Hi Does anyone know the uk national average rate per hour for self employed joiners, for fixing not joiners shop work.
If not any other help would be great ie examples of prices per hour for the North, South of England etc
Hi Does anyone know the uk national average rate per hour for self employed joiners, for fixing not joiners shop work.
If not any other help would be great ie examples of prices per hour for the North, South of England etc
Why?
A good source of hourly rates for all trades can be seen by looking on the goverments job center web,just search for carpenters
Because im starting up and want help with my prices
You really starting from the wrong end here.
First you want to establish what you want to earn per week. Then add on overheads, phones, electric, motor vehicle costs, tool purchase and maintainence , bookies, publican, bit on the side etc.
Tot all this up and frighten yourself.
Establish a weekly sum and divide it by the number of days you want to work.
This will give you a daily rate. If doing jobs for individuals you are probably best estimating how many days, or 1/2 days they will take as its all very well doing a few hours on a job in a morning if the rest of the day is going to be un-productive.
If doing it on time and materials, lucky you.
Best advice is bet a good accoutant. you are going to need one in the end anyway. ;-( ;-(
What you really don't want to do is establish what the opposition is charging and then under cutting it. That way you all go down the pan together
Paul Mc Cann
That is actually very good advice and it is the way that I set my fees. So let me do some simple arithmetic to expand on this idea. For the following assume that all significant materials are paid for by the customer (you might pay for incidentals like wood screws, glue and so on our of your own pocket - these things aren't that costly and are shared amongst multiple jobs as a flat expense).
Let's start by saying you set a target to turnover 20K per year (chosen as it is a round figure and makes the maths easier - you might want higher or lower). Out of that figure must come your personal reward (salary) and business costs (tools, equipment, sundry expenses, travel costs, etc).
To some extent the gross turnover figure will depend upon which area of the country you work in, what your personal commitments are (mortgage etc), and other incidentals - for example do you have to run a vehicle in order to operate the business, or is this all done on home turf?
Take into account personal and bank holidays, sickness, training, unexpected absence - let's be generous in the holiday/sickness allocation and suggest you work 40 weeks a year (12 weeks holiday and other unproductive time where you aren't contributing money to the business). So that's 500 quid per working week - or 100 pounds per day
- or 12.5 pounds per hour.
You have to build into this a margin because it's probably not likely you'll be working your full 40 hours per week, every week, because the customers just aren't there queued up at the door. Here it gets a bit trickier because you are plucking numbers out of the air. If you can only find work for 30 hours per week then you'd have to charge 16.66 pounds per hour. If 20 hours then 25 pounds per hour.
During the early days of the new business it is quite likely that most of your time will be spent marketing and drumming up business, so you have to be prepared to bung in a float to get the business off the ground - this is a loan that the company can pay back as the income comes in. That isn't likely to be an insignificant amount of money either, because during those first few months you've still got to eat and the mortgage company will expect their usual fees. When I started up I stuck a wet finger in the air and did a business plan (you usually have to do that when opening a business bank account anyway). As it happens my bung to the company was very inaccurate and I needed to supply quite a bit more - but the income to the company over the period is not very far off my original prediction - I'm happy with that situation because at the outset I did not have a concrete idea of what the necessary expenses would be, and as the business started to take off I bought tools and equipment I hadn't planned for originally.
As a general handyman I didn't start out with all the tools I needed, they've been purchased as and when needed for a particular job, and looking back there have been several jobs where I'm well out of pocket. But next time I undertake a similar job I won't have to buy that tool again, so over time it will have been a worthwhile investment.
Please apply a generous amount of "ish" to the above figures. It's all guestimates and approximations. The idea is to figure out what level of income is absolutely necessary before it must be considered a complete waste of your time.
I recommend drawing a simple graph month on month, showing income and expenditure. In the initial few months it will go pretty negative, thereafter it had better start climbing up and to the right. At some point in the future of the business (maybe 6 to 12 months from startup) you need to cross the threshold of the company trading profitably. I really wouldn't expect that to happen in the first 6 months - but it really does depend on the industry and whether you've got customers waiting to pay you.
PoP
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150 a day.
"PoP" wrote | Paul Mc Cann wrote: | >First you want to establish what you want to earn per week. Then add | >on overheads, phones, electric, motor vehicle costs, tool purchase and | >maintainence , bookies, publican, bit on the side etc. | That is actually very good advice and it is the way that I set my | fees. ....When I started | up I stuck a wet finger in the air and did a business plan (you | usually have to do that when opening a business bank account anyway). | I recommend drawing a simple graph month on month, showing income and | expenditure. In the initial few months it will go pretty negative, | thereafter it had better start climbing up and to the right. At some | point in the future of the business (maybe 6 to 12 months from | startup) you need to cross the threshold of the company trading | profitably. I really wouldn't expect that to happen in the first 6 | months - but it really does depend on the industry and whether you've | got customers waiting to pay you.
All very good advice. One major thing which has to be factored in is cash flow, payment schedule and debt recovery.
If doing jobs for householders then payment is likely to be fairly prompt as you can demand it at the time, although you have to take a risk on bounced cheques and/or credit card disputes. If you can get your materials on 28-day trade account, then you have a positive cash flow.
If however the jobs are for businesses then invoicing is required (this will take up clerical time which is time spent not earning) and it's quite common for many businesses to pay invoices at the end of the month after the month in which the invoice is received, you have a 6-8 week delay or more. And some will never pay; Bad Debts Ritten Off (BDRO) goes under expenses in the accounts. Meanwhile you have to pay bills to suppliers or you can't get materials and the phone gets cut off.
More businesses fail because of cash flow than because of unprofitability or lack of work. And if you are reliant on one or two major clients, the collapse of one can bring you down.
Owain
?????? It is rare that I can engage a small trader who will accept a cheque. The possibility that one of them will have Credit card facilities is most unlikely.
tim
It sounds like he wants to get some site work in before he goes on his own.
The major difference with doing work on finished property is that everything gets in the way, there is always a seconday problem like poor lighting and botched jobs from the previous incumbents that cause problems.
The quality of the stuff they want fitted and the temperatures you have to work in all cause difficulties. Then there are the endless cups of teas and (in my case especially) beautiful but overdemanding lonely young women.
I think he'll be giving the site work a miss then
tim
I take cheques (preferred as then there's no issue with the Inland Revenue who can trace the transaction if they really want to waste their time on a wild goose chase) or cash (which gets banked into the company bank account 100% of the time). But not credit cards.
PoP
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Fortunately that's not a problem I've had to deal with, though I did have one lady (single) say "it's just like rent-a-hubby". To which my instant response was "I don't offer all services".
If I got the come-on from a customer I'd pack up and leave regardless of where I was with the job. Not worth the trouble.
PoP
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"tim" wrote | > If doing jobs for householders then payment is likely to be fairly | > prompt as you can demand it at the time, although you have to take | > a risk on bounced cheques and/or credit card disputes. | ?????? | It is rare that I can engage a small trader who will accept a cheque. | The possibility that one of them will have Credit card facilities | is most unlikely.
Presumably because they are not willing to take that risk. However 'cash only' always seems synonymous to 'fly-by-night' and 'tax fraud' to me. Also I find the practice of frog-marching Grandma to the cashpoint too redolent of double-glazing salesmen desperate to get a signature and deposit off a punter.
Getting a mobile credit card terminal might be worthwhile if one is aiming at a rather more 'upmarket' clientele who put everything on plastic.
Owain
In message , Owain writes
I think I get charged 1.7% for a visa transaction and £20 / month for the terminal. What it would cost just for a mechanical swipe machine I don't know, but it's such a convenient way of getting paid, and people tend to have cards to hand as opposed to cash and they don't even remember where their cheque book is.
Now that I'm converted, I think it's more a mental barrier than anything else
Doesn't the quality & standard of workmanship come into fruition when assessing what to charge customers, I personally wouldn't do anything unless it was on a price, exception maybe external work in winter. Very interesting comment about the credit card, how do you look into such a thing? Incidently which area are you in??
Re external work. I just bought myself a quilted set of overalls from an army & navy surplus store, and they make working outside much less of a challenge. I'd recommend them to anyone who might be confronted by working in low temperatures.
PoP
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In message , take away nojunk writes
Who are you talking to ?
While snipping is to be commended, removing all references to what you're talking about makes it a bit difficult to fathom
In message , PoP writes
I actually found my wife like this over a decade ago....... Of course it's all different now.
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