FAQ

What's the point of Pomanda?

Pomanda is a company information platform that provides the most complete data on the UK market. We take data from publicly available data sources, including Companies House data, on UK companies and directors, and supplement it with our data to help shed some light on one of the largest marketplaces in the world.

Who is Pomanda for?

Pomanda is for anybody with an interest in the UK market. Whether they are looking to check out their customers or suppliers, discover new customers, or just being plain nosey, the list goes on as to why people might want to find company information. We look to provide as much transparency as possible in an otherwise opaque marketplace.

Your information is incorrect?

Here at Pomanda, we aren't a fan of getting things wrong, but it does happen. What Pomanda looks to do is take information from public sources such as Companies House and display it in an easy-to-digest format. The problem however is that 95% of companies in the UK file only limited information with the company register. In this scenario we estimate the missing information to give our users a rough idea of how the business is performing, we make no promises as to the accuracy of the information as it is intended to give a rough idea of size/performance. In the rare scenario that the information you can see on the public registry doesn't match our platform, let us know and this will be remedied as soon as possible!

Our Company web addresses and phone numbers are taken from a third party, if these are incorrect get in touch and we will get them updated.

How do you arrive at your estimates?

We use established financial methodologies, Companies House data, and industry key performance indicators to generate estimates for all UK companies, these are only estimates and shouldn't be relied upon, seriously. For a more in-depth overview, click here. We typically find that if there are no unusual balance sheet movements and the company is accurately classified as the correct industry, we can provide our users with a good indication of how that business is performing. We make no promises on accuracy and warn all our users not to rely on this information. Don't like it, file more information.

Your information is out of date!

Pomanda's source material is Companies House, our information is therefore as up to date as the filings of a business at Companies House, we don't claim to have inside information. When new information is filed at Companies House it will be updated on Pomanda. We are working on a way to input your figures (that nobody else can see) to help model and forecast performance. Keep an eye out for updates to Business Valuations, Company Health Checks and Financial Modelling.

What gives you the right to use my private data?

The information on Pomanda is derived from publicly available open data which is made available under the terms of Crown Copyright from the Companies House registry. It appears on Pomanda as we reflect this data. To be an accurate reflection of this data we must include all the data that appears on the registry. Whilst we understand that it can be frustrating for your information to be displayed in a public manner it is nothing that isn't already out there. To maintain our integrity we, therefore, do not remove information from our site unless it is removed from the public registry.

If you are interested in discussing this further, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our team at theteam@pomanda.com and we can discuss your options.

What about GDPR? I haven't permitted you to use my data

Pomanda is a Company Information platform that facilitates businesses to make risk-based financial decisions to enable our users to make better business and economic decisions. As such we process the publicly available data under Article 6 of the GDPR act- Legitimate Interest. This article permits the processing for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the controller or by a third party. It further states that you can process personal data without given consent if you have a genuine and legitimate reason (including commercial benefit), except where such interests are overridden by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject which require protection of personal data.

The legitimate interest that Pomanda operates under is that we are facilitating businesses to make risk-based financial decisions to enable our clients to make better business and economic decisions. As such we also maintain the legitimate interest to make businesses aware of this capability. We will also conduct business under the basis of Recitals 47-50 of the GDPR which will be supported by the conduct of legitimate interests assessments. 'The legitimate interests of a controller, including those of a controller to which the Personal Data may be disclosed, or of a third party, may provide a legal basis for processing, provided that the interests or the fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject are not overriding, taking into consideration the reasonable expectations of data subjects based on their relationship with the controller…… The processing of personal data for direct marketing purposes may be regarded as carried out for a legitimate interest. We also protect the subject's rights by, as previously stated, allowing them the right to be forgotten (no-index for search engines) and by correcting any erroneous data that is presented as factual. Pomanda has also implemented appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect data against unauthorized or unlawful processing of personal data and accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, personal data. Pomanda has conducted its due diligence into our data sources and implemented appropriate controls as to who may access the data and included in our Terms of Use who may access this data and its use.

What is the best way to get the most out of Pomanda?

Our users use Pomanda for any number of reasons, from checking out their competition, conducting due diligence on suppliers, deciding whether to offer a customer credit or looking for new leads; we don't like to dictate how our users should use our information. We have, however, had several suggestions as to how our features can be utilised.

• Company Profile Pages: Dig a little deeper into businesses you are thinking of doing business with. If the pandemic has taught us anything it's the importance of knowing who you are doing business with. Check out the shareholders, directors, and the financial stability of that business before getting into bed with them. A number of our users also use the company profile pages to monitor the performance of their own business. How are they performing compared to their peers? How can they improve the value of the business? Even as trivial as digging out their company number.
• Director Pages: Interested in learning more about a person's company history? You can find all historic and current UK directorships as well as links to other people who have companies in common or who they share a board with. This can be used for both lead generation and an improved level of KYC/risk management.
• Power Search : The Power Search is Pomanda's powerful lead generation tool, unlike when you know the name of the Company or the person you are looking for you can now filter the entire UK market by a set of defined criteria. Our users use this to identify companies similar to their existing customers. Identify fast-growing companies in their area or people who may be able to help them with their own business. You can filter from everything from financials, growth rate, industry, location and much more, the possibilities are endless. If you're interested in an example check out this link to Brewers in the North East of England generating sales of over £100k here and start Power Searching.
• Industry Pages: Pomanda aggregates all our company and industry data to provide weekly insights into the largest industries in the UK. From the fastest growing companies in that sector to the oldest and largest. Pomanda gives insight into the state of that industry, is it growing or declining, the value of that industry, the breakdown of the industry constituents around the UK and much more. This is primarily a research tool and is useful for assessing industries you are thinking of dealing with.
• Shareholder Search: Interested in finding out which UK companies a person has invested in or who the shareholders for a specific company are? Try Pomanda's shareholder search. For example, click here to see Adele's UK shareholdings. This function is used to conduct due diligence on the people who you're dealing with and the companies that they are involved with.
• Charges Search : Use Pomanda's Power Search to identify companies that have debt with specific lenders or dive down into a company's specific charges and see who they have debt with.
• Location Pages : Interested in conducting research into specific regions? Check out Pomanda's Location Pages. Get a detailed breakdown of the most popular industries in that sector, the number of people employed and the fastest, largest and oldest businesses. Here is an example for Yorkshire.

What on earth is a Company Health Check?

We have created a benchmarking tool that allows users to compare their business to industry averages. Pomanda looks to highlight areas where UK companies are outperforming their industry peers or where there might be room for improvement. You can check the performance of a business going back up to 10 years against their industry. This is still in beta mode, and you can find more information on the Company Health Check here.

What are company valuations and why do I need them?

Pomanda uses its UK industry data and our team's background in finance to use standard valuation methodologies to assign a value to every company in the UK. We provide multiple valuations as different industries use different valuation methodologies and we wanted to provide as much information as possible. Learn more about company valuations here. Our new Company Valuation Reports are coming soon and provide a lot more information on how we value a business, how you can improve the value of a business and how others compare.

Business valuations can be used for many reasons, whether you're looking for validation of your hard work within a business, looking to sell your business, estate planning or even during a breakup. Understanding the value of your assets can be a great benefit.

What are Company Credit Checks and will checking them count as a mark against my credit rating?

Pomanda offers its users the ability to run a credit check on companies, unlike Personal Credit Checks, which will have no impact on the credit score of that business. They are an attempt to indicate the likelihood of that business failing in the short term. The number is not a percentage, merely a scale. Get a free monthly company credit check with your Pomanda Plus subscription or buy a one-off report from the Company Profile pages.

Why are Industry Mixes so important?

A lot of Pomanda's proprietary information is based on the industry classification of a company at Companies House, these are known as SIC codes (Standard Industrial Classification of economic activities). We use these classifications to identify the industry within which these companies trade and identify their peers. Unfortunately, SIC codes are from 2007 and the world has moved on. Therefore we give our users the ability to blend industries, assign new industries and model industry changes for any company. These changes are only visible on a user's instance (nobody else can see the changes you have made) and will, when changed, rerun our algorithms and calculations allowing you to improve the accuracy of our data, model changes or just mess around.

Talk like a normal person, I don't understand your jargon

As we mentioned a lot of our team are from the finance industry, we're sorry, we use jargon without realising how pretentious we sound. We've created this glossary which we hope will help shed some light on some of the terms that might not be commonplace in the real world.

Why are you so cheap, what's the catch?

Pomanda created its data platform with the goal that the information within it should be available to anybody that wishes to access it. This is why our basic information is free to access and our unlimited access is only £24.99 per month or as little as £4.99 for one day access. We like to think we provide extreme value for money, which within the finance/data industry is often hard to come by.

If you have any other questions or have feedback of any kind please don't hesitate to get in touch with us at theteam@pomanda.com, it may be that your question is a common one and we will add it to this list.