Frequently asked questions

Where is Bray Business Centre?

We are located on the edge of the village of Bray-on-Thames, in Berkshire. Our Business Centre sits within the Weir Bank Estate, an idyllic 16 acre private estate situated right on the River Thames. 

The village of Bray is renowned for its Michelin starred restaurants and celebrity chefs.  The closest towns with transport and major shopping provisions are Maidenhead (8 mins) and Windsor (12 mins).

Excellent transport links help make Bray Business Centre an ideal place to do business.  The M4 is minutes away at junction 8/9, providing convenient access to the major commercial centres of the Thames Valley and beyond.  Heathrow airport is less than 15 miles (approx. 23 mins) and London is less than an hour by train.

Cross Rail, due in 2021-22, is expected to drastically improve journey times between Reading – Maidenhead – London.

What is a Virtual Office?

A Virtual Office suits the business owner who wants complete flexibility with where they work from and when, whilst also keeping associated overheads low. 

The many benefits include;

  • Legitimacy – having a business address ensures a professional image and provides a physical location to meet your clients.
  • Affordability and flexibility – removing unnecessary costs and commitments, allowing you ultimate flexibility to suit changing business needs.
  • Reduce your carbon footprint by shortening your commute and increase your productivity from more time in your office.

At Bray Business Centre, our All-Inclusive Virtual Office package provides a full range of services to meet your business needs, including:

  • Business Address – a local professional address for use in advertising and marketing.
  • Registered Address – use of our address as your Registered Address with Companies House, avoiding the need to provide your home address.
  • Mail Sorting – receipt and sorting of your post and packages for your collection.  We can also support re-directing or forwarding as required.
  • Dedicated local telephone number with a human answering service.  Our business grade telecommunications enable us to manage your calls on your behalf, during office hours.  
  • Use of meeting rooms – we have Chat rooms (traditionally seating 2-4 people), Meeting Rooms (traditionally seating 5-8 people) and Boardrooms (traditionally seating up to 12).  Our meeting rooms are Wi-Fi enabled with high speed internet connections and the larger rooms come with video conferencing and presentation facilities.  We also offer light refreshments for your meetings (teas/coffees/water) where required.  PLEASE NOTE DUE TO COVID GUIDELINES FOR SAFE WORKING, OUR MEETING ROOMS HAVE BEEN RECONFIGURED AND REDUCED IN CAPACITY FOR OUR CLIENTS SAFETY.
  • Ample, free onsite parking

What is a Flexi Office?

Our Flexi Office packages include all the above but with the added benefit of renting a dedicated office, on a part-weekly basis.

  • 1-2 Person Offices – a fully self-contained private office with a door to close behind you for ultimate privacy.  These offices are best for professionals needing a base for one, two or three days per week, where privacy is necessary and quiet is needed for productivity. 
  • 2+ Offices – We have a number of larger offices to accommodate 2 people + in our Business Centre in Bray and also our sister properties in Maidenhead.  All options are available on short and long term leases, and provisions can be determined depending on your need.

What is a Serviced Office?

Our Serviced Offices provide all the above benefits on a ‘full time’ basis.  You get the key to your own office, customise your own workspace, come and go whenever you please (24/7) whilst still using all the facilities and amenities at the Business Centre.  

Our Serviced Offices suit professionals needing a dedicated permanent space.  Available on a minimum 12month term only.

What are the terms available?

Once you have selected your services, we offer a ‘one bill’ monthly service, ensuring administration is as simple and transparent as possible.  Our minimum offering is the Virtual Office service (included within all Serviced Office packages).  Flexi Office packages also come with the Virtual Office package plus the added benefit of adding a private office for part of the week, as needed. 

We fully understand changing landscapes for small to medium businesses and will work with you to agree the most appropriate terms to suit.  These include short-term commitments for Flexi packages and discount for longer-term commitments.

Can I hire a meeting room?

To ensure we can provide a safe working environment, our meeting rooms are dedicated for use by our tenants and clients only at this time.  

However, we will be able to cater for conferences and events at our on-site event venue (Riverside Marquee), once Social Distancing restrictions allow.

What ID will I need to provide when signing up to a Virtual Office, Flexi Office service, or Serviced Office?

The office industry is governed by the UK government’s Anti-Money Laundering Regulations 2017.  This means that by law we are required to undertake a verification process of you and your business before we can provide you with our services. You will be required to provide us with your contact details as well as a number of different documents for us to undertake the verification.  As a minimum, these documents include Photo ID, Proof of Residency, Proof of Trading Address, Proof of forwarding address and Certificate of Incorporation.  The individuals who will need to provide this information to us would be the Directors of the business procuring the services as well as any individual of that business who holds significant control in the business.  If the person paying for the services is not one of the above, then we will also need their respective documents.  The same rules apply for those who are not businesses and require the service for personal (non-corporate) use.

Can I use Bray Business Centre address as my Registered Address with Companies House?

Yes.  Using our address as your Registered Address with Companies House is included within our Virtual Office package.

I am a new start-up.  Should I register my business before or after signing up to a Virtual, Flexi or Serviced Office at Bray Business Centre?

Depending on how you plan on using our services, it is generally recommended to sign up to our services prior to registering your business.  The benefit being that you will be able to register your company with our address and avoid having to go back to Companies House to change the address.  Furthermore, you will be able to keep your home information private and away from the public domain, by not registering your home address first.

How do I collect my mail?

We endeavour to have all mail ready for collection by 9am daily during the working week.  However, the Royal Mail continues to evolve their delivery and collection services and we remain dependent upon those changes.

All mail is sorted and inserted into your dedicated locked mailbox in our Reception area.  Mail requiring a signature upon receipt will be held at Reception and you will be contacted to arrange collection.

Can I have parcels delivered?

Yes, however we ask for adherence to the following measures to ensure the health and wellbeing of our employees, clients and visitors;

  • Parcel delivery is restricted to business critical items, until such times as safety concerns relating to transmission of CovID ease.
  • Your delivery courier is compliant with all CovID precautionary measures. 
  • Parcels will be delivered to Reception, whereupon you will be contacted immediately to collect your item as soon as possible. 
  • Whilst every care will be taken to ensure the security of your parcels once received at Reception, we cannot take responsibility for accuracy of parcel delivery, the condition of your parcel upon arrival, or the security of your parcel awaiting your collection.

Can I choose my telephone number?

We have a range of dedicated phone numbers that are allocated on a first come first served basis.  Each line is assigned to the business owner and configured to individual requirements.

Our telephone system is state-of-the-art VOIP and has a number of useful functions including;

  • Hunt Groups i.e. where one person is unavailable, the system can be set to automatically forward to another colleague
  • Voicemail
  • Conference calls
  • Calls outside office hours
  • Do Not Disturb
  • Directory
  • CRM integration
  • Mobile calls 

Calls will be answered by our Receptionist during working hours (9am-5pm weekdays, excluding Public Holidays) and will be passed through to you should you be available to receive the call.  If not, a message will be taken and emailed to you for your attention. Outside of these hours, your calls will automatically divert to an alternative number of your choice or your personalised answerphone.

You may also divert your calls to another designated line of your choice and/or you may setup your own personalised answerphone service for use at anytime.

Does my office come with furniture?

Our Flexi offices are fitted with desks and chairs.  You will need to bring your own laptop and relevant cables.

Our Serviced Offices generally come without furniture, as a blank canvas.  However, we do have a small number of desks, chairs and cabinets which can be used for those wanting a ready-made solution.

Can I use your Wi-fi?

Yes.  All our offices and meeting rooms have public WiFi available.  We recommend you set your own controls to ensure privacy of your data when using our public WiFi.

We work with our permanent tenants in our Serviced Offices to support your IT setup, as needed.

Do you have broadband?

Our hi-speed broadband provision averages 90mb download speed.  In addition, all of our offices benefit from Cat5 cabling and we have future proof and fallback provisions in place, should our main line go down.

How is Social Distancing managed and what provisions are in place to mitigate COVID?

We offer a very different environment to the common co-working and hot-desking service providers.  Our Business Centre comprises mostly 1-2 man private offices and thus we are able to offer individual, safe, working office spaces immediately.                      

We also have a small number of larger offices suitable for 3+ people – these offices are all available to be configured according to each client’s needs.

Our meeting rooms have been reconfigured to ensure safe working within relevant guidelines.  Whilst this does reduce the number of people we would traditionally see in our meeting rooms, we do believe they are still a valuable offering to support physical and virtual meetings.

We continue to monitor safe working guidelines and conduct regular assessments to ensure we are keeping our offices and facilities safe for our employees, tenants, clients and visitors.  Please see our CovID Fact Sheet for more specific details.

Need to know more?

Enquire now to see how Bray Business Centre can help your business.

Call us on 01628 762600, or complete the form below.

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