Running the business

Choosing software, planning appointments, keeping records and protecting customer data — for small businesses in any trade.

Why appointments fall through — and which part you control

Sort the losses instead of punishing them: which appointments the business lets fall through itself, what actually he...

Appointment reminders: channel, timing and the tone that works

When a reminder works, what each channel costs, and why every reminder has to carry a way to cancel. With a checklist...

What changes in the business when customers book for themselves

Before the first online booking come decisions: services, durations, opening hours, lead time. What to settle first a...

Buffer times: why the diary is full and the day still does not work

Why a fully booked day is bound to overrun, where buffer times belong and how much punctuality the last few points of...

Which customer data you may store — and which needs its own basis

Purpose, legal basis, deletion date: sort your customer file into three buckets in half an hour, and tell a health re...

A customer asks for access: what you must supply within a month

One month, extendable by two: what belongs in an access response under Article 15 GDPR, how to check identity and wha...

A deletion policy that works without a data protection officer

Data type, purpose, clock, trigger: a deletion policy without a data protection officer — and the answer for everythi...

Processing agreements: when you need one — and what it does not do

Software, newsletters, payroll: where processing hides in a small business, what Article 28 GDPR requires in the cont...

Digitising receipts: a filing system that still works years later

It is not the scanning that decides but the finding again: a four-part file name, one folder level per year, search,...

How long do you keep it? The question behind the retention period

Not one period but four clocks: tax, warranty, limitation and data protection. How to tell them apart, and why a cloc...

What belongs on every invoice

The checklist behind the mandatory details: what each one is meant to prove, which is most often missing and why a mi...

Month-end in half an hour instead of three evenings

Why the close costs three evenings and what brings it down to thirty minutes: a weekly routine, a fixed order, and th...