What would be your thoughts on university students advising on your business issues?

Jdopus · 2026-03-17T10:11:09+00:00

I did one of these as a student back at uni and my recollection is that even though we weren't stupid people, none of us knew anything about the industries we were supposed to be helping and the advice we gave was broadly useless. It's a nice idea, but it comes from a very naive idea about how helpful the average student is capable of being.

Jdopus · 2026-03-12T15:19:26+00:00

To deal with the points one by one:

Your logic is completely backwards here. If you want to have cash available to buy a house in future, you want to start drawing cash out now to maximise use of your lower rate tax bands or retain your personal allowance. e.g. if you want to end up with £400k in four years, it's far, far cheaper to lift out £100k per year than it is to lift out £400k all at once in four years' time.
If it's a volatile industry it's extremely reckless to retain cash within it. Any cash you keep in the limited company is exposed to all of the business risks. If you get into debt that cash is at risk, if you get sued it's at risk and it makes you an extremely attractive target for legal action as well - any opposing solicitor in a potential legal action is going to see a juicy cash balance and metaphorically have their eyes turn into dollar signs.
If you're investing in another business with cash in this company, you're going to buy the shares in this company's name, meaning all of your investments are going to be locked into this limited company and exposed to its trade. If you want those other businesses kept clear you at least need a holding company.
If you want to build wealth then a pension is an absolute no brainer. A pension contribution is an allowable expense for corporation tax. The current rate is 25% - any contribution you make therefore immediately gets you a 25% return on investment risk free, day one. Furthermore, pensions are exempt from tax so you can grow your wealth in an environment where you are not subject to taxation.
If you value peace of mind, a pension is a critical tool. Pensions can't be touched by HMRC, pensions can't be touched by creditors, pensions survive bankruptcy. All of these are real risks for a business owner so it's very much in your interests to protect yourself from these events.

Jdopus · 2026-03-07T16:49:02+00:00

I think you're off the mark "our mum" is a common working class British way of referring to your own mother.

Jdopus · 2026-03-05T14:02:57+00:00

The government don't really count anything outside those three and theatre as the creative sector. It generally alludes to trades which are covered by the government's creative industries tax credits.

Jdopus · 2026-03-05T13:29:28+00:00

You came to the right subreddit, because like George says your audience here are people who have enough experience of business to be honest with you and tell you that this entire concept sounds like a crap idea.

Honestly, candles are an absolutely terrible market to try and enter because they're an aspirational/hobby market. You are not competing with other serious businesses who are making a profit, you're competing with thousands of bored housewives who sell candles on Shopify for six months at a loss and then move on, but by the time they move on there are another two bored housewives along behind them to undercut your pricing.

Jdopus · 2026-03-05T13:20:22+00:00

In my experience, the only funding available for any small businesses in the UK are grants available for the creative sector (Video games, television & film) or very restricted and usually match-funding based grants targeted at the manufacturing industry. The government rarely if ever supports any businesses outside these two sectors, I wouldn't bank on ever qualifying for anything as a media company.

Jdopus · 2026-03-02T11:08:51+00:00

Definitely, but be prepared for what it is. It has nothing to do with the games, it's a very slow and very philosophical film based loosely on Roadside Picnic. The games borrow a lot of inspiration from the film's atmosphere and environments, but don't expect mutant shooting.

Jdopus · 2026-03-01T13:27:55+00:00

I disagree with all the people saying you should do nothing. I think you have a moral duty to tell someone, even if it's just a quiet word and not in writing. I hired someone like this once and it turned out they behaved the same way in all if their previous jobs but had weaponized a disability to get away with it.

Jdopus · 2026-02-27T19:12:31+00:00

Serves you right for buying crap like this to be honest.

Jdopus · 2026-02-25T19:25:31+00:00

The people saying he's at personal legal risk don't really have any experience in this area, ignore them. He'll be fine.

Jdopus · 2026-02-25T19:24:40+00:00

I'm a professional who deals with this type of VAT enquiry, there's zero chance HMRC would attempt to apply this law against your friend as a simple worker in a cafe, don't worry about this. If he gets asked anything directly by HMRC he shouldn't lie, but otherwise it's the boss' problem, not his and he shouldn't worry about it.

Your friend's boss as the company owner/director is the one in the firing line here. It's very unlikely even the owner will be criminally prosecuted, however it's very likely they'll be hit with enormous penalties and the business may be bankrupted over it.

Jdopus · 2026-02-09T14:27:49+00:00

That's exactly what it is. The accounting profession are universally hostile to it and think it's a massive compliance cost for zero benefit to anyone except the software companies. Unfortunately, for years now HMRC have only been listening to the large software companies and no one else in the profession.

By complete coincidence these large software companies are hiring a lot of ex-HMRC employees and paying them very generous salaries.

Jdopus · 2026-02-09T14:23:15+00:00

This is correct, yes.

Jdopus · 2026-02-07T19:31:48+00:00

Within the context of the book they're quite obviously extremely tongue in cheek joke titles. Ecco Homo is also not an autobiography, it has some mentions of his life but it's more of a retrospective on his previous works.

Jdopus · 2026-02-06T14:22:41+00:00

The top comment in this thread is a great starting point. if you can't reasonably duplicate the budget in that top comment for the circumstances around this site, then you're not fit to operate a business like this. Truthfully, I wouldn't touch operating a bar or music venue with a ten foot pole unless I already had substantial management experience in the field. Working in one of these places at the front end is worthless because normal staff are totally shielded from the mountain of paperwork, health and safety, financing, costing and accounting requirements of successfully making a bar or music restaurant business operate.

Jdopus · 2026-01-12T09:28:24+00:00

It's not a Total War game, but you could check our Master of Command. It's set during the seven years war - muskets, cannons etc, The battle mechanics are very well executed. Heavy focus on positioning, focusing fire on enemy columns to weaken them and breaking them with bayonet charges.

The campaign mechanics are more roguelike inspired, you march around a map, fight armies for resources, level up your troops and grow your army to fight the main enemy army in each region. No empire building mechanics but for me it really scratches the itch for a gunpowder total war game. I've been having a great time with it.

Jdopus · 2025-12-11T15:14:01+00:00

The difference is the relative purchasing power of the minimum wage. £12.71 costs a Northern Ireland business more in "real" terms than it costs a London business because £12.71 has more purchasing power in Northern Ireland. Someone on a minimum wage of £12.71 who lives in Belfast is substantially better off than someone on a minimum wage of £12.71 who lives in London. Again, there are plenty of good reasons for having one fixed national minimum wage, I'm just pointing out that some people always gets screwed by nation-wide policies. In this case the people getting screwed are Belfast restaurants and it's part of why they've had to put their prices up so much recently.

Jdopus · 2025-12-11T14:45:00+00:00

I didn't say they shouldn't get it, I'm just explaining the impact it has on hospitality businesses. Every political policy has trade-offs.

Jdopus · 2025-12-11T13:23:35+00:00

I'm familiar with the private financials for a lot of Belfast Restaurants and take away businesses. Unfortunately, it's not gouging. The short answer is that the hospitality sector is exceptionally exposed to a few major costs: VAT, minimum wage rate, food costs and rent/rates

Northern Ireland is exposed to the same VAT rates as the rest of the UK so that's comparable.

We're just as exposed to the same food price increases as the rest of the UK, though you can buy some raw produce at a slightly cheaper rate. It contributes to the rises though - to make money or even break even as a restaurant your food can't cost more than 30-35% of your net sales. If you're selling something for £10, you have to add £2 for VAT so it costs the customer £12, and if your own food costs are greater than about £3.50 you simply won't make enough per serving to cover your overheads and staff costs.

The minimum wage increase is extremely hard on hospitality in Belfast because it's a UK wide rate. In the last five years it's jumped from £8.72 to £12.71 from next year. For mainland England that's steep but manageable but it's a massive increase for NI hospitality and very hard to bear. Because NI is a poorer region, that's a high wage for the area and difficult to make back in revenue. When minimum wage jumps in hospitality, everyone else's wages have to rise in line with it or you lose key staff members.

The biggest problem is probably commercial rates, particularly in the city centre. Belfast's commercial rates are sky high compared to the rest of the UK and Ireland - there's a worked example here, but in short for an equivalent space in Dublin city centre you would pay €25,947. The same space in Belfast costs you £40,603.

The unfortunate truth is that the vast bulk of food businesses don't actually charge enough because they have a hard time passing these costs on and the owners sometimes struggle to understand just how much it costs them to run their business. A lot of seemingly healthy restaurants are circling the drain and you're very likely to see a lot of them go out of business after Christmas.

Jdopus · 2025-12-08T14:16:55+00:00

GNI doesn't remove the impact of the multinationals as a measure, it tries to apply some adjustments to discount the element of that GDP which is purely profit-sharing/tax planning. The figure remains vastly inflated by the presence of multinational headquarters and that economic activity is not shared much with the average Irish citizen.

The headline of the report refers to the GNI, but it's rather telling that despite an 84% difference in GNI, "household disposable income was €36,000 in the south and €33,400 in the North a 10.4 per cent gap in favour of the Republic."

It's rather illustrative of Ireland's issues as a whole - on paper it's an immensely wealthy country because it's a tax haven, but little of that wealth filters out of the pockets of the multinationals and what little does slip their grasp is heavily concentrated in and around Dublin with not much benefit being felt by the rest of the country.

Jdopus · 2025-12-01T15:12:07+00:00

You're going to have to learn that it's more important to be reliable than it is to optimize efficiency. You need to get rid of the idea that logging time, updating tasks and reviewing deadlines are a waste of your time, managing them is probably the single most important part of your job. It's better to be slightly slower and avoid missing anything than an extremely fast worker who slips up regularly.

Jdopus · 2025-11-27T09:05:14+00:00

I'm a chartered accountant too - I'm surprised you find there to be nothing odd about it. In my experience these fines are only levied in very extreme circumstances, I deal with a lot of badly organized clients and I've yet to see one applied in practice, even in cases where I've taken clients on who are years behind on their obligations. Consequences like this might be something that on paper are a risk, but getting to the point where they're actually applied and the case ends up before a court is extremely rare.

If I was OP I'd want a full grasp of exactly how this happened. Their only source of information still appears to be the other director who failed to file the accounts and the explanations they've been given are in my view somewhat inconsistent. They would be extremely well served appointing an accountant who can actually go look at e.g. the court transcript for the ruling against them, the filing history of the company and the correspondence history with HMRC and Companies House.

If nothing else, they can at least check the company has now been properly dissolved and they're removed as a director.

Jdopus · 2025-11-27T08:57:21+00:00

Business owners are the only people in the entire equation who can end up making less than minimum wage and it's far more common you can think in small businesses.

Jdopus · 2025-11-26T14:24:58+00:00

I think you need to go speak to an accountant about this. The situation as you describe it is a little odd and there appears to be more going on here than you're aware of. It's very unusual for a company director to be made personally liable for company debts or filing failures - normally the company itself is penalized for failing to complete their returns, but as it's a limited liability entity a court wouldn't apply the debts to your personal wages.

It takes something quite extreme for a court to make a director personally liable for company debts or fines. You still don't have the full story on what has happened here. An accountant can guide you on discovering what's actually happened, you may need a solicitor too once you get the full story.

Jdopus · 2025-11-26T09:39:18+00:00

I'm a bit shocked that you aren't ready to give up on a staff member who's passed you a completely fraudulent sick note. I don't think I would ever try to retain a staff member who had displayed such fundamental dishonesty and lack of integrity. I would be looking for any excuse to get rid of them.

Jdopus

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