Expanding

[Shaun1977]

I'm playing about with thought of setting another van away and expand round with extra person work for me. Just wondering ways to go about it so it's most profitable for me with least hassle

 

[laddergarder]

If your going to take someone new on, its really better to have them work with you, that way your know they are working the way you want them to. Also two people spending 2 weeks in one area, then 2 weeks in another is the same as 1 guy in a van working in one for four weeks, and another guy in another van working in the second area for four weeks. When it comes to work load.

But working together out of the one van will be cheaper for you. You will have the piece of mind that they are not making a mess of things because you will be there to watch them.

I would take someone on part time, just working with you. and as it starts to take longer and longer to get through the work as you build things up in the other area, then you can get them out an extra day.

 

[Belfastcleaning]

Are you alone at the mo Shaun? If so there is no need for 2 vans. Think I remember your 100% wfp? Just setup for 2 man. Really if there is 2 of you, it should now take you half the time, giving you the extra half of the week to go looking for more work. When you fill up the time get another person.

 

[Shaun1977]

Na mate my rounds 2 man 3 day a week now mate so just playing with idea of expanding the wife thinks I'm just been greedy but it would be cany nest egg if I was makin a wage a month for doing next to nothing

 

[Shaun1977]

Na Belfast I'm 2 man set up now I have enough work for 3 days every week so playing with the idea of expanding the other half thinks I'm being greedy but IMO opinion it would make a very nice best egg every month if I got wage for doing next to nothing and the round will always keep its value

 

[Shaun1977]

Ha said first comment I tried to post was error obviously nt

 

[laddergarder]

I would say just get the two of you up to 5 days a week, never mind the other van. Problem is... and I don't have clue what you make... but if your over half way to the vat threshold, then you may not be able to have another 2 man van up and going in another area without going over the threshold. So for the extra hassle, when you can only keep maybe one guy on the second van to keep you under it, is it going to make you that much more, considering the cost of the other van.

 

[Shaun1977]

I struggle fitting 3 days a week in with the good ol British weather 5 would be impossible. You do have excellent point about VAT though

 

[laddergarder]

yeah but if you get 4 bad days one month and you are running 4 days late, then your late, but you still want to have enough work to keep you going if the weather is good for a good couple of weeks. You don't want to be only out three days a week when the weather is fine, with five days you can still work saturday/sunday if you are really struggling.

I have two lads working with me, at the moment, and we work five days, which I manage fine. In fact I think it took us about 4 weeks and 4 days last month to Finnish everything. The previous month we finished on the button 4 weeks.

 

[harunh]

laddergadder knows his stuff. 5 days a week is good with 2 days spare, but im not going to do 5, i want 4 days fully booked. 3 days spare to catch up is good. I wouldnt buy a van UNLESS i had a family member working for me , cant trust any 1 these days, this man down my end has got 7 vans on the road and hes losing a lot of customers because his workers dont do the job properly, ive gained 1 this week of them due to their poor service

 

[Belfastcleaning]

Ladder, would that mean you had to pay them another 4 days wages? Or how do you work round paying the lads if the rain messes about?

I want to get my work into 3 full days for 4 of us.. Then I have 2 days to do other wee jobs, or canvass, or try for some Commercial. And I don't want to be working weekends as its only time I get with the kids

 

[laddergarder]

The main reason I would say dont do that, is because there is a set cost of an employee. Holidays, uniforms, sick pay, employers NI, the employers liability insurance for 4 employees will be allot more than 2 employees. So it is allot cheaper to have 2 guys working 6 days than it is to have 4 guys working 3 days. At the end of the day we are all in it for the money, and you want to make sure your left with a decent wage for yourself at the end of it all, so keeping expenses down should be just as a big a deal as getting the sales up.

As for managing pay etc. sales go up and down depending on the weather through the month, there really isn't anything you can do about that. We always come out about the same, unless someone is away on holiday which I will have this month. But regardless of the rounds. I pay my staff every four weeks. So yeah some months I take less profit, if the weather is bad, but its my business and my risk not there's.

I have always did things properly with regard to employing and if we get rained off, I pay them regardless. It swings in round about's we get good spells and bad spells, but it always work out.

 

[Shaun1977]

Could I not work it so there way is percentage of takings

 

[laddergarder]

You can pay them a percent of takings as long as it is above minimum wage. But not paying them there contracted hours, because it was raining for three days is illegal.

Dont get me wrong allot do it, but your not supposed to. Plus if you get caught, there is consequences.

 

[Shaun1977]

Does it work tht way if you leased a round to someone or something along those lines

 

[laddergarder]

that really is just a work around to properly employing them. If they are a window cleaner who also has other work of there own, is licensed and insured, wears there own uniforms etc, then yeah that will be fine.

But if they only work for you, wear your uniform, don't have any other work of there own, and you provide things like equipment, training. Then they are employed by you.

 

[laddergarder]

here is a recent thread that covers all of this...

https://www.windowcleaningforums.co.uk/topic/2451-employing/

there links on my last post to more information on this stuff from HMRC. They make it pretty plain, that whether or not to employee someone as employed or self-employed is not a preference. There is guidelines there that tell you exactly what they consider an employee to be, and how they should be employed.

 

[M.K Cleaners.co.uk]

Ladder, would that mean you had to pay them another 4 days wages? Or how do you work round paying the lads if the rain messes about?

I want to get my work into 3 full days for 4 of us.. Then I have 2 days to do other wee jobs, or canvass, or try for some Commercial. And I don't want to be working weekends as its only time I get with the kids

Interesting question this is... The guy I use to work for paid us buy the work we done... What I mean is we had 3 / 3 and a half days work each week. we got paid for finishing the round. If it was raining Mon, Tues, Wed we would go out the rest of the week and get it finished, if we didnt get it finished by sat we would continue working on the round the folowing week. We never got paid any more / less for it raining though.

 

[laddergarder]

what if it was raining all week though, then if he does that, what is over time and what is standard time. Again I know loads of people do this, but IMO its really better to be covered and on the right side of the line.

 

[M.K Cleaners.co.uk]

what if it was raining all week though, then if he does that, what is over time and what is standard time. Again I know loads of people do this, but IMO its really better to be covered and on the right side of the line.

We would continue it the next week, but he would get 1-2 lads to help us out (on the side) It only happened a few times though. There was no over time lol. It was a set wage for the weeks work.

 

[laddergarder]

So one month if it did continue over it would be possible for you to only get paid for three weeks. If you couldn't catch up in theory?