For UK business owners and people starting out
Know what your business needs next
Bizwise tells you which tasks apply to your business, what order to do them in and how, with links to official sources.
What applies to you?
Start with your business's facts
Registering a business, arranging insurance, handling personal data and hiring staff bring different tasks. Your legal structure matters too. Bizwise uses those facts to build your plan, so you can see what needs doing now and what comes later.
Four stages
Work through the plan, one stage at a time
Your business moves through Validate, Establish, Launch and Operate. Each stage has its own work.
Validate
Find out whether your idea has demand. Start with "Agree the demand test and its pass criteria". You lock in the success criteria before the test runs.
Establish
Make it a real business. Tasks include "Choose the legal structure: sole trader, partnership or limited company" and "Open a business bank account".
Launch
Start trading. Work includes "Set up a way to take orders and payments". Live payments stay behind a hard gate until the essentials are done.
Operate
Run and grow the business. Tasks include "Review marketing against objectives and budget". The rules engine schedules repeating work and statutory deadlines.
Eight departments
See the work across your business
Every business starts with these departments. The guide adds more when your niche needs them.
Marketing
Test demand and plan how to reach your customers.
Sales
Set pricing and organise how you take orders and payments.
Customers
Record why customers stay or leave, and respond to reviews.
Product
Define what you sell and test it with customers.
Operations
Plan delivery, suppliers and the work that repeats.
Technology
Set up the systems you depend on and manage access.
Finance
Plan budgets and filings, with the books in your accounting software.
Legal
Work through setup, contracts and data protection tasks.
Guidance with every task
See how to do it, and check the source
Each task explains why you need it and what to have ready. Guidance was checked against GOV.UK, HMRC, Companies House, the ICO, the ASA and HSE in October 2026.
Steps with links, so you can follow the work.
Time and cost, so you can plan for it.
Official sources, so you can check the guidance.
When your business changes
New responsibilities enter the plan
Life events add tasks when they happen. For example:
Hiring your first employee
Adds "Register as an employer for PAYE", "Set up a workplace pension" and "Take out employers' liability insurance". Hiring also brings "Check the person's right to work" and "Issue a written employment contract".
Crossing the VAT threshold
Adds "Register for VAT and choose the scheme" and "File VAT returns".
Taking premises
Adds "Register for business rates", "Insure the premises" and "Complete a fire risk assessment".
Changing company details
Adds "Update Companies House" when company changes need reporting.
A plan built on rules
The rules decide what applies
The deterministic engine uses your business facts, legal structure and life events to choose tasks and schedule work. Hard gates require the essentials before live payments, personal data handling or regulated trading. You cannot override them.
Warning gates ask for a reason when you move stage with essentials outstanding, run full campaigns before Launch or spend beyond a test budget. Bizwise records your reason as a decision.
The AI guide helps with questions and drafts. A failed AI call does not change the rules' outcome or break the plan. You use your own OpenAI API key. It stays in your computer's operating system keychain, is sent with each request and is never stored on the Bizwise server.
Bizwise provides guidance. It is not legal, tax or financial advice.
Tell us about your business
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