at another ledger; the third does not.

Three things, in order: whether your accountant will work in it, whether your data comes out again in a standard format, and what the price does as you add users and features. The rest is interface preference, which a free trial settles faster than a comparison page.

Often, yes. Its self-employed tier is a well-trodden path from receipts to tax return, and if your work is desk-based and your phone is quiet there is little reason to move. If your phone rings while you work, no accounting product solves that, and the alternative to consider is a different kind of product.

It is the odd one out. Xero, Sage, FreeAgent and Zoho Books are all ledgers with different strengths; Bizzle is the same ledger plus the phone answered, invoices chased and paperwork filed. Pick it if that admin is the cost, and one of the others if you simply want different accounting software.

Usually a desktop install that has become a liability, an accountant who has moved their practice to cloud software, or a product that is heavier than the business needs. Complex payroll is the one reason people stay, and it is a good one.

Payroll depth. If your payroll involves awkward statutory cases or years of historical corrections, check how the alternative handles those before you check anything else. Bizzle runs payroll per payslip in the same system as the books, which suits a small team on standard arrangements and is not a match for Sage on complicated ones.

Xero, then QuickBooks — both cloud-first, both familiar to nearly every practice, and both a straight swap for the ledger. FreeAgent suits a business that has become smaller than Sage assumes, and Zoho Books suits one already on the Zoho suite.

For the books, invoicing, VAT and straightforward payroll, yes, and it adds the phone answered and the invoices chased at one flat price per business. For a business whose main reason for Sage is compliance depth on a complicated payroll, no, and we would rather say that plainly than have you find out at year end.

Mostly because the business changed shape. FreeAgent is built for a contractor billing time from a desk; when you take on staff, start holding stock, or find work arriving by phone rather than by contract, the product stops fitting. If you are still that contractor, it is probably the right tool.

When you bill time or projects, work at a desk, and want a clear view of the tax coming. Its restraint is a feature for that business, and a bigger product would mostly give you more to ignore.

Xero or QuickBooks if you have outgrown a one-person product and need depth or apps; Sage if payroll has become a real workload; Zoho Books if you are already in the Zoho suite; Bizzle if the change is that the phone now rings and the jobs happen away from the desk.

A different imagined customer. FreeAgent is shaped around a timesheet and a tax timeline; Bizzle is shaped around a phone that rings, a quote sent from the van and a receipt filed without opening a laptop. Same double-entry ledger underneath, but one is for a consultant and the other for a trade or an appointment business.

Yes. Connect your bank and email and Bizzle rebuilds recent invoices, receipts and payments from what already exists. CSV and QuickBooks/Xero importers cover the rest. Most businesses are running in under a day.

At a clean boundary: a VAT quarter or year end, so no return is split across two systems. That single decision prevents most migration pain.

Recent activity rebuilds from the bank feed and inbox. Your starting position is the trial balance at the switch date, which is worth an hour of your accountant's time to get right. Keep the old system's exports somewhere durable regardless.

Yes, for a month. Keep the old one readable while Bizzle takes new activity. If the two agree at month end, you are done; if not, you found the discrepancy early rather than the week before a deadline.

It is the easiest migration there is. Connect the bank and the email, and most of the last few months assembles itself. Anything that only lives in your head becomes a short list of questions.

Export everything, ledger, contacts, documents and call transcripts, in standard formats, any time, cancelled or not. Lock-in should come from being good, not from holding your data hostage.

The trial balance at your switch date, customer and supplier lists, open invoices and bills, and a full transaction export for the archive. The CSV, QuickBooks and Xero importers take the lists and open items; the archive is yours to keep, because HMRC expects records kept for years.

For most small businesses, yes, because the bank and inbox rebuild recent activity rather than an import carrying every old transaction across. Stock, multi-currency and payroll each add time. The parallel month afterwards is the real test, not the day.

For the opening balances, ideally. The trial balance at your switch date is the one step that benefits from a professional eye, and it is about an hour of their time. They keep a free login afterwards, so from then on they are looking at the same file as you.

Yes. Everything is exportable at any time, and if you ran the parallel month your old system is still readable. Nothing about the switch is a one-way door, which is precisely why the parallel month is worth doing.

Most small businesses are running in under a day, with a parallel month afterwards to prove the figures. The work is mostly waiting on exports and confirming opening balances, not data entry.

Recurring invoices and their schedules need re-creating rather than importing. It is a short job and a good moment to check which of them should still be going out at all.

Yes. They keep their Xero access until you cancel, and Bizzle gives them a free login from day one, so they can compare the two directly rather than take your word that the parallel month agreed.

For the books, yes, with a clean opening balance. For payroll, it is far easier at the start of a tax year, and if you can wait until 6 April you should.

Yes, you set the next number when you start. Keeping the sequence unbroken is worth doing, because gaps invite questions later.

They need re-creating rather than importing. Short job, and a useful moment to check which ones should still exist.

File it from whichever system holds the whole quarter, which is why the switch date should sit on a quarter boundary. If you must switch mid-quarter, run QuickBooks to the end of it for VAT and treat Bizzle's figures for those weeks as a cross-check rather than the return.

Yes, via export. The important thing is doing it while the machine still works — desktop data is only as safe as the computer it sits on.

Keep it as exported files. Bizzle starts from your opening balance date; the history stays as records, which is what HMRC expects anyway.

Only at 6 April. Otherwise move the books first and payroll at the tax year boundary — two smaller changes are much safer than one large one.

No. The import takes your chart of accounts as it is, but a long Sage history usually carries codes nobody has posted to for years, and there is no reason to keep those. Bring the ones with balances, retire the rest, and agree the list with your accountant so the comparatives still line up.

Yes, and that is the point. Bizzle structures the data so it can chase, reconcile and file for you, which a free-form sheet cannot do.

Then the bank feed route is better than the import route. Connect the accounts and let Bizzle rebuild from source documents, and treat the spreadsheet as a cross-check rather than the truth.

If you are in scope, digital records in compatible software are required and a spreadsheet alone is not enough. Check the current thresholds and start dates on gov.uk — they have moved before.

You do not need one. At the start date you need three things: what customers owed you, what you owed suppliers, and the bank balance. The statement gives you the last; the unpaid invoices on either side give you the first two, and that is enough for the books to be right from that day forward.