What's my business actually worth?

Quiet satisfying Saturday: one tool you can try in five minutes, and a deadline shift that buys you breathing room.

What's my business actually worth?

A new free tool called Handover gives UK small business owners a rough valuation in under five minutes. You answer questions about your revenue, profit margins, growth, and sector, and it spits out a number with a breakdown of what's driving it up or dragging it down — things like over-reliance on you personally, or having too few customers.

This matters because most business owners never find out what their company is worth until they're already deep in a sale. Accountants charge hundreds for a preliminary valuation. This gives you a starting figure for nothing.

The catch: it's brand new and the creator is actively asking for early feedback, so treat the number as a conversation starter, not a price tag. Think bathroom scales before you hire a personal trainer — directional, not definitive.

What to do: Search "Handover business valuation UK" and run through the questions. Takes less time than making a coffee. Even if you're not selling, knowing your ballpark number changes how you think about hiring, investing, and taking on debt.

Did the EU just give me more time on AI rules?

If you sell to EU customers and use any AI tools for hiring decisions, customer credit checks, or automated pricing, yes — the European Parliament voted this week to push back the compliance deadline from August 2026 to December 2027, according to CIO and OneTrust. Some categories slide even further to August 2028.

This affects recruitment agencies using AI screening, lenders or insurers with automated decisions, and any UK business with EU customers where AI influences who gets what. Brexit doesn't shield you — if your customers are in the EU, these rules apply.

What to do: Don't treat the delay as a free pass. Use the extra year to ask your solicitor or compliance adviser which AI tools you use, what decisions they touch, and whether your software vendors can explain how they work. The direction of travel hasn't changed — only the deadline. Businesses that prepare now won't be scrambling in 2027.

Quick hits

• Making Tax Digital for Income Tax rolls out from April 2026. AccountingWeb featured a tool called Navi that helps accountants explain the new quarterly reporting rules in plain English. If you're self-employed or a sole trader, ask your accountant this week: "How does MTD IT change what I need to send you, and how often?" Better to have that conversation now than in a panic in April.

• AccountingWeb also argues smaller firms are outrunning bigger ones on AI adoption — less red tape, faster decisions, no committee approvals. If you run a professional services firm under 50 people, that speed advantage is real but temporary. The large firms will catch up.

The bottom line

Quiet day in AI news, which makes it the perfect weekend to do the thing most business owners skip: find out what your business is worth for free, and write down the three tasks you repeat every week that AI might already handle.

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