Frequently asked questions

Compare on total annual cost, not the headline unit rate. You need the unit rate (p/kWh), the daily standing charge, the contract length and whether third-party costs are fixed or passed through. We take a recent bill, request your exact consumption data from your supplier and price the same profile across our whole supplier panel so every quote is genuinely like for like.

Around six months before your contract end date. Most suppliers will price up to twelve months ahead, so starting early gives you a window to lock a good rate rather than accepting whatever is available on the day your contract lapses.

Out-of-contract rates apply when a fixed business energy contract ends without a new one being agreed. They are typically 40-80% higher than a negotiated tariff. You can usually leave them on short notice, which makes them the fastest saving available to most businesses.

A deemed rate applies when you consume energy at a premises without an agreed contract, most commonly after moving in. It is set by the supplier, is among the most expensive commercial energy available, and you are usually free to switch away from it with 28 days' notice or less.

Generally no, without paying a termination fee. What you can do is agree your next contract now to start when the current one ends, locking today's price for a future start date. We diarise your notice deadline so nothing rolls over by accident.

CCL is a per-kWh government levy on business energy. Businesses below the de minimis thresholds (33 kWh electricity or 145 kWh gas per day), charities and residential-use premises are generally exempt. If you qualify and it is being charged, you can usually reclaim it.

The reduced 5% rate applies where daily use is below 33 kWh of electricity or 145 kWh of gas, or where the premises are used for qualifying charitable or residential purposes. If you qualify, submitting a VAT declaration to your supplier corrects it, often with up to four years backdated.

A fixed daily fee covering network and metering costs, charged whether or not you use any energy. It matters most to low-consumption sites, where a low unit rate paired with a high standing charge can be more expensive overall.

A half-hourly meter records consumption every thirty minutes and is mandatory above certain capacity thresholds. It gives you detailed usage data, which usually results in sharper pricing because suppliers no longer have to price for uncertainty in your load shape.

Half-hourly sites reserve a maximum demand in kVA with the distribution network and pay a monthly charge for it. Many sites hold far more capacity than they use. Comparing twelve months of peak demand against your agreed capacity often reveals a reducible surplus — leave 10-20% headroom to avoid excess penalties.

Usually yes. Options include a security deposit, a director's guarantee, monthly direct debit payment, or a supplier that specialises in higher-risk profiles. We know which suppliers accept which credit profiles, which avoids wasted applications and repeated searches.

Contact the existing supplier before you take occupation to register a change of tenancy, take a timestamped meter photograph on the day, and then switch away from the deemed rate immediately. Skipping the first step is what leaves businesses on expensive deemed tariffs for months.

Typically four to six weeks from signed contract to supply start, though it can be faster on deemed or out-of-contract supplies. There is no interruption to your supply and nobody needs to visit the site.

Not necessarily. REGO-backed renewable electricity tariffs frequently price within a fraction of a penny of standard tariffs, and sometimes identically. Genuinely additional options such as corporate PPAs cost more to arrange but offer long-term price stability.

Start with lighting, time controls and heating setpoints — these usually pay back within eighteen months. Then check your baseload overnight, which reveals equipment left running unnecessarily. Combine efficiency with a competitive contract; doing only one leaves money on the table.

Check the read type (an 'E' means estimated), the unit rate against your contract, the standing charge, and the VAT and CCL treatment. Raise a written query with the supplier and keep the reference. Back-billing rules generally prevent suppliers charging for unbilled energy older than twelve months.

Yes. Distribution and transmission charges vary by network area, so an identical business in Cardiff and in London will see different non-commodity costs even on the same supplier and wholesale price.

Fixed gives budget certainty at a small risk premium and suits most SMEs. Variable can be cheaper but exposes you to sudden increases. Businesses with thin margins or fixed customer pricing almost always benefit from fixing.

No. Ofgem's price cap covers domestic customers only. Business energy is individually negotiated, which is why the price you pay depends heavily on when you buy and how many suppliers competed for your meter.

Micro-businesses get contract end and notice dates displayed on bills, protection from long automatic rollovers, a maximum 30-day termination notice requirement, broker commission disclosure, and access to the Energy Ombudsman after eight weeks of unresolved complaint.

Total cost depends on interchange, scheme fees and your provider's margin, plus terminal rental, authorisation fees and any PCI or minimum monthly charges. The only meaningful figure is your effective rate: total monthly card costs divided by total card turnover.

Interchange-plus shows interchange, scheme fees and your provider's margin separately, so you can see exactly what your provider earns. Blended pricing bundles them into one rate and is usually more expensive for businesses taking mainly standard consumer debit cards.

Countertop for a fixed till, portable for table or chair-side payment in hospitality and salons, and mobile with a multi-network SIM for trades, markets and events. Matching the terminal to how you actually trade prevents queues and dropped transactions.

Yes. Pay-as-you-go readers charge a flat percentage with no monthly fee, which suits businesses under roughly £1,500 a month in card turnover. Above that, a monthly plan with a lower rate is normally cheaper overall.

Standard settlement is often three working days, with weekends extending it. Next-day settlement is widely available for a small additional fee, and for most businesses the working-capital benefit outweighs the cost.

No. Surcharging consumer debit and credit cards is banned in the UK. A minimum card spend is legal, though it risks losing sales — adjusting your pricing is usually the better way to protect margin on small transactions.

PCI DSS is the card industry security standard. Every merchant accepting cards must comply, but for most small card-present businesses that means completing a short annual self-assessment questionnaire. Completing it also removes the monthly non-compliance fee many acquirers charge.

Make your trading name the billing descriptor so customers recognise it, use 3D Secure on all online payments, keep timestamped delivery or completion evidence for at least six months, and refund quickly when a customer is genuinely unhappy — a refund costs far less than a chargeback.

£100 per transaction for a physical card, with a cumulative limit that periodically triggers a PIN prompt. Mobile wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay authenticate on the device, so many issuers allow higher amounts.

Use a virtual terminal or, better, send a pay-by-link. Never write card details down or accept them by email. Capture the billing address and CVV for verification, and remember that card-not-present transactions place dispute liability with you unless authenticated.

An integrated EPOS removes keying errors and gives product-level sales data, which pays for itself for most multi-SKU or multi-staff businesses. A standalone terminal is cheaper and simpler for sole operators. Check whether the EPOS locks you into its own payment rates before committing.

Get the new agreement approved, take delivery of the new terminal, test a live transaction, run both in parallel for a few days, then serve written notice on the old provider and return hardware by tracked delivery. Never cancel before the replacement is live.

Often yes. Terminal rental is frequently a separate agreement with a leasing company, on a longer term than your processing contract. Cancelling processing does not cancel the lease, so always check both end dates.

Most outages are connectivity rather than hardware — check the network and power-cycle the terminal first. Keep a fallback: a charged pay-as-you-go reader or a payment link you can text. Confirm your provider's replacement turnaround before you sign.

Yes. UK law requires qualifying tips, gratuities and service charges to be passed to workers in full, without deductions for card processing costs, under a written policy available to staff.

If downtime costs you money, yes. The premium buys a service level agreement with prioritised repair, a static IP, lower contention and business-hours support. If a day offline would cost more than a month's subscription, the maths is straightforward.

FTTP is fast, affordable and shared, with much lower upload than download. A leased line is uncontended and symmetric with a guaranteed uptime SLA and fast fix times. Businesses that upload heavily or host services justify a leased line; most cloud consumers do not.

Count concurrent heavy users rather than headcount — roughly 3-4 Mbps per video call, 0.1 Mbps per VoIP call, plus cloud sync. Ten office staff rarely need more than 100 Mbps down. Upload capacity is usually the real constraint.

Two to four weeks where infrastructure exists, but a leased line requiring civil works can take 60 to 120 working days. Order connectivity as soon as your lease is agreed — it is the longest lead item in most fit-outs.

Failover automatically switches to a backup connection — usually 4G or 5G — when your main line drops. It costs a few pounds a month on standby and keeps card terminals, tills and phones live through most outages. Essential for any business that takes payments.

Only if you run a VPN endpoint, need remote access to on-site systems, use IP-whitelisted services or have networked CCTV. Businesses running entirely on cloud software generally do not.

Put guest traffic on a separate VLAN or guest SSID with client isolation and no route to tills or card terminals — this is also a PCI requirement. Cap per-device bandwidth so one streaming customer cannot slow your payments.

Traditional analogue phone lines are being withdrawn across the UK. Anything relying on them — phone systems, alarms, lift lines and some older card terminals — must move to an IP alternative such as VoIP. Plan the migration rather than waiting for a stop-sell notice.

Business SLAs usually pay service credits, but only when claimed within a defined window, often 30 days. Log every outage with start and end times and a fault reference. Unresolved complaints can go to an approved ADR scheme after eight weeks.

Bundles simplify billing and support, but they align every service to one renewal and can hide a weak component. Price each element separately first — if the bundle saves less than around 10%, separate contracts usually offer better flexibility.

An LOA lets us request your consumption data, rates and contract end dates from your supplier so we can quote accurately. It does not allow anyone to sign a contract or switch supplier on your behalf. Check it names one broker, has an expiry date, and states that no contract can be agreed without your written approval.

No. The physical supply of electricity, gas or broadband is unchanged — only the billing relationship moves. For energy, nobody visits the site and nothing switches off.

A recent bill for each service you want reviewed, a signed letter of authority, and a short conversation about your plans. That is enough to gather your data directly from suppliers and price your actual profile.

The exact start and end dates, the notice period and deadline, the full price including standing charges and ancillary fees, whether prices can be varied mid-term, any termination charge and how it is calculated, and who your named contact will be.

Yes — if you are mid-contract on a competitive rate, if termination fees exceed the saving, if you are moving premises shortly, or if your existing deal is already below current market offers. We will tell you when staying put is the right call.

Our office is at Unit 31 Bessemer Market, Bessemer Road, Cardiff CF11 8BA. We work with businesses across Cardiff, South Wales and the whole of the United Kingdom, from single-site independents to multi-site operators.

There is no upfront fee for a review. Where you go ahead with a contract we arrange, we are paid by the supplier, and that amount is disclosed to you in writing in pence per kWh before you sign anything.

Most reviews are completed within one to three working days from receiving your bill and letter of authority. Complex multi-site portfolios take longer because supplier data requests are involved, but we will tell you the timeline upfront.

Yes. If your existing contract beats what we can source, we will say so and diarise your renewal date to review again nearer the time. A consultant who has never told a client to stay put is not comparing properly.

Yes. Your named consultant deals with the supplier on meter reads, billing queries, objections and final bills for the life of the contract, and contacts you well before the next renewal window opens.