AI meeting notes have quietly become standard in business calls, and this month Microsoft Teams is rolling out a toggle that lets meeting organisers turn its AI features off mid-meeting. Copilot, the Facilitator agent, automatic notes, recap: one switch. Microsoft added it after sustained pushback from customers who found AI switched on in meetings by … Read more
If you run an appointment business, a no-show is one of the quietest ways you lose money. A slot booked and not filled is money you cannot get back, because you rarely have time to resell it. Most owners treat this as a customer problem, something people just do. It is closer to a workflow … Read more
UK small firms now wait an average of 27 days to be paid after sending an invoice, and nearly half of all SME invoices are overdue. In construction and trades it is worse, with real payment times running closer to 61 days against 30-day terms. The government’s new late payment bill, announced in March, will … Read more
Since 6 April 2026, statutory sick pay starts on the first day of absence, not the fourth. The lower earnings threshold has gone too, so part-time, casual and variable-hours staff now qualify. For pubs, cafes, shops and care homes running on a mix of contracted and flexible hours, that means more people are owed SSP, … Read more
A wave of “AI agents” landed in mainstream business software this spring. In May, ClickUp shipped Super Agents, which sit inside your workspace as if they were staff: you can assign them tasks, put them on a schedule, and let them draft, summarise or chase. Sage has built its Copilot into Sage 50. Most of … Read more
Invoice fraud prevention in the UK has quietly become one of the most important process gaps in small businesses. UK Finance has tracked a 75% rise in invoice and payment request fraud over the last three years. Most of that growth is not down to more criminals. It is down to better tools. The phishing … Read more
Microsoft has been pushing a clear message at small business customers over the past two weeks. Buy Microsoft 365 Copilot Business seats before 30 June 2026 and you lock in the promotional rate for a year. After that date the standard price kicks in, around 17% higher per user per month. For a ten-person team, … Read more
If you run a trades, field service, or professional services business with a small team, here is a number worth sitting with: around 47% of inbound calls to small businesses go unanswered. That is not 47% of spam. It is people who had a problem, found your number, and decided to ring you. Research consistently … Read more
WhatsApp works brilliantly for a one-person operation or a team of three. But somewhere between five staff and fifteen active jobs, it quietly becomes a liability. Most business owners don’t notice until something falls through the cracks — a customer chases a job update that nobody logged, a fitter turns up to a cancelled appointment, … Read more
The average UK small business now uses five different software tools day-to-day. That number has risen sharply over the past two years as AI-powered apps for invoicing, scheduling, CRM, and marketing have become cheap and easy to sign up for. On the surface, that sounds like progress. In practice, for a lot of businesses, it … Read more