How does umbrella company work? - The Book-keepers Forum (UK)

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How does umbrella company work?

semsley · Guru

Is it that they employ contract workers through an umbrella company or they small and are paid themselves via an umbrella company? There's general information below on umbrella companies

http://www.sjdaccountancy.com/about/ourservices/umbrella_company.html

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

sorry that I missed this one.

an Umbrella company is a way of personal service companies bypassing IR35 legislation but since 2006 HMRC have categorised Umbrella companies as managed service companies (MSCs) which effectively implements IR35 against individuals working together within an umbrella type organisation.

Many of these schemes have now closed down and what is left will probably follow as HMRC pursue them into extinction.

The conservatives were supposed to get rid of IR35 but all they seem to have done is enforced it just as eagerly as their predecessors.

kind regards,

Shaun.

Spamkebab · Expert

Done exactly the same with GTAIV, my boy has completed Sleeping Dogs but is still a bigger fan of GTA.

I've got Hitman Absolution to play at the end of this month, hence the need to complete the AAT project quick smart lol.

Not bought the latest GRAW yet, as a big fan of the GRAW series it looks a lot more like a Splinter Cell game which although

i like, i don't want to tarnish my memories of GRAW so the new game is definitely a Christmas Steam sale purchase, if at the

right price.

Been busy unlocking upgrades from the free Hitman Sniper Challenge i got when pre-purchasing the game. I loved Blood Money,

Hope this one does not disappoint.

Also a chance to see how my rig runs at 1920x1200 (16:10)

Neil.

-- Edited by Spamkebab on Monday 19th of November 2012 12:01:36 PM

VinceH · Expert

They do research into genetic engineering and create bioweapons, and accidentally release them, turning everyone into zombies.

Oh, wait, no - that's Umbrella Corporation. Sorry, my bad.

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

lol Vince,

you wouldn't be another closet gamer like Neil (Spam Kebab), Steve (Rhianach) and myself would you?

VinceH · Expert

I do have a large collection of PS1/2/3 games - but I only ever play them once in a blue moon. I'll go for months and months without switching the PS3 on, then I'll have a solid three-day weekend of playing one game. (Unsurprisingly, the collection is growing faster than I play them - just like my DVD collection, funnily enough!)

However, I do not own a single one of the Res Evil games, AFAICR. :)

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Ditto resident evil. Not my sort of game at all.

lol on the three day weekend one game session... Been there myself so many times (Last one was GTA IV, played it to death for a few days then haven't touched it since).

Only play PC games and with those only tend to play on a Friday evening when my children log in from the various parts of the country to play either Battlefield Bad Company 2 or Company of Heroes.

If ever I get any downtime when I've just had enough of studying and work then the games are either Empire, Medieval 2 or fall of the Samurai from the total war series, or Titan quest (far better than the Diablo games).

I've amassed far more games than that but who the heck has the time to play them.

Christmas week I get to finally play Sleeping dogs that I've had installed for months but just had no time to play it. I'm a big fan of 80's / 90's Hong Kong Cinema so looking forwards to a week of actually being Chow Yun Fat or Andy Lau rather than just watching their movies... Actually, have to take one day out of Christmas week as I've promised a full day Bad Company 2 mega session to get us all up to level 50's. That one may actually happen on the Friday before Christmas if you play Bad Company 2 and wanted to pop in for a game or two.

Totally relate on the DVD front. Think that I've got best part of forty now still with the cellophane wrappers on.... And amongst those are some full price day of release titles.

I've stopped buying new releases and now just put what I fancy watching into my Amazon basket and it generally stays there until it hits some bargain price... And then joins the cellophane wrapped queue that may never actually get watched.

All the best,

Shaun.

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Don't tell ma boy but Santa's bringing him Hitman absolution. I got the Amazon version as that one has a Tommy gun but thinking now that I should have got him the Steam version as I've caught him hankering after the associated team fortress freebies that you get if you purchase through them.

At the moment the game that he's playing to death is War of the roses so I've also got him Chivalry for Christmas as that's a similar theme.

I've already seen him play Sleeping dogs all the way through but I still want to play it as I just want to walk around Hong Kong. When he plays it's all fighting and car chases and you miss the tourist experience (lol).

Have you played Mafia II? That one is very similar to Sleeping dogs. Better graphics than GTA IV and a very strong storyline with honour and loyalty factors I've only seen the equivalent of in Sleeping dogs.

If your boys not got it yet and he enjoyed sleeping dogs then I would strongly recommend that one for Christmas (plus the bonus of the fact that it's a bargain now at £4.83!!!).

Worth noting is that Take 2 Interactive that made Mafia 2 wholly own Rockstar games that makes the GTA games so a sound pedigree as well there.

Shaun.

Spamkebab · Expert

Bought Mafia II by pre-purchase for myself and still haven't played past the first chapter. My lad has completed it and bought the additional chapters.

I cut my gaming teeth on the original Mafia, this is where i learned that building a PC was far superior to buying one. Oh and BF2 was another that pushed

the boundaries and my first experience of SLI, going from 1 Nvidia 6600gt to 2x6600gt's. (i would later SLI 2x8600GTX, only to give up and buy my trusty (well out of date) 480)

It's like emptying your wallet in the toilet really, take too long to build that rig and it's obsolete before you hit the power button lol.

Must confess to being an Nvidia fanboy, but AMD for processors as far as bang for buck.

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

My Rig is AMD / ATI

My boys is Intel / Nvidia

His rig is faster and prettier but less dependable (the acid test being the water reflection quality of Empire total war).

Both rigs are Dell XPS's and suffer from Dell putting in the lowest PSU that they can get away with (so no SLi for us until we upgrade the PSU's).

Other boy built his own rig which is AMD / Nvidia. With that kit its almost a case of the lights dim when he switches all of the fans on.

Luckily when you have AC/DC blaring out (as we invariably do whilst playing BFBC2 (Arica Harbour map)) you can't hear it.

On the BF2 front we still play it (incl. the special forces and armour add ons) as non of us like BF3 (Very pretty but no fun. BFBC2 and BF2 are far superior games).

Oh God, we're well off topic again aren't we!

Spamkebab · Expert

It's a slippery slope alright!

Rhianrach · Expert

Intel/ATI here all peachy and new, (or as new as things can be with the speed technology changes in pooters). Sleeping Dogs got uninstalled like MaxPayne 3 did, for some reason I couldn't take to them so now its Hitman Absolution, FarCry 3 and Assassins Creed 3 for christmas whilst I finish Assassins Creed the first one.

Spamkebab · Expert

Hey how does Max Payne compare to the others? I think i only liked the first one, this new one is going to be a 1.99 Steam sale purchase i think.

Far Cry 3 looks amazing, saying that though, Far Cry 2 still looks pretty good although i aint never played it. Assassins Creed is a bit repetative

for me. Hitman is the only one that has tickled me fancy this year. I must remember to be patient when playing that game lol.

Does anybody know of a good Bookkeeping forum? just thought i'd ask while i'm here.

Rhianrach · Expert

Yeah BKN used to be a good forum for accounting and bookkeeping, it went downhill though.

Max Payne is ok I just got a bit bored, same with Assassins Creed but it's picking up a bit now. You should try FarCry2 I enjoyed it. I've never tried a Hitman game which is why I'm going to give this one a crack as I enjoy the whole creeping around thing, much like I enjoyed Thief smile

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Maybe its me having lived in that part of the world combined with owning everything that Chow Yun Fat has stared in that makes Sleeping dogs so appealing... Or maybe its the sense of honour and loyalty of the characters which is so missing from real life.

How far through sleeping dogs did you get? Did you get to taking out the bulk of the Sun On Yee at the wedding? Or taking Winstons murderer to his psychotic mother? When it gets to that stage it really starts to feel like a Hong Kong movie where, unlike American movies the hero often gets killed so right up until (after) the end I was wondering how it would turn out.

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Rhianrach wrote:
I enjoy the whole creeping around thing, much like I enjoyed Thief

Have you considered Dishonoured?

Spamkebab · Expert

My lad plays like your lad seems to Shaun, he's all about dragging people from cars and putting them straight.

Same with GTA, the civilian population is scarce in his copy, you can see curtains twitching lol. I hope Video Games

don't produce psychotic teenagers, as alleged. Mind you, his mum would kung foo him back to his early years.

It's like the game introductions, i love watching the videos and cut scenes. I don't think he has ever saw one, just

straight in and start the slaughter.

Rhianrach · Expert

Shamus wrote:
Rhianrach wrote:
I enjoy the whole creeping around thing, much like I enjoyed Thief
Have you considered Dishonoured?

I have and it is on my list, I'm just undecided as yet, I'm waiting to see if Half-Life 3 comes out before I hit the trigger biggrin

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Keep it in your Amazon basket Steve.

came down to £10 on Friday for about an hour so straight in there and got my boys copy for Christmas.

The price of that one flies around wildly on the back of reports that you can complete it within 10 hours.

£1 to £1.50 per hour. Fine. £2.50 per hour, not so good.

Spamkebab · Expert

Speaking of Half Life Steve, have you played Deus Ex?

Probably the best 5er i ever spent lol.

Rhianrach · Expert

Shamus wrote:
Keep it in your Amazon basket Steve.

came down to £10 on Friday for about an hour so straight in there and got my boys copy for Christmas.

The price of that one flies around wildly on the back of reports that you can complete it within 10 hours.

£1 to £1.50 per hour. Fine. £2.50 per hour, not so good.

Is that ten hours doing it full stealth or ten hours all guns blazing?

Rhianrach · Expert

Spamkebab wrote:
Speaking of Half Life Steve, have you played Deus Ex?

Probably the best 5er i ever spent lol.

The original was awesome, I played HR a while back....................... now I've got the bug again damn it, it is a cool game.

Spamkebab · Expert

I played Half Life 2 in 3d with Edimensional shutter glasses (another costly phase i went through)

That was awsome. No way to describe it, just had real depth.

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Spamkebab wrote:
It's like the game introductions, i love watching the videos and cut scenes. I don't think he has ever saw one, just

straight in and start the slaughter.

Yep, my boys the same.... Not even going to mention what he did in the nearby town when he found a combined harvester in GTA San Andreas.

Frustrates the hell out of me when I miss half of the story (surprised he had any idea at all what was going on in Mass Effect).

For cut scenes Saints Row 2 has a pretty good back story. We both got Saints row 3 but the start with everything and lose it doesn't appeal the same as the start with nothing and build an empire back story of Saints Row 2.

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Rhianrach wrote:
Shamus wrote:
Keep it in your Amazon basket Steve.

came down to £10 on Friday for about an hour so straight in there and got my boys copy for Christmas.

The price of that one flies around wildly on the back of reports that you can complete it within 10 hours.

£1 to £1.50 per hour. Fine. £2.50 per hour, not so good.
Is that ten hours doing it full stealth or ten hours all guns blazing?

From reading the reviews its full stealth including all side missions.

The worst game for short single player though has to be Homefront coming in at a little over two hours gameplay. On the bright side though at least that one has multiplayer which Dishonoured doesn't.

Spamkebab · Expert

Looks like Vince started something, then slinked away lol.

There will be gamers looking for reviews on Google and being directed to a Bookkeepers forum haha how cool is that?

Rhianrach · Expert

Shamus wrote:
Rhianrach wrote:
Shamus wrote:
Keep it in your Amazon basket Steve.

came down to £10 on Friday for about an hour so straight in there and got my boys copy for Christmas.

The price of that one flies around wildly on the back of reports that you can complete it within 10 hours.

£1 to £1.50 per hour. Fine. £2.50 per hour, not so good.
Is that ten hours doing it full stealth or ten hours all guns blazing?
From reading the reviews its full stealth including all side missions.
The worst game for short single player though has to be Homefront coming in at a little over two hours gameplay. On the bright side though at least that one has multiplayer which Dishonoured doesn't.

biggrin I'll maybe wait for the steam summer sale then, however it does look like a game I would like.

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Spamkebab wrote:
Speaking of Half Life Steve, have you played Deus Ex?

Probably the best 5er i ever spent lol.

My boy had Human Revolution last Christmas after hankering after it for months and probably played it for less than two hours in total.

The story was too linear where you had to do exactly what you were supposed to the way that they wanted you to do it and even though the back story was great the game itself was pretty dire from that perspective.

Hope the earlier ones were better.

VinceH · Expert

Spamkebab wrote:
Looks like Vince started something, then slinked away lol.

Yeah, it's a bit of a habit. :)

My own preference is first person shooters - though I do "play" (read: buy and not get around to play) other stuff as well; always enjoyed the Tomb Raider games, for example - and GTA since #4. (The Res Evil games should be right up my street - I've just never actually tried them!)

I usually wait until I see things in the bargain bin before buying - though for the past few releases, I have bought the Call of Duty games as soon as they've been released - and actually played them straight away. (Of those occasional weekends, they've tended to be very soon after a CoD title has come out). The latest one, Black Ops II, marks my return to my old skinflint ways: It can wait until it's cheap.

Shaun: Good plan with the Amazon basket. I think I'll start doing it that way (for DVDs as well).