There is always lots going on at Advo. Here are some of our June highlights.

New Facilities Team Member Joins

We were fortunate to have Nick Summers join the Facilities Team. Nick has worked in construction for over 43 years and brings and brings an extensive range of skills and experience. Nick has been working with Advo since the early days of the Cobdown House regeneration project but now officially joins the Advo workforce.  Initially focussing on the opening up of the business centre later this year, Nick will move onto wider projects on the Estate including the restoration of our Grade II listed Olympic Sauna.

99-Year-Old Athlete returns to the Cobdown Olympic Sauna

A 99-year-old former athlete has stepped back in time after being reunited with a remarkable piece of Olympic history that he first used as a young sportsman more than three-quarters of a century ago.

You can read John’s story HERE. 

The Kent Newspaper story on the Advo News post can be read HERE.

Going Going Gone for Gold…

Advo has been notified that we did rather well in our recent Investors in People assessment. Emma Pennycard, our IIP Assessor recently commented…

“I wanted to get in touch to congratulate you and the team on your recent Investors in People results. I’ve been informed by the Investors in People team that Advo has achieved one of the highest scores of the last 12 months within the Gold accredited employers category for organisations with 2–49 employees. This is a fantastic achievement and a real reflection of the commitment you have shown to your people, leadership and continuous improvement.”

As a result of our assessment scores we have been invited by Investors in People to enter their UK Employer of the Year Award.

Time sensitive P11Ds

Above: Caroline Jackson with some of the Payroll Team

After finalising end-of-tax year the next big project is supporting clients with their P11D returns. This is a huge project pulling together and checking data and producing reports for clients.

From a payroll perspective, completing a P11D is far more than simply entering figures. The work typically includes:

• Gathering information from clients on all benefits and expenses provided to employees and directors during the tax year.
• Reviewing the information to determine which items are reportable and ensuring they have been treated correctly for tax purposes.
• Calculating the value of taxable benefits where required, including company cars and fuel, private medical insurance, beneficial loans, living accommodation and other taxable benefits.
• Checking payroll records to identify any benefits that have already been payrolled, ensuring they are not reported twice.
• Preparing individual P11D forms for each relevant employee or director.
• Preparing the P11D(b), which summarises the total benefits provided and calculates the employer’s Class 1A National Insurance liability.
• Thoroughly checking all calculations and entries before submission to minimise the risk of errors and HMRC penalties.

The payroll team are currently completing P11Ds for 120 clients, ranging from businesses with a single employee to organisations with 584 employees.

Caroline Jackson, Advo’s  Payroll Manager commented “The payroll team are currently completing P11Ds for 120 clients, ranging from businesses with a single employee to organisations with 584 employees. As always, the team are committed to ensuring our clients remain compliant and provide support and guidance.”

IT’s Coming home!

Part of Cobdown House’s large basement, under the original parts of the house, are ideal to host IT Infrastructure. One area of the basement has been sealed and a hermetically sealed room, with its own temperature control, has been created.

Colin Middleton, Advo’s IT Infrastructure expert, explains “We now have Cobdown House Network Infrastructure fully up and running off of a 10Gb internet line. This means we are in a position to host tenants and to also move Advo Server Infrastructure back in-house.”

The new infrastructure now means that the IT operations can be moved from an off-site data centre to Cobdown giving us more control. The new infrastructure will allow up to a dozen businesses to run separate complex IT systems within Cobdown giving total future flexibility.

Taking the Cobdown Story back to the Stone Age

The Mid-Kent Metal Detecting Club visited Cobdown and took the House’s history back to the stone age.

An eagle-eyed member of the club spotted a neolithic axe head, nicely knapped that fits beautifully into the hand. A 16th Century belt buckle was also amongst a wide range of Victorian and more modern finds spanning the whole history of Kent. A number of coins, half crowns, sixpences and pennies were found alongside more modern money.

Finds included a Victorian Penny from just 5 years after Cobdown House was built.

You can read more HERE

All Things Great & Small: What’s new with the Cobdown House Build?

Things are starting to move at a pace. Flooring is going down, decorating continues apace, internal glazing is being fitted and the last big build, the Orangery is well on the way..

With a restoration, as well as a rebuild there is always parts of the build that involve preserving and saving what little remains of the original private house. Below John and Nick work on the fiddly intricate repairs to the two remaining ceiling roses.

Internal glazing goes in, below a new corridor created to office space and one of the landings.

Outside the heat has delayed things a bit, but work recommences on the last big build, the Orangery.

In July we will see some big changes as we move to finishing touches in the old parts of the house.