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Anyone’s round effected by VAT to your domestic round ?

Chrisshep76

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Been fortunate to work hard and get a very successful round, I have exceeded the VAT limit and had to go VAT registered, I been told to add VAT to my customers (which will lose me many customers)or off set 20% as VAT has anyone else been effected by this and how did you get around it ?

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You could compromise and go halves. Put customers prices up by 10% and take a 10% hit. They might not begrudge 10% if they know you are getting 10% less too.

Not speaking from experience btw, I'm nowhere near the VAT threshold!  :1f609:

 
You could compromise and go halves. Put customers prices up by 10% and take a 10% hit. They might not begrudge 10% if they know you are getting 10% less too.

Not speaking from experience btw, I'm nowhere near the VAT threshold!  :1f609:
If you are vat registered you have to charge the vat, Their is no taking the hit 

 
I employ buddy I build it up to having 2 teams of 2 guys out cleaning permanently
Then I spend my days out canvassing, continuously building the round


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That really is impressive mate. IV been thinking down these lines. Iv gone as far as I can without bringing in more people.
I Have my partner out a couple of days a week and my brother comes out when he can be bothered. Which is a shame cus his rely good at the job.
I need to be able to find people I can trust to do a good job.
Did you know the 4 guys or find them another way? Also do you mind me asking how long you've been doing the windows?

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That really is impressive mate. IV been thinking down these lines. Iv gone as far as I can without bringing in more people.
I Have my partner out a couple of days a week and my brother comes out when he can be bothered. Which is a shame cus his rely good at the job.
I need to be able to find people I can trust to do a good job.
Did you know the 4 guys or find them another way? Also do you mind me asking how long you've been doing the windows?

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Unfortunately pal that’s the difficulty!!
Finding good staff is a nightmare, if you want good staff you got to dip your hand in your pocket and pay well otherwise you will lose the good ones, as the saying goes “ you pay peanuts you get monkeys “
I use insensitive


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Unfortunately pal that’s the difficulty!!
Finding good staff is a nightmare, if you want good staff you got to dip your hand in your pocket and pay well otherwise you will lose the good ones, as the saying goes “ you pay peanuts you get monkeys
I use insensitive


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Best thing i have read for ages. So true. 

 
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Unfortunately pal that’s the difficulty!!
Finding good staff is a nightmare, if you want good staff you got to dip your hand in your pocket and pay well otherwise you will lose the good ones, as the saying goes “ you pay peanuts you get monkeys “
I use insensitive


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The problem is I don't pay peanuts. My brother has a very small round of his own. Maybe £600 a month of work. I guess he makes around £30+ an hour of it. So suddenly his worth £30 an hour and talks about £15 an hour to work for someone else like it's pittance. The kids got an over inflated opinion of himself. Fortunately iv just taken a new lad in this week so hopefully that pans out.

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What have you had to do in the end? IV been building hard since april since taking on another lad full time.
The cleaner planner in march told me my income was would be around 30k for the year. It's now saying 54k.
That's got me thinking I'm going to be in same boat unless I stopped building around the 80 mark, Which doesn't sit good as I want to build as big as I can

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Don't forget the one benefit of going VAT registered, you get to claim the vat back on any business expense. I'm not 100% sure how this works but a friend of mine runs a design company and reckons once he takes out the vat for his cars and vans, supplies etc the hit isn't nearly as bad as he expected it to be.

 
Don't forget the one benefit of going VAT registered, you get to claim the vat back on any business expense. I'm not 100% sure how this works but a friend of mine runs a design company and reckons once he takes out the vat for his cars and vans, supplies etc the hit isn't nearly as bad as he expected it to be.
That’s all well and good if you have loads of expenses going out that include vat but most window cleaners after their initial outlay have vey little.


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That’s all well and good if you have loads of expenses going out that include vat but most window cleaners after their initial outlay have vey little.
If someone has allowed their round to exceed the VAT threshold they would have considerably more expenses that me and you Dave. Appreciating that we don't have the same level of expenses that builders do for example but it certainly is something not to be forgotten.

 
My mate is a London Plumber, because VAT is charged on turnover not profit this is hard as anything he buys is considered towards turnover.  

He gets around it by having the customer buy the parts and then he just charges labor so his turnover for VAT is just his labor expenses.  

Now, moving on to VAT on residential window cleaning.

When you have built a large round of £7 - £8 - £9 jobs and you get to the VAT threshold you only have 2 choices - Swallow it or add it on.  

No the cries of 'they wont take that around here'  well, actually most will as they simply can't be bothered to change and will opt for the easy option, either that or they will just cancel.  

If you are close to VAT threshold you can test the waters by having a 20% price rise with a letter explaining you are getting ready for VAT, see what happens.  Most likely outcome is that they will all just pay the bill with perhaps 2-5% drop off. 

Another alternative is that you start charging accordingly for your time ---  Yeah yeah 'I cant get those prices round here'  well that is BS in your own head, you can and I have.  Having canvassed all over the country for other window cleaners I know what can be gotten.  There are lads in NE postcodes getting £15 terraces, lads to the North of Manchester getting £18 3 bed semi council houses and so on.   So the only reason you don't get those prices is that you don't ask for it.    You're stuck in that area of being afraid to ask for quality prices cause you think they'll say no.   

I'll let you in on a little secret, I only close about 50% of my quotes these days.... why?  Cause I am probably the highest priced window cleaner on 'my patch'. What this means is whilst most window cleaners around here are charging £8 for a 3 bed semi I get £16.... more if it has a conservatory.   More importantly what this proves is people will happily pay for quality.   The biggest gripe I hear from potential clients is 'reliability' they will happily pay more for someone reliable.  

My round is growing day by day and will continue to do so and currently has a ever increasing average price now of £13 per job across the board.  

£85'000 / 52 Weeks = £1634 per week turnover

£1634 / 5 Days = £326.92 per day

£326.92 / £13 (average client price) = 25.14 jobs per day

25.14 jobs per day / 2 Vans = 12.57 jobs per van per day @ £13 per job.  

Average 3 x £13 Jobs per van per hour and that's 4 hours per day per van - 5 days per week and you're already at VAT threshold. 

Does not take much to get there.  

I am positioned so when it does happen, in the not so distant future, we will take the hit and still be taking a higher slice of the pie than other cleaners around here doing £8 & £9 cleans.  

I guess to summarise, what I a getting at is stop looking at the work you have at it's current value and figure how to increase that value whilst lowering the work load to increase profits so that a VAT transition will be a painless affair. 

 
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My mate is a London Plumber, because VAT is charged on turnover not profit this is hard as anything he buys is considered towards turnover.  
 
He gets around it by having the customer buy the parts and then he just charges labor so his turnover for VAT is just his labor expenses.  
 
Now, moving on to VAT on residential window cleaning.
 
When you have built a large round of £7 - £8 - £9 jobs and you get to the VAT threshold you only have 2 choices - Swallow it or add it on.  
 
No the cries of 'they wont take that around here'  well, actually most will as they simply can't be bothered to change and will opt for the easy option, either that or they will just cancel.  
 
If you are close to VAT threshold you can test the waters by having a 20% price rise with a letter explaining you are getting ready for VAT, see what happens.  Most likely outcome is that they will all just pay the bill with perhaps 2-5% drop off. 
 
Another alternative is that you start charging accordingly for your time ---  Yeah yeah 'I cant get those prices round here'  well that is BS in your own head, you can and I have.  Having canvassed all over the country for other window cleaners I know what can be gotten.  There are lads in NE postcodes getting £15 terraces, lads to the North of Manchester getting £18 3 bed semi council houses and so on.   So the only reason you don't get those prices is that you don't ask for it.    You're stuck in that area of being afraid to ask for quality prices cause you think they'll say no.   
 
I'll let you in on a little secret, I only close about 50% of my quotes these days.... why?  Cause I am probably the highest priced window cleaner on 'my patch'. What this means is whilst most window cleaners around here are charging £8 for a 3 bed semi I get £16.... more if it has a conservatory.   More importantly what this proves is people will happily pay for quality.   The biggest gripe I hear from potential clients is 'reliability' they will happily pay more for someone reliable.  
 
My round is growing day by day and will continue to do so and currently has a ever increasing average price now of £13 per job across the board.  
 
£85'000 / 52 Weeks = £1634 per week turnover
£1634 / 5 Days = £326.92 per day
£326.92 / £13 (average client price) = 25.14 jobs per day
25.14 jobs per day / 2 Vans = 12.57 jobs per van per day @ £13 per job.  
 
Average 3 x £13 Jobs per van per hour and that's 4 hours per day per van - 5 days per week and you're already at VAT threshold. 
 
Does not take much to get there.  
 
I am positioned so when it does happen, in the not so distant future, we will take the hit and still be taking a higher slice of the pie than other cleaners around here doing £8 & £9 cleans.  
 
I guess to summarise, what I a getting at is stop looking at the work you have at it's current value and figure how to increase that value whilst lowering the work load to increase profits so that a VAT transition will be a painless affair. 
Great advise for someone wanting to build a business and not a round. I myself have not got no were near enough time to invest in such a project and I suppose once you have a few hundred employees it will all be worth it. You will always have that point in the middle though we’re your profits are not gonna be that much different to a sole trader turning over 80,000 a year apart from having a business that runs itself and it’s that bit that puts me off because if you go into it half ar5ed then you could end up with say 10 lads earning you £200 a week each and covering all the business expenses but by the time you’ve paid your tax and your own expenses you’ll only end up with the same wage as a sole trader operating under the vat reg and with a lot more stress.


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