Category: General Taxi Issues

I think one of the big secrets to self-employment is ensuring you only pay for what you need, and pay only what you need to pay for it, people will promise you the earth for services, but do you need it?

So for all you fellow hard working self-employed persons out there who have probably been bombarded with advertising for such things as ‘QuickBooks’ accounting software and mobile app. It’s good stuff I have no doubt, but when I looked into it and considered signing up, as soon as you start adding the features you want, the price just went up and up!

On my quest to find a suitable online accounting suite I discovered a number of options which all cost money, but in my usual search for the holy grail (something that is entirely FREE TO USE!), I discovered ‘Wave Apps’. It is ABSOLUTELY FREE TO USE! I have been using it since April for this financial year and is in my opinion very easy to use and ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT. It does all the things you want it to do, including invoicing, but it doesn’t end there, because if you sign up to their ‘Stripe’ card processing account (which is free, you only pay a mere 1.75% per transaction paid) it makes the payment of invoices so simple for your customers.

You won’t learn to use it in an hour, it will take a short while to get the hang, but if you are prepared to put a few hours in and do it properly, you will wonder how you survived without it, and remember it is FREE, so if it is a little slow sometimes, don’t complain. I give it 8/10, and supect I would feel no better about a paid for product, so don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. You can also set up additional users, so your accountant can log in and get what they need.

The best thing about using an accounting suite like this is that if you get it right, then you can negotiate a significant saving on your annual accountants bill, because what you present to them is a fully reconciled set of accounts, report ready! There is no limit to the size of business either, so it can handle all your VAT as well!

This is definitely an essential piece of kit:
WAVE APPS – https://www.waveapps.com/

Go forth, be super organised and SAVE MONEY!

For those who have encountered a situation where they have been unable to win school contracts due to some crazily low bidding from other parties, may not be aware of the services offered by Volunteer Cornwall Drivers. Due to the fact they are operating a voluntary service, the price bidding is generally out of our reach, as most of us would operate at a loss or break even scenario. I posed some questions to the council to get some clarification for everyone – you can see the details here.

Did you know that in the event of ANY road collision you should report it to your licensing officer “irrespective whether it is subject to Section 170 of The Road Traffic Act 1988. This is a statutory requirement under the Section 50(3) of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976. All collisions should be reported to the Licensing Officer as soon as practicable and in any case within 72 hours”.

Here is the report form should you be unlucky enough to need it: Council Licensing – Accident Report Form

The council are starting to discuss the Taxi Trade as part of their mission to “clean up” the air in Cornwall. As always we do not want to be an easy target and a quick way to get some headlines in the interests of showing some kind of positive activity whether actually pro-active or not, and beneficial or not. At the last Taxi Forum this topic was discussed, and a presentation was made regarding the pollution from diesel burning engines, where it was highlighted that 40% came from diesel cars. Whether the percentage represents the volume of diesel cars as a percentage of all diesel vehicles, or the actual contribution to pollution as a percentage of pollution is unclear.

Abacus from Falmouth were very keen to speak the benefits of the Toyota Prius Hybrid, both it’s durability of 200k plus miles and a running cost (fuel) of 10p per mile. However, my old Picasso left service at 226k and is still going strong and had an average fuel cost of 11p per mile and averaged 46 mpg, so considering the Prius averages 47 mpg, I have to say what’s the point? It’s a lot more money for what? We are at the mercy of what the motor industry makes available to us, and that an electric car with a range of 90-110 miles per charge in the Nissan Leaf is of little use to anyone who dares to leave town, unless you want to spend 75k on a Tessla for double the range! Oh, and the 7 seat (cough) Nissan NV200 minibus with a range of 90 miles on a good day (would you make it back from Penzance!) seems OK as long as all your passengers are from a long lost tribe of little people with luggage no bigger than a rubicks cube. Needless to say really that a job to Gatwick is out of the question?

There is a new website where you can see a vehicles cleanliness rating based supposedly on real life driving conditions https://equaindex.com/, where apparently you can find some older cars say EURO4 can rate cleaner than some newer EURO6 vehicles! It is aimed to help you make an educated choice when buying a vehicle, but does this mean we have another battle on our hands?

Last Summer we had to fight off the moving of Fore St Rank because we need to be more responsible for peoples behaviour in the absence of actual Police Officers (and I quote “Policing is changing and we need to encourage communities to Police themselves”), because out of the tens of thousands of punters who come through Newquay town in a 14 month period 23 had to go to A&E (not 12 months? Gee, you wouldn’t be trying to inflate the stats would you? The actual stat for 12 months was ’16’). Sounds like a pretty good track record to me, Newquay is not so bad after all, must be why you hardly see any Police.

So does this mean that we are becoming a target for a new political media initiative?

Did you know that apparently the average Cruise Ship pumps out an annual pollution equivalent to 1 million diesel cars?