With over 20 years experience in the Catering/Restuarant trade, we have used the products and services of hundreds of suppliers. Many of these suppliers have been very good, and we have dealt with them for a long time. Unfortunately, others have been poor or outright fraudulant.

The following information is provided for those who are interested. The information is as factual and accurate as possible, and describes our personal experiences which may or may not be indicative of the suppliers usual level of service. 

 

The information is in no particular order and does not represent a complete list of our suppliers.

 

RTI Payroll Software

When we statrted business in 1999, we found the Inland Revenue table/calculator approach too complicated so needed simple, flexible Payroll Software. I am computer literate (my Honours Degree thesis was on designing the human-machine interface in the days before Microsoft Windows). We are Restauranteurs not Accountants! Our Accountant advised that we used Sage Payroll which I purchased at significant expense. Sage Payroll was awful, especially at End of Year where I would spend several evenings processing End of Year files for just a few emplyees.

 

Needless to say we do not use Sage Payroll or the accountant any more.

 

In desparation, I downloaded and tested many (about 10) software packages - loading them with data and testing them. It took several days. One that stood out was Moneysoft. End of Year was now just a few button presses!  The introduction to monthly submissions was equally simple and smooth. I strongly recommend that you try it. 

1&1 MyWebsite

Today - every business can benefit from a website. To get one you:

a) Need to teach yourself how to design and buid a site and upload to a server. This takes a lot of time and skill - but can yield decent results. 

b) Pay someone else to do it for you. Good Web Site develops can produce fantasitc sites - but at a very signifcant cost.

Many businesses need to keep their site up to date to reflect changes to the business or their market. In practice these updates are delayed due to the time/cost of each update.

We discovered and now use a thrid option - 1&1 MyWebsite. It might not generate the flashiest website on the planet, but building a site and above all maintaining a site requires little knowledge or time. Highly recommended.