Operations, product, and how-tos.
Posts on running a driving school, payments, compliance, and the product itself. Subscribe via RSS to get new ones.
Making Tax Digital for driving instructors: the dates
When MTD for Income Tax starts for UK driving instructors, what a quarterly update contains, the dual-control mileage trap, and how to pull your figures.
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An AI assistant for your driving school diary: what it means
What connecting Claude or ChatGPT to your driving school data does — read-only questions, the checks before you connect, and what Passdesk exposes.
Driving instructor cancellation policy: a fair template
A cancellation policy UK learners will accept and you can enforce — notice window, late-cancel and no-show fees, exceptions, and how to say it at booking.
Driving lesson payment plans: instalments by Direct Debit
Why block bookings lose learners at the deposit, how an instalment plan by Direct Debit works, the Direct Debit Guarantee, and what to put in writing.
The driving test report explained: faults, DL25 and what next
How the car test is marked: driving, serious and dangerous faults, the 15-fault rule and the DL25 headings, then turning a failed report into the next lesson.
Driving test routes explained: what examiners use
DVSA does not publish test routes. What a route is, how examiners choose one, why road types beat memorised turns, and how a school builds its own library.
Driving test waiting times: what an instructor can do
Why test waits are long, what DVSA is doing, the notice rules for moving a test without losing the fee, and the parts of the wait an instructor controls.
Learning to drive without a driving school: the rules
What private practice legally needs in Great Britain — the supervisor, plates, insurance — why most learners still book lessons, and how to make practice count.
Manual or automatic: the business decision for an instructor
Choosing a manual or automatic training car — what an automatic-only licence restricts, what DVSA publishes, the costs to price up, and the electric angle.
Under-18 learners: consent, guardians and the data you hold
Most learners start at 17, so most driving schools hold children’s data. What the ICO expects, what to collect from a parent, and how consent works in Passdesk.
WhatsApp lesson reminders for driving instructors
Why reminders cut no-shows, personal WhatsApp versus the Business Platform, what a reminder should say, and where opt-in and GDPR come in.
ADI franchise or independent: how to run the numbers
Franchise or go it alone as a UK driving instructor — the costs each side carries, the questions to ask before you sign, and how to compare them.
Allowable expenses for driving instructors: what you can claim
What a self-employed UK driving instructor can claim against tax — the dual-control mileage carve-out, capital allowances on the car, and ADI fees.
How to start a driving school in the UK
The sequence for starting a UK driving school — ADI qualification, the fees, registering with HMRC, and what to set up before your first paid lesson.
PDI to ADI: how the trainee licence works
The 6-month trainee driving instructor licence — who can apply, the supervision or extra-training choice, and the advertising rules that catch people out.
Switching driving school software: a checklist
How to move a driving school onto new software without losing history — what to export, what UK GDPR entitles you to, and the order to import in.
GDPR for driving schools: what to log, what not
A practical UK GDPR primer for driving schools and ADIs — controller vs processor, the data you keep, the data you must not, and the requests you will get.
Progress rubric: marking a lesson in under a minute
How to keep a per-skill progress record against the driving test without adding time to the lesson: what to mark, when, and what to leave alone.
Solo ADI to multi-instructor school: what changes
What changes the day you take on your first instructor: who sees what, how they are paid, where the money lands, employment status and the diary.
Stripe for ADIs: card payments without a reader
How driving instructors take card payments without a card reader: payment links, packages, deposits, paying after each lesson, refunds and what it costs.