For some reason everyone seems to sigh when accounting and accountancy is mentioned or brought up. However, this is a bit short sighted as the Accountant has one of the most important roles within an organisation by far. They are responsible for ensuring that the companies finance is on a level footing, all Tax has been paid and rebates claimed, plus any expenditures are properly explained and costed. They will also look at producing the budgets for the next year so that the business can stay within its means.

Image credit

So, there is a need but where does it come from? As Cheltenham Accountants https://www.randall-payne.co.uk/ will tell you the origins of accounting date back to the dawn of humanity.  We may not have had a name for them but it is clear from records that someone was responsible for ensuring that stores were full and that some kind of wages were paid to people.

Image credit

The big name in Accounting is that of  Luca Pacioli. It was he, in fifteenth century renaissance Italy, who takes the idea of double entry bookkeeping, used by the Roman and Chinese, and starts to add plus and minus figures to illustrate debit and credit. It is so popular that others such as Leonardo Di Vinici use it in their figures too. Modern accountantcy is born.

If you are new landlord, you will need to look into how to create an inventory.

Image Credit

What Is an Inventory?

Basically, it is a key list of what is in the property, what condition items of furniture, etc. are in and details of any damage. The inventory acts as your main piece of evidence should you need to withhold some of the deposit.

Reasonable deductions include unpaid rent and costs to cover damage – cleaning costs are the most common reason for a deduction.

So Where Do I Start?

The best thing to do is go round the flat or house room by room and list everything that is in it, their location and (importantly) their condition. Also include things such as plugs and light-fittings. You can take photos if you wish – indeed this can be particularly useful if there is any damage such as a broken tiles or stains.

Image Credit

Make sure you include any garden/outside areas that are considered part of the property.

There are numerous examples of inventory templates available on the internet.

Don’t forget to make a note of any utility meter readings so that bills can be sorted out fairly.

When the Tenant Moves In

It is important to go through the inventory with the tenant at the very beginning of their tenancy. Make sure they agree with everything and make any adjustments if mutually agreed. Once you have done this, get them to sign and date the inventory, give them a copy and keep your copy somewhere safe.

When the Tenant Moves Out

When the tenancy finishes, you should go around the property with the tenant who is leaving and note down any changes to condition of any items, any missing items and any damage that has appeared.

What Is an Inventory Clerk?

Alternatively, to take the strain off you, you could employ someone to do all this for you. These people are known as inventory clerks and will be experienced in this field. For more details as to what they are and what they do, why not take a look at a specialist website such as https://inventorybase.co.uk/blog/what-does-an-inventory-clerk-do-and-should-i-hire-one/ today?

Whichever route you decide to go down, an inventory is essential part of being a landlord and should always be completed at the start and at the end of any tenancy.

Nickel plating using an Electroless process (ENP) deposits a nickel coating without using the electrical current that’s normally used in an electroplating process. Industrial ENP processes generally contain between 2 and 14 percent phosphorus. A higher phosphorus content means better corrosion resistance at the expense of reduced hardness of the coating.

Image Credit

How does it work

In the ENP process, a chemical reducing agent is used to turn nickel ions into metallic nickel. The coating is naturally hard and resistant to wear and abrasion, it also has a natural lubricity, making it good for surfaces that come into contact with each other and would otherwise suffer from excessive wear.

As we’ve said, corrosion resistance can come at the expense of hardness. Heat treatment can increase the hardness of the coating, but the trade-off here is that microscopic cracks can occur in the surface coating, reducing its effectiveness.

How well ENP adheres to the substrate is largely down to preparation. Provided surface preparation is good, the adherence rate to carbon steel is around 200 to 400 Mpa, and for stainless steel it’s 160-200. It is difficult to deposit nickel on steels that have a high chromium content though.

Image Credit

Surfaces must also be clean of dirt, oils and soaps. Edges should be rounded off and welds ground down too. Precise temperature control of the plating bath is also essential to the process being able to deliver a high quality of finish.

Where is it used

The electroless nickel plating process is mostly used in industry, on things like pipes, valves and fasteners. The coating thickness can be varied and a greater thickness can be applied to a rough surface in order to produce a smoother final finish.

ENP is also often used as a way of improving the corrosion resistance of carbon steel, especially when it’s used in mildly corrosive environments such as where it may come in contact with caustic solutions, acids and chlorides.

Electroless coating can be used with other substances, but nickel is the most common application. It offers a solution that is cost-effective for applications where extending the service life of a component by reducing the chance of wear and corrosion is required. It means that often ENP coated steel can be used in these instances, in place of more expensive corrosion resistant alloys.

When you type something into a search engine on the internet, you’ve done it so many hundreds of times you probably don’t even think about what’s going on in the background. The aim of a search engine is to locate and organize data found on the world wide web. In the early days of the internet, there were a collection of File Transfer Protocol sites which users could navigate to find shared files. This was unsustainable though as the internet grew rapidly so search engines were a necessity to locate web servers and find files.

It is a well said and well-worn statistic that people only remember 10 or 20% of what they read but 80% of what they see and hear. Human brain’s generally work better when they can see what is in front of them and if the subject matter is important and delivered with flourish and rhetoric. Getting the right person to do it can change the world. While you may not want to aim that high for your event if  you need a Conference Speaker you can find a variety by searching online. Here are some of the most important speeches ever made in the ancient world that we still feel the effects of today.

1. Krishna to Arjuna on the eve of the Kurukshetra War. The Great Warrior Arjuna is having doubts as to whether the war against his friends, teachers and relatives should be fought. His Charioteer Lord Krishna drives him out to No Man’s land and explains to him why he has to fight and the workings of the world. This forms the basis for the Bhagavad Gita a key tenet of Hindu faith.
2. Gautama Buddha. In 570BC in Sarnath this is where Buddha makes a speech that lays out the foundations for Buddhism and its teachings. This would lead to one of the world’s largest religions and faith systems.
3. The Apology of Socrates 399BC. On trial for corruption and being critical of the state Socrates launches his defence with a speech. It is based around knowing that he knows nothing and from this comes his Wisdom. As his death was in 399BC it didn’t work but it does give us an idea as to the great man’s philosophy and writing.

Image credit

1. Catiline Orations 63BC. The Roman Senate was truly a bear pit of debate and oratory and Cicero was certainly one of its masters. Here he exposes the role played by Catiline in trying to overthrow the senate but he also speaks of rights and civil liberties too.
2. The Sermon on the Mount 30 AD. More of a compilation of Jesus sayings and work this speech is a declaration of the Christian faith and its principles. It is essentially Jesus’s manifesto of belief and blessings. This is where faith and religion truly begins.

Image credit

1. The Call to the First Crusades 1095. Pope Urban II makes history and sets up centuries of trouble. Urban II has received a letter from Byzantium requesting help to stop the Sejuk Turks. In an impassioned speech he berates and cajoles the Council to gather their forces and March on the East. He offers remission of sins, a coming apocalypse and his authority as the representative of God on Earth to urge them on.

It is more important than ever to live an eco-friendly lifestyle in this day and age; with the issues surrounding climate change and plastic pollution, it is vital that everyone does their bit for the planet. Bigger companies are beginning to follow suit to reduce their energy, and their plastic consumption; if you are working in a not so eco – friendly office environment, why don’t you take the lead in helping your work colleagues to be more eco-conscious? Here are ways your office can be more eco-friendly.

Image Credit

 Save that Energy 

If you are keen to reduce your company’s energy consumption, why not have a word with your boss to share your ideas? Chances are he/ she will be more than happy to follow suit. Actions such as turning off the office heating or air-con system for a bit will make a massive difference. When you all finish for the day, why not turn off your computers and printers? This will save a massive amount of energy and will really reduce the office’s energy bills. If you want to save your energy consumption, why not leave the cleaning to the office cleaners? For example, if you’re vacuuming the floor of the office, but the office cleaner is also doing that, it makes sense to allow the cleaner to vacuum the floor once. If you’re interested in hiring an office cleaner, why not get in touch with a Commercial cleaning Gloucester based company such as intocleaning.co.uk/, or a cleaning company near you who can help tidy your office space after a long day. 

Recycle 

Another way to save the planet and reduce landfill waste is to recycle; this is easy to do once people know what to recycle. Why not buy a separate recycle bin, and make a poster stating what you can recycle; this will allow people to follow suit in no time – you could even be the recycling ambassador for the company. A company called Terracycle even collect hard to recycle items such as crisp wrappers and bread bags, and then once you have collected the items they will supply funds to your chosen charity – this could be a great way to reduce office waste. 

Renewable Energy all The Way 

If your company wants to become more eco – friendly, why not encourage them to get solar panels for the building? This is a renewable energy source that will save you money and will save the planet. Or you could encourage your boss to switch to a greener energy supplier. If your workplace is in a shared office or building, then getting solar panels or switching to a greener energy supplier could be more of a challenge as the building doesn’t belong to the company – you could try and get in touch with the owner of the building though.

Image Credit

Reuse, don’t Buy New

If you are in need of new office chairs, why not look at second-hand furniture shops? Buying second hand is a great way to reduce your waste, and it also saves energy and resources that would be used to make the new chair. If you need a new computer, online shops such as eBay will have plenty of second-hand computers or laptops that are as good as new. Instead of getting rid of your old laptop, there are plenty of people that will buy unusable laptops or computers for spare parts.

Get Office Plants 

There are more benefits to office plants than looking pretty, there are even a huge amount of health benefits too; they are known to clean the air, and help you breath better. Office plants also help you work better too, as working around nature helps you to concentrate much more. You could even buy vegetable plants or fruit trees to grow your own food for the office – this will prevent plastic waste.

Novelty songs are not usually the basis for a good movie but in 1978 the film Convoy actually proved this to be slightly untrue. An iconic film “Convoy” was made starring two of the seventies biggest stars Kris Kristofferson and Ali Mcgraw. It also featured the Oscar winning stalwart Ernest Borgnine and best of all it was directed by one of the greatest most influential Hollywood directors of the 1970’s Sam Peckinpah, the master of the counter cultural film. The film centres around a community of truck drivers that communicate by CB or Citizen band radio, it certainly was a different kind of Music for Business than that we are used to hearing in retail stores across the country today. At the time it was a popular system for drivers to tell each other where they were, if there were accidents that could cause them a delay and the position of the police. They even had a code so that if the Police or anyone else listened in (it was an open radio wave) they would not have the faintest idea what the truckers were talking about.

Image credit

The film itself centres around a feud between the independent truckers and the police. In particular this is “Rubber Duck” so named because it rhymes with luck. Widow Woman, a many times married and divorced/widowed female driver. Love Machine, or rather Pig Pen due to the fact he mainly transports cattle and Spider Mike. They become sick of the bullying and aggressive tactics of one Sheriff Wallace who seems to have a big issue with them, in part because Duck seems to find it easy to seduce his wife Violet, who is in turn happy to oblige.

Image credit

One of the strange facts about the film is it helped to save Peckinpah’s reputation by making a huge amount of money for him. His last four films had been unsuccessful, although 2, Cross of Iron and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (also starring Kristofferson) are are now considered some of his best creations. The film came at just the right time as late 70s USA tried to find its voice after the shock of the sixties. With the economy in the doldrums the States were begin to question their place in the world as a proper Superpower. The slight rebellion of this and other films such as Smokey and the Bandit and Breaker, Breaker allowed the States to believe that the Cowboy frontier spirit was still alive and well and that the chance to stand up to authority was still there in the country.