Disclaimer

Vader Barclay Consulting provides business advisory services: management consulting, management accountancy and strategic marketing. We are not a regulated firm, and there are several things we deliberately do not do. Being explicit about that is part of what makes the advice we do give worth having.

1. This website is general information only

Everything published here (service descriptions, insight articles, frequently asked questions) is general commentary. It is not advice on your circumstances, it has not been prepared with knowledge of your business, and it should not be relied upon as a substitute for professional advice properly obtained.

Reading this site, submitting the contact form, or having an introductory conversation with us does not create a client relationship. That relationship begins only when a written engagement letter and scope have been agreed by both parties, as set out in our terms and conditions.

If you act on something published here without taking advice, you do so at your own risk. Every business has some feature that makes general guidance wrong for it, and identifying that feature is precisely what an engagement is for.

2. What we are not

We think this is the most useful section on the page.

We are not registered auditors

We do not carry out statutory audits and nothing we produce is an audit opinion. Where an audit is required, you need a registered auditor.

We are not your statutory accountant

We do not prepare or file statutory accounts, and we do not prepare or file tax returns. We work on management information and commercial decisions that sit above that layer, alongside your accountant rather than instead of them. We use the word “accountancy” on this site to mean management accounting.

We are not tax advisers

We do not provide tax advice or tax planning. Where a decision we are advising on has tax consequences, and many do, we will say so and ask you to take advice from a qualified tax adviser before proceeding.

We are not regulated financial advisers

We are not authorised or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. We do not advise on investments, pensions, insurance or any personal financial product, and we do not arrange, broker or introduce finance.

We are not solicitors

We do not provide legal advice and we do not draft legal documents. We will tell you when a matter needs a solicitor and help you brief one properly.

We are not insolvency practitioners

We are not licensed insolvency practitioners. Where a business’s position may require formal insolvency advice, we will say so directly and help you find a licensed practitioner. We would not take an engagement in place of advice you actually need.

3. Regulated activities

Nothing on this website is:

• a financial promotion within the meaning of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000;
• an invitation or inducement to engage in investment activity;
• an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation in respect of, any security, investment or financial instrument;
• personal financial advice of any kind.

Where an engagement touches a regulated activity, that part of the work is carried out by an appropriately authorised third party, engaged separately by you. We receive no fee, commission or introducer payment in respect of any such referral.

4. No guarantee of results

We do not guarantee any particular financial or commercial outcome, and we would treat any firm that did with suspicion.

Business results depend on decisions taken by you, on execution by your team, on market conditions and on factors outside anyone’s control. What we commit to is the work described in the scope, delivered to the standard described, measured against measures agreed with you at the outset, and reported honestly, including when the answer is uncomfortable.

Any figures, ranges, timeframes or illustrative examples used on this site or in our materials are exactly that: illustrative. They are not forecasts of what your business will achieve and should not be read as such.

5. Client quotations, examples and imagery

We do not publish client names, logos or identifying details without written permission.

Where a quotation appears on this site attributed by role and sector rather than by name, it is used to illustrate the kind of change clients describe. Any illustrative example or composite scenario is labelled as such. We do not present composite or illustrative material as a verifiable individual endorsement.

Photography on this site is professional stock imagery used for illustration. The people shown are models and are not employees, clients or representatives of Vader Barclay Consulting, and no endorsement by them is implied.

6. Accuracy and currency

We take reasonable care to ensure the information on this site is accurate at the time of publication. Business practice, regulation and market conditions change, and content is not continuously updated.

Insight articles carry a publication date. Please treat them as reflecting the position at that date. To the extent permitted by law we accept no liability for any error or omission in the content of this site.

7. External links

Where we link to another website, that link is provided for convenience. We do not control those sites, we do not endorse their content, and we accept no responsibility for them or for anything you do as a result of visiting them.

8. If you are in financial difficulty

If your business is unable, or may become unable, to meet its debts as they fall due, that is a serious situation with legal consequences for directors as well as commercial ones. Directors have duties in that circumstance which are not within our remit to advise on.

Please take advice promptly from a licensed insolvency practitioner and, where appropriate, a solicitor. We are glad to have an initial conversation, to help you get a clear view of the cash position, and to help you find the right regulated party. We will tell you plainly if that is what is needed, rather than proposing an engagement.

Free, independent business debt advice is also available in the UK from organisations including the Business Debtline, a service of the Money Advice Trust.

9. Contacting us

If anything on this page is unclear, or you are unsure whether a matter falls within our remit, ask us: contact@vaderbarclay.com. We would rather tell you we are the wrong firm than have you assume we are the right one.