[derek west]

cheers joe, yeah had a chat with my accountant and i'll give vat a miss till i have to, and hopefully one day i will have to, but until then i'll just let them frown. good news is i rang the deafness society near us, as i did a quote for them last week and hadn't heard anything so i thought sod it, i'll be cheeky and find out how my survey went and why i didnt get the job, turns out there finallising some building work and then i'm in to clean up, yippee, my first commercial, ish job, onwards and upwards.

[allstar homecare]

good luck 

[Mike Osbourne]

I had a similar experience except my presentation fell on deaf ears.

[Jim_77]

I've never found VAT to be a problem, been registered from day 1.  I find that if I can sell a job to a domestic customer at £100 I've got no problem selling it to them at £117.50.  We moan about customers being price-fixated but if we are too then we're the ones to blame.  The pricing almost needs to be an incidental part of the quotation process, after you've already sold the job to them on the strength of the benefits they're going to receive.

Yes, VAT does give commercial clients more of an impression that you're a "serious" business, not that I think that's fair.  But the thing is when you don't charge VAT, people may assume that you're simply charging what you would have done with VAT included and pocketing the difference.

[Joe H]

If £117.50 is ok for a customer then they might pay £135.

Some will no doubt, but there has to be a limit with everyone what personally they will pay.

The higher you go, the more people will have reached there limit and so less to say YES.

Its a fine balance I suppose.

[prodry]

You can register for a reduced small business VAT rate. I think for cleaning it is 10 or 11%.
You can not claim any VAT back on this scheme but you can charge the custy 17.5% and keep the 7.5%. or you can charge residential customers 10% and commercial custys 17.5%.

[Joe H]

Interesting!

[derek west]

think i need a new accountant, he never mentioned anything like that. all though i think i'll stay as i am for now and see how many more frowns i get.

[Joe H]

Bound to incur more paperwork and that will have to correct!

Is commercial work where you want to go Derek?

Must admit, whilst I will do it I am not too fussed because of potential delays in payment, plus the hassle in chasing late payments when they are late!

[derek west]

commercial or domestic, i'm easy joe. late payments arnt a problem as long as they eventually get paid. its none payments that i dont like, and neither will my customer if they try that on. 30 foot of waste pipe will sort that out, joke. but seriously though, 30 foot of waste pipe.

[prodry]

Just checked on HMRC website and it is 11%. Called Flat rate scheme.

[Doctor Carpet (Ret'd)]

Yep, Prodry is correct.

Compulsory VAT registration now starts at £67000 t/o. (De-registration £65000.)

Flat rate scheme is 11% for our industry but you get 1.0%  off the headline rate discount for the first 12 months. In other words a 10% discount from 11% down to 10 %.

The 2 major benefits of the scheme are firstly you only pay your VAT bill once you have been paid (ie unlike the big boys you don't have to pay VAT on debtor monies) and secondly the paperwork is ridiculously simple!

Add up all t/o generated and paid into your bank account (or at least accounted for) and pay 11% over to HMRC. You can even do it via your own computer so that you can time the payment to the last possible day before it is due.

[derek west]

got the job, cheers for all the advice guys.

[derek west]

clinton, i'll buy every one a can of asda'a finest lager on this thread who gave me some good advice, and 2 cans to steve chapman, preciate the comments steve, top notch advice.

[clinton]

  glad to hear you got the work derek its a good start for you..

[derek west]

just got to do a top notch job of there office now clinton and hopefully they'll give me a shot at some of there lettings, roll on saturday, game on.

[Steve Chapman]

Hi derek,

glad its worked for you, sounds like you did some bargaining, hope you get some good contracts from it,

i know a lot shy away from letting agencies, but if you understand they are not like domestic customers, they are running a business and like a bit of  flexiblilty aswell, then you may hold on to them for the long game

I've even had to wipe of a few debts they owed me when some jobs have gone really pear shaped for them (as they invariably do !) but i know they will look after me and i them so in the long run it works fine, its about knowing the customer and treating them accordingly, not all are the same.

30 day payment is generally rule for me and i can live with that, although if you do work for the local authorities it could be 3 months+ or whenever they feel like it  :


regards
steve

[derek west]

steve, i can live with not getting paid for a while, moneys not a problem at the mo. i offered them  £10 per job they get me off there own office and personal cleaning, not quite as generous as you but as long as i do a good job (which i will) i'm sure they'll use me, well i hope they will. what are charity's and catholic schools like at paying, ive got 1 each of them next month. better start looking for invoices to give them, not given one yet, all been domestic so far.

[Jim_77]

You need to give invoices to ALL of your customers and keep copies for yourself, it's part of the law!  If the HMRC tax inspectors ask to see your books you're screwed mate!

www.hmrc.gov.uk/sa/your-tax-return.htm

[derek west]

maybe if your vat registered you do, but not if your not, ive got records, thats all they need. and thats all there getting.