Latest news — From the ground up About
News and information updates
10th November 2022
VAT registration
It is with mixed feeling I inform you that FTGU garden maintenance is now VAT registered. That does mean that VAT is chargeable on our invoice values at 20%.
However, I have reduced rates where possible to reflect our VAT reclaim, sharing the pain. Those clients that are VAT registered will see no change, those on concessionary rates will notice lower unit values before VAT, and therefore a lesser or possibly totally mitigated increase for VAT. If you have any question please contact Peter directly.
This does not affect lawn care, which is a separate business.
16th January 2022
Bank Access restored
Access to our account information has now been restored, so we will be catching up as soon as possible. Thank you for your understanding.
8th January 2022
Bank Access
I am afraid we have no access to our bank account currently due to problems with Virgin Money. I you have made a payment and have still received a reminder, please allow us some time to get the matter resolved with the bank during banking hours.
1st January 2022
Good bye 2021
There is no doubt that a combination of staff facilities and covid interruptions messed up our plans through 2021. To those clients that stuck with us resource through shortages I am very grateful. To all, including a few that we parted company with, I am so sorry we could not meet your expectations. Through much of the summer and autumn I was tempted on many occasions to update this page with the good news of more qualified and experienced staff joining our team, but held back after being repeatedly let down. Six times in all appointments were made only to fall through. This was no different for many businesses as staff shortages allowed employees to continually ask for more, and employers to do anything to keep teams together. I am confident that we can get this resolved early in 2022. Happy New Year.
3rd May 2021
Total lawn care package launches in June
Our plans to offer a complete integrated lawn care package are one step closer, and will be available to all clients in June. The concept is simple, and we think long overdue.
10th April 2021
Accounts transparency
Did you know that we offer complete client access to their account online? It is particularly useful if you have frequent visits, and more so if you have lawn care and garden maintenance.
You have complete independent access to see your account detail and history, including invoices, payments and estimates. You can also create your own statements. If you would like this feature activated just let us know. We will send you an invite by email, where you can set your ow password. You then have the choice of receiving individual invoice emails.
We continue to look for useable solutions for an easier life.
20th February 2021
Spring is here!
The end of the wet and cold period allows us to commence regular spring lawn care, as well as continuing the winter lawn treatments. We are also completing other cold weather tasks, including pruning roses, wisteria, and fruit trees. In the borders perennial grasses are being cut back, evergreen ones raked out. Spring is here!
16th January 2021
Lawn care business separation now complete
We have finally managed to split the lawncare business from the general maintenance side with the completion of our new banking facility. This means that anything to do with lawns, the supply of plants or irrigation will now be administered by From the ground up Group Ltd. This seemingly complex arrangement may mean that you have two accounts, and two different places to send payment, but hopefully the upside will offset the extra effort.
Lawn care has a completely different set of demands, and can effectively start to influence and control how we work; lawns come first as they don’t stop growing. We now have additional resource to facilitate this demand, and splitting it enables it will allow that aspect of garden care to grow as it needs to without hinderance from the rest. It should remove the conflicts that had come to paralyse us in 2019 and 2020.
The additional and unexpected bonus is that our fees will not have to increase by charging VAT, which would have been inevitable otherwise.
So here’s to a better business solution for lawn care and cheaper bills.
Our best wishes to everyone for a much improved and safer 2021.
1st November 2020
New coronavirus lockdown
The recent lockdown announcement means that we must adjust some of our practises accordingly. While we will still endeavour to attend garden visits, they are likely to be more as individuals, sometimes in their own vehicles rather than in vans.
Where we are likely to encounter clients even from a distance we will be observing distance and mask obligations.
There is still a vast amount of timely work to be completed in November, and that will continue as the weather dictates.
14th October 2020
Online account access
We have had a facility for some time that allows online access to your entire billing history. For those with more complex gardens and billing this may be beneficial.
It’s all part of our pledge to maintain complete transparency with our billing. Just ask if you want this facility activated.
11th October 2020
Monthly accounts
For clients that we attend frequently we will soon be able to have end of month billing. This has been tested in a few cases and seems to offer a reasonable solution to the problem of many individual invoices.
Each visit will still be invoiced separately for transparency, but not become due until the end of the month, meaning that just one or two payments will be made rather than up to 12 as it is currently. Totals will be provided by monthly statement.
Services will be split as described below, but will hopefully be a significant improvement.
8th October 2020
Additional staff and services.
After many months of planning and trying to recruit, we have finally had some success. Late last year a plan was put in place to separate our lawn care business and enhance the services it provided — some clients have already discussed the principles and been test subjects in its development.
The pandemic curtailed both the service development and recruitment, and we have had difficulty staying on top of things. We have now just added another full time garden assistant to our roster, and another gardener is due on board from November.
Now with five members in the team, with different skills and experience, we are better able to react for “urgent” jobs, and to provide a broad depth of services.
There have also been structural changes to the business too, which will result in some services being charged in future from a new Limited company, From the ground up group Ltd. This will manage lawn care, irrigation services and some other things.
If any questions arise out of these changes please contact Peter by email or telephone.
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