Foreign and welcome to the Pat Accounting Podcast with me, your host, Vicki Clark.

I'm going to help you get to grips with your finances, save you lots of money and take the stress out of doing your tax return.

So let's get going.

Hello, hello, hello, hello.

Welcome to this week's Live with myself, Vicki and my handsome business partner, Lee.

We are the pet accountant, we run the group and we also cover the whole of the UK for our array of accountancy services.

So this week again, we're on a roll here.

We've not missed a week yet.

So Pat and our back, we are going to chat about some of the products that we offer because again, not everyone knows who we are or what we do and the things that Lee mostly, to be fair, my idea, but Lee implements them because I can't do technology, as we all know.

But Lee is very good at the Excel and all that sort of jazz.

And we've put things together from feedback from clients and from you guys to help you out and to save you money.

These aren't random products that we've just plucked out within and decided to sell.

These are things that are going to help you guys in your business and save you money, which is the aim of the game.

So what do you want to go through first?

We go through the main one first or we just go through the little ones and then concentrate on the main one because we have got a big reveal.

It's not a gender reveal, it's a product reveal.

What do you want to do?

Leave it down to you.

This, this today is like so disorganized and I have.

Yeah, to be fair, it was a last minute decision.

We weren't that organized and rather than just not do one, we're coming on, we're just winging it.

So basically right, if you have not been on our website, which is www.pedaccountants.co.uk which my lovely assistant here will put on the screen, you will find a lot of our services that we offer like self assessments, the limited companies etc, etc.

But there's also a store on there where we sell our products.

Now, some of these products, for example, we've got the utilities calculator.

Now the utilities calculator we put together because if we had a pound for every time someone asked how do I calculate, my utilities would be very rich and we probably wouldn't be sat here.

So we decided to put this calculator together that basically takes into account things like your gas, electricity, water, council tax, broadband cleaning, your mortgage, interest or rent.

And it basically takes all of that into account.

You put in some information like how many rooms in your house and how long you use each room for, etc.

And then basically it has a big box at the bottom which will come up with a figure, let's just say 759 pounds.

And that 759 pounds is what you guys put into your tax return for your utilities.

Use of home figure.

Now, when people have done this themselves, they've put like 100 quid in, 200 quid in, 300 quid in.

We know that people have bought this calculator, they've done it properly and their figures have come out over a grand.

And that is the difference between doing it yourself and using this calculator.

And that's going to save you a hell of a lot of money in tax.

So if you don't know what to include or how much to include, please, please, please download this calculator because it will help you and you can use it again the following year.

Obviously, if there's anything changes, you would have to buy an updated version, but for now you've just, you know, you've just updated it.

Yeah, I, at the moment, unless the guidance with HMRC updates, it's pretty much a solid purchase and we've put extra.

Bits in there to make it even better for you if you're doing repairs, if you are a home groomer or a home boarder, especially those two, this will be a magic, magic tool for you guys and we'll save you a hell of a lot of money.

So please, please invest it that it's an allowable expense and that you can use it year on, year out.

And like you said, the only time you'd have to buy another one is if HMRC change anything and we would have to update it for you.

And me and Vicky is all about being transparent as well when it comes to things.

So if you're a dog walker, for instance, where the use of your home is just a little bit in the evening, where you're using, you know, like admin time, then there's no point in buying any calculators that are out there.

You're better off using the flat rate on HMRC's website to claim for your use of home site, simply because you're just not using the house for enough hours to, to make it worthwhile.

So even using our calculator it would, the, the value that you get would be a lot less.

Yeah.

So make, make life simple for yourself.

So if you're a dog walker or, or, or a photographer maybe.

Yeah.

Where, where the use of the home is minimal use the flat rate expenses, it'll save you a lot more money and it's much easier.

Whereas if you're using a specific room of the house for grooming or if you are a photographer where you've got a dedicated space, you know where, where really that you're, you're used, you are literally using the room that the house every single day for eight hours a day, then this calculator will save you money.

So just be mindful of what you do because like I said, you could waste money but ultimately if you are using the home, this will save you money.

And also if you are a client of ours, you do not need this.

It'll be a waste of money because we already use it for you.

So unless you really intrigued and want to do it yourself, by all means you can purchase it but don't feel that you need to if you're a client because we include it in your calculations anyway.

Yeah, so yes.

So if you're a home groomer, border especially those two professions.

And this will be an absolute gem of a tool.

So the next one we have is the tax and pricing calculator.

Now for me again, if we had a pound for every time someone said how much money to save for tax, this calculator will tell you how much to save it includes if you've got paye, that's hard to say PAYE income.

So if you've got another job and you're self employed, it will tell you every month how much to put away.

You've got to fill in the boxes.

Oh, I feel like there's a thing coming here listening on the podcast, please tune into the group because then you'll actually see what Lee's about to show.

But you put the figures in and it will tell you how much to save for your tax.

So there's no more guessing game.

Or maybe he's not because he's playing around with.

I'm playing because I'm trying to, I'm trying to share the screen but it's not games involved.

It will tell you how much to put away so when you come to do it or when you come to pay and you know exactly what it is that your tax position bill is going to be.

And also as a bonus it works out how much to charge per dog depending on how much you want to earn.

So if you said to yourself, right, this year I want to earn 60 grand, you can put that in and it'll tell you how much you need to charge per dog and per hour.

And again, some professions it may not be best for as far as the pricing side of it's concerned, but the tax calculator part of it can be used by anybody and it will tell you how much to save away.

So no more guessing.

It is a fabulous tool and they are cheap.

But yeah, go in the store and look for that if you're struggling, if what you need to put away for tax basically is what I'd use it for.

And it's fabulous.

Again, created by Lee.

Please don't copy it.

What else do we have?

So we have the.

Oh God, we've just renamed it.

I can't remember what we've got.

He called it.

We've got the bookkeeping spreadsheet as well.

Yes, we'll do that.

So the bookkeeping spreadsheet.

So again, if you struggle with Excel and you don't really know what to do, there is a bookkeeping spreadsheet that you can use to fill in few bits and bobs.

Send it to us.

If we're your accountant, send it to your other accountant.

If you don't use us, it's absolutely fine.

But again, some of those who are technophobes like me, who wouldn't know where to start, you can just download this and use that and fill it in.

We also have our pet Business Basics course, which if you are starting out in business and you're new to self employed, then this is going to be the perfect thing for you because it basically guides you through how to set up your business correctly.

We have so many people that have gone on to make and limit companies when they shouldn't have gone into partnerships when they didn't need to, or gone into sole traders when they should have been the partnership or, or you know, have no clue how HMRC works with dates and record keeping.

If you are literally brand new, then go and check out this course.

It's approved by IPET and will get you PDR points as well.

But if you are an established business, again, don't bother using the course because you already know everything that's in there.

This, this is purely designed for people that are just entering the industry, just setting up their business.

Really don't understand what HMRC is, how to register the business, what route to go down, what accountancy software is.

So the modules inside it cover things like your setup costs of how to record those, what you can claim a setup costs.

It goes through branding, marketing, pricing, so it really gives you an understanding of, you know, of how to drive the business forward, how to get your first couple of clients.

It talks about expenses, what's an allowable expense, what's a disallowable expense.

It talks about how you should keep your records so that you know from the very beginning what you should be keeping and what method you should be keeping them.

Freebies in there that you can download and use as well.

There's lots of freebies in there.

And like I said, we get so many people that have come to us or put questions in the group about not knowing dates and how HMRC works or what the VAT threshold is it.

This is like really good to build those foundations.

So you get everything done, right, done.

By simple video steps as well.

So it's not all text, it's my.

My Beautiful Face, Lee's Beautiful Fling.

Each topic for you in an easy to understand way.

So you're not going to just get loads of text.

It is like we're doing now, a video explaining each of the different elements.

So if you're new to business, then please, please go and check that out because it is worth its weight in gold.

If so, doing cpd, like Vicky said, is mentioned on the ipet side of things.

So there's that.

You get points for completing the quizzes that's there.

And a certificate at the end, if you do the quiz is so that you can use those points as CPD towards your ipet side of things.

Yep, Helen, but will we ever understand hmrc?

Probably not, but with this guide you will.

You will understand the important bits.

That's the basic bits that we need to understand when you're starting a business, because like I said, sometimes you just have no idea where to start.

If you've been employed all your life and suddenly you start a dog boom business, you go on to HMRC's website and it's horrific.

You just go around in circles.

So this is aimed to set you off on the right path.

So if you knew, please check it out.

What else?

I think that's it, apart from our mystery that we're about to reveal.

So last year we revealed these as well and we sold them at Gruffs.

Oh, God.

Why have you made me go huge?

Have you gone.

I think Lee's disappeared.

I'm not sure he was meant to do that.

No, I'm still here.

All I've done is I'm removing myself so that you go a little bit bigger to make it easier.

So we've got something you're about to share.

How's it doing?

We launched these last year and they were a massive hit with people who like the old traditional pen and paper.

Some people don't like spreadsheets, some people don't like software.

We get it.

Some people's businesses are small enough where you can use pen and paper and you won't ever need to go on software.

So we cater for all, we do not discriminate.

So but what we've done this year, we've made them even better.

So last year we had two of these shiny, shiny packs.

One for Dog Bloomers and one for everybody else.

However, this year we've combined it.

So this book is covers everybody.

Were you gonna say something?

No, it's not.

So I'm gonna give you guys a sneak peek of what's in here.

Now, what I enjoy about this, and I did these years ago, by the way, but we've made them bigger, better.

So dog groomers, dog trainers, dog walkers, dog borders, cat borders, whatever you decide you want to board a wolf, you have a section there for your income.

Sorry, my camera.

And you can put cash, sales, credit, sales, whatever in there, depending on what you do.

And there's also space to add some more in if you need to add them in.

So that's how you record your income.

Obviously we're not going to show it all because people will copy.

And then this is even better.

And this is what you're going to love.

And this is what feedback we had for the expenses for every month.

So there's basically a monthly amount for each.

It gives you a massive.

Sorry, my camera skills are crap.

It gives you a massive list of what you can include as your expenses.

And again, you can put whether you've got cash or bank and then put a total column at the end.

So again, this is going to refresh your memory of what you should be putting through.

But if that wasn't enough, also inside here.

And I'm not going to show you everything, so it'll be an exciting surprise.

What else we have in here is also how to categorize the expenses.

Oh, camera skills are quite bad.

So there we go.

So not only does it tell you what to include, it tells you how to group them as well.

It's got information there about our services, what we do also barcodes to all the things we've just explained, if you wanted to delve into those.

But this pack, I mean, it's got mileage logs in there, it's got an asset register.

So we did it.

One assets, a couple of weeks ago.

So if you're buying yourself a bath or a table or a van or a car or whatever it is that you buy, then there is stuff there to lock it all.

So it's kind of like an all in one booklet.

Even if you don't use us as new accountant, if you fill this and give it to them, they will love you forever.

And then at the end just please space to put your receipts in and invoices you can attach to it.

O this is snazzy.

I just found pages that I didn't know were there and then keeps on giving is there's.

I mean honestly we could sit here for like an hour.

It's got annual expenses column that you can put them all in there.

It's got something about utilities calculator.

You can do stock tick, stock takes.

Yeah.

So it walks you through how to value the stock.

And yeah it is literally it's not given.

There's so much in here guys.

And you know we do this from your feedback of what needs to be in there, what doesn't need to be in there.

Again, it covers any employment, income, savings, interest.

You can put your annual totals in there.

So it means that you can keep track of what your business is doing a lot better rather than just inputting figures and then never looking at them.

It asks you to do tools of things so that you know where your business is at.

It's important from a.

From well any, any perspective whether you're running a limited company or a sole trader, you should be reviewing your accounts year on year anyway to how you did last year, to how you're doing this year.

That's the only real way that you're able to make informed business decisions to really grow the business.

So if you don't understand where the income come from or you don't understand where all of the money's going in your expenses.

By transferring things from a month by month basis onto a yearly basis, you.

Yeah, all the expenses.

You get an overview of how the business done and where the income and where the expenses went throughout the 12 months.

Now we only have 125 of these booklets produced we had last year.

They will sell out.

They did last year.

So if you want them get on the website into the.

Into the store and you've got the choice of either downloading a digital copy of it where you can print it yourself at home or for an extra £3 we will post you the hard copy.

Yeah.

So quite a few pages in there.

Yes, it looks like that I mean honestly guys, there's loads in here.

Everything you could possibly, what, you know, what is classed as an asset.

Really Everything in here.

Professional freeze, postage, loan agreements, mileage logs, income expenses, annual income, savings, interest, use of home, put ease of home in there.

And also a link to our calculator which is the best and like I said, a place for your invoices and receipts.

And like I said, we will not be printing any more of these and we only do a select amount.

So again those of you will have them at crafts.

So yeah, if you are going to crafts, we will have whatever we've got left on sale at crafts.

Yes, we will be there just as you walk in hole one, our usual place where we were yesterday day.

And so please come and grab these because we've had such good feedback from people buying them last year which is why we've brought them back.

If people thought they were crap, we wouldn't have printed anymore because it's, they're quite expensive to print.

So.

So if you love pen and paper records, these are a must buy.

Just because I think it, it, it helps you in a, an organized fashion of how to record things.

Yeah.

And it steers you of what you should be recording so that you've got it all in one place.

And then year on year you've got this book, you can send it to us, we do your tax return, we then send it you back so that you keep your records.

And then you've got something to look back at last year.

And this also, what's in there, it asks you at the start of the tax year, which again starts in two months time, what your goals are for that year ahead.

Because the idea is that you want to challenge yourself and set yourself some goals of what you're going to be doing differently over the next next 12 months at those back pages, once you filled the book in, it asks you did you meet those goals and if you did, what did you do and if you didn't, what you're going to do different next year.

So it allows a carry on and it's, it's a way of focusing your attention on your business to get you more money at the end of the day.

And it's, it's, it's a really good and fun way to make you think about your business differently as well because it's very hard if you're on your own.

Business can be a very lonely place.

So having something like that, that's going to ask you probing questions to get you to think about things you might realize that you're doing something differently or there's been something that you've wanting to change for quite a while, but you keep on putting it off.

So this is the ideal time to get that jotted down so that it's there physically in the book.

And you can say, right, I'm going to smash that, I'm going to change what I'm doing and I'm going to make more money from it.

So I would highly recommend, if you do like pen and paper, get yourself one of these.

And also we do find when we're doing people's tax returns that they miss quite a few things off, like mobile phones, insurance, which you wouldn't think misinsurance, but people do.

So that's why we've got that massive list on there to prompt you to put that in.

Because again, that's going to make a difference between having a tax bill not having a tax bill.

So again, it's going to jog your memory of what to put in there.

So be no more.

What can I claim for?

Because the majority of them are on there.

Obviously you might have the odd obscure ones which you can add in, but the most common one for the pet industry are listed in there to help you.

So it is a very, very good tool.

And so last year we had three different books because we had Walkers and Borders as one, we had Growers as another, and I, I, we had a gen, but we've combined all of that into this one book this year.

So when we talk about expenses, we've given specifics to those industries.

And then on the sales recording side, we've also split out like the different types of services that people would have and space for you to add in your own as well.

So one book does it all this.

Year it is fabulous.

And what else was going to say?

We are also in the process of putting together a short little course on Free Agent.

Now, again, we get a lot of comments on the group and emails from clients of, you know, how to do this on free agent, how to do that on free agent.

So we are putting together basically little videos of how to do things like how to set up an invoice, how to send an invoice, how to categorize, how to split your payments, how to check that you've done the dates correctly, how to add a bank, how to add alone if you've got a loan in there.

So there is going to be basically all of the questions that we get asked.

We're going to do little short videos of how you do these things on FreeAgent that you can get again get from the store once we've uploaded, might take us a couple of weeks because obviously it's a long time to record them all.

And also it's a technical system to get them on there, so bear with us.

But we are going to be putting a little free agent course together for you guys.

And so again, you know how to do the basics.

I think we've even had a few free agent questions over the last couple of days.

You know, how do I classify my drawings?

You know, all of the basic questions that we get.

We will do little videos on and show you how to do it because that'll help us in the long run and it'll also help you do it correctly because at the end you get.

A lot of words.

It's knowledge is empowerment and the more that you understand what it is that you're doing with the software, the more confident that you will become.

And a lot of clients come to us thinking that they've used the software right and, and to a certain degree people say that bookkeeping is easy, but all I would say is, is check your bank balance against the bank balance that Free agent says that it is.

And if they don't match, something has gone horribly wrong at some point.

It's the easiest way to check is.

That'S the first time we check as well is the bank balance.

So whatever it says on the 5th of February, if it says 300 pound in your bank statement, but minus 598 pounds on free agent, there's something gone amiss, they should always match and that is a very good way of checking.

And again that'll be on my little video.

But yes, it might take a little while, but yeah, how to add dual categories to one receipt.

Again, all these things will be covered.

We will go through the group as well and see what questions are being asked on Free agent and we will do a video for it.

So it's going to be a big course but full of little, little videos.

They're not going to be like 20 minute long videos.

It'll be this is how you do this Bish Bash Bosh, click there, do that, do that, end of video.

Because otherwise if we try and explain it all at the same time, the videos are like an hour long and you'd not get anywhere whit.

We tried doing individual free agent training courses a year ago or so and the problem is, is because I'm approaching it from an accountant point of view, it was very hard to Break it down into easy sections when we're doing like an intensive day on the free agent side.

And like some people would send invoices, other people would record sales as they hit the bank account.

So it was quite difficult to try and tailor it to those specific people there and then was information overload.

So I think by doing it this way and allowing somebody to click into a topic and say, right, that's what I want to try and achieve, it will be much, much easier to do it this way than on a one to one basis.

Yeah.

And you can keep it forever and go, right, oh, I need to do this, or let me go on there and have a look to see if there's a video on that.

Because more than likely there will be.

We're not going to go into the technical aspects of free agent because that's when it gets confused and like journals and things, but we will just give you the basics of how to get it if you're doing it yourself, things you need to know.

And like I said, best way to do is just check your bank and see if it matches with free agent.

This comes back into as well, these record keeping packs.

Because even if you are on software, the information in these record keeping packs that we've designed, certainly the pages where it tells you what things are to be classified as will really, really help.

So it will tell you, like if you're buying poo bags or gloves or shampoo, it will tell you that that needs to be classified as consumables, unless you're selling the shampoo as a product to your clients, in which case that needs to be classed as a purchase.

And there's a big difference between the two.

But what these record keeping packs does is it, it tells you what that difference is and why one is a purchase and one is a consumable.

So they actually will.

So even if you're on software where there's certain information within these that you can actually look at and go and say, right, what's a motor expense?

What comes under the motor expenses category?

Because that might not necessarily be evident when we talk about motor vehicle insurance, for argument's sake.

So somebody could put that under business insurance, when really motor vehicle insurance is a motor vehicle expense.

So it's little things like that that will give you the knowledge of where to put it in free agent.

And you can create the same categories in free agent as you can, that's in the bookkeeping packs.

So you, you can then, if you are doing your own bookkeeping and you want to Learn the software and you want to make sure you're doing it right with the categorizing.

These record keeping packs will actually help.

Fabulous.

And if you want to discuss any of the above, please come and see us at Hall 1 across.

We will be there all week, so myself, Lee and Tegan will be there Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

And we'll also be joined by Jodi, our payroll manager and Nicola, one of our admin team will be there on Friday and Saturday.

Friday and Saturday, Saturday.

A few of us there, we're going to have plenty of prco to share some sweets, some socks for those of you are desperate for a pair of socks.

It's sort of become our thing and yes, make sure you come and see us.

What we'll also be launching as well.

This is a Day of Things, our affiliate scheme.

So if you do recommend us to one of your fellow pet professionals for their accountancy services or payroll services and they sign up with us, you will receive a £50Amazon gift card.

So we don't care if you refer 1 or 100 and they all sign up, you will get 50 pound Amazon gift card for each client that you send our way.

The only small print with that is it's given to you after they have made three payments because obviously if we gave them straight away and then they disappeared would be very much out of pocket.

So we're going to make sure that they're going to stay.

But once we've hit that three month mark, we will make a list of how many clients you've referred and you will get a 50 pound Amazon gift card for each one.

We've already.

I was going to say it's really important that you fill out the link in the recommend a friend section before that person contacts us so that we know the recommendation come from you.

If they get them to tell us when they ring, when they speak to Tegan before they do anything else, you could say, right, Helen has.

Helen whoever has referred me to you and that's where I found your details.

So that will also help if they don't.

If you don't fill in the recommendation at the front.

If they can't come back on call.

To our two weeks then call.

By the way, yeah, it was Helen that recommended us because we all know you've been cheeky.

So just either fill in the recommend a friend or ask the friend to mention your name at the beginning.

We've already had a client recommend to you people bless her.

So there'll be a couple of Amazon gift cards going her way.

Recommend a friend link is the preferred method because then there's a record of you telling us about the person.

And so if you can fill the link in first, that would be much appreciated and then we can reach out to that person as well.

Yeah, so giving something back.

We wanted to do this for a while, but it's obviously.

I don't know if people know mainly.

Obviously been good individually quite a long time, but together only since 2022.

Yeah, so this is our.

Yeah, so this is our third together and we're still trying to catch up on admin to try and get things done because we're so busy, we've just not had time.

The pet account website has been ongoing for like three years.

But we're getting there, it's getting there.

So as we tie things up, we'll be bringing that more stuff like the free agent courses, like the affiliate scheme and anything else you want us to do, like what?

You know, we're open to suggestions.

If there's anything that you think would make your lives easier, that you think we could produce or put together, then please let us know.

We're more than happy to help.

And what we probably won't do, though, is videos on Xero, because it's.

It was just too complex and it would.

Yeah, but free agents.

A lot of the clients that we have that are with us now, anyway, we're doing the bookkeeping because of the packages.

There's few clients that are on Xero on their own, but we do get an awful lot from like other accountants that come to us that are on Xero that they were doing their own bookkeeping and now has asked us to do as part of the packages.

So the, the space for the packages are limited and that.

I feel that's one of the downsides.

I will not just say that, by the way, because that's not like a sales thing.

And I know when you go on this car room, the car salesman goes, oh, well, someone else is interested in this car.

And you think, oh, our bookkeepers can only do so much in a day.

So once their slots are filled, they are filled.

We can't just keep adding people in because they'll pull the hair out and they'll hate us.

So we can.

We don't want to water down what we do either.

So it's really important that the bookkeepers have enough time to really get into the nitty gritty of the.

Of the client's account.

So.

So for us, it's about balancing the workload but also putting A cap on what they physically can do.

And you know, there are times where we take on new members of staff and that's where our capacity increases and we let you guys know when that happens, you know, and usually we have some sort of offers on at that stage because we try to fill that person's diary up as quickly as possible, but they are limited.

And, you know, certainly with the Chancellor's announcement of national insurance hikes for employers that are going to kick in from April, we as a team have tried to avoid adding more people to our team at the moment because again, we don't want to be stung by the extra that we've got to pay over in national insurance contributions.

And also I think we've got enough.

Yeah, we went on a bit of.

A shopping spree for the last two years of trying to find really good accountants and bookkeepers and we have got a very solid team now.

Yeah, we may, we may purchase a new apprentice at some point this year because they are good.

But other than that, hopefully we will have levelled out by now.

And again, like Lee said, we'll never just take the client on for the sake of it.

If you're not right for us, we'll tell you.

And again, you know, if we can find a cheaper way of you doing something, we will do where some accountants do the opposite, will tell you to be a limit company because they're going to get more fees out of you, but we will do the opposite.

So we're always open and transparent about these things.

And yeah, I think we have a short one this week.

Just check out the store, guys.

You know, 24 quid to get some of these products is not going to break the bank and they will save you hundreds of pounds, if not thousands, especially the utilities calculator.

And again, just make life easy for yourself rather than stressing about how much tax to save.

You know, what you should be putting through these are what these things are produced for is to help you guys.

And also they're all allowable expense.

So even just one more thing from me, just with regards to our self assessment clients, there was an email that went out yesterday, I think it was, wasn't it?

To all of our self assessment clients.

Previously, me and Vicky had no real preference of how we asked clients to pay.

But because of the budget changes that are coming in April, we're trying to look at ways to increase the efficiency of our team.

The more efficient that our team can be, the less that we have to worry about the impact of the changes in April from the national insurance side.

So we're now asking clients, whenever a client comes on board with us, we're taking their self assessment fee as the full value of the fee and we're dividing that into 12 equal installments throughout the tax year.

So rather than paying as a lump sum when we do the tax return at the end, if you join us this month, we'll work out what 1/12 of that is and we'll start a direct debit to collect that on a month by month basis.

What we've looked at is what that means for the client in terms of the self assessment is paid within the tax year.

This year will be a little bit different because it's a partial year.

But if we look at from April, if we look at from on April, it means that by the time that we get to the following April when we can do the tax return, it's been paid for.

Yeah, we did find that some of the clients were struggling certainly to find a lump sum to pay for their self assessments.

And because they'd left it so late into the January, any accountancy firm won't file any like a set of accounts, whether it's a limited company or a sole trader, until they've received the fee for their work.

And I understand that it's because they're protecting their money.

There's, there's nothing to say that people will pay after it's been submitted.

So what we want to do is try to relieve that stress of having to find that, that money in a lump sum.

It means that you can get the records to us much sooner in the tax year, which increases our efficiency.

And it also means that we can increase our client capacity, which means that we don't have to take any more staff on lowering the impact that the budget is going to have to us in April from the national insurance heights.

So it's a way for us as an accountancy firm to try and not pass price rises on and to counteract that.

And on the flip side, what we're asking our clients to do is just to pay monthly rather than in one lump sum, which has benefits for them as well, because it gives them more time to save for their taxes because they can get their tax returns into us in April and May and June and then it gives them until the following April, sorry, the following January to be able to save for the tax that they're going to hoe hmrc.

So it's a win win on both scenarios.

And this is just a clever way of us trying to avoid what's going to happen in April when national insurance hikes goes through?

And again, if you listen to last week's and the week before, I've been telling everybody on here that's got staff, you need to start looking, looking at your prices, looking at the changes that you can make to minimize that impact to your business.

And as long as you make those changes now, it should be minimal so you don't have to worry about it by the time that we run payroll in April.

So no changes to our fees.

If you pay monthly, if you do want to pay yearly, then there is a smidgen increase.

Just it's a very, very small smidge.

And also just as another reason why we did it is obviously we have found over the last couple of years where we will do the work and then the person doesn't pay.

And that impacts on our efficiencies as well.

Few and far between.

It does happen, but it does happen and it just cancels out that of us sitting, doing the work and then waiting to be paid and sometimes not being paid or sometimes being paid six to eight months after we've actually done the work.

So yeah, there's a slight reason as well on that side, but mostly from.

What costs as well that you don't take into account like the time that it takes like some to chase that money, the text message cost that needs to be sent.

And so there's a lot more that goes into that behind the scenes.

Not just from us, from any business that are after things.

But you'll also know that if you're a groomer, we are an avid fan of encouraging you to get your clients onto a regular six week cycle and to collect that by direct debit and take deposits.

And the reason for that is so that you have a regular booking, you have regular cash flow that's being collected automatically and your client is less likely to cancel because you've taken a deposit that could be forfeited.

So we're basically trying to implement what we preach.

So you know, we come from a place of knowledge when it comes to that side of things.

And it does help, it will help you grow your business because you've got that regular income.

It will mean that you can pay your bills because you've got the regular cash flow.

So again, if you unsure about how you can set up direct debits, we use a system called GoCardless.

There's no monthly fee for it.

It's part of the fees that you collect from your clients.

And if you have the likes of Free agent or Xero, they can generate invoices and you can set those invoices to automatically generate.

And if you link it to GoCardless, GoCarders will automatically collect that fee on the invoice due date from those softwares.

So it's really, really simple and you don't have to go down the route of going to your bank and asking the bank to set you up as somebody being able to set a direct debit.

And it's relatively inexpensive as well.

So it's a great, great tool to any of you that offer regular services.

And this could walk work for dog walkers, it could work for day boarding if you've got, if you're at home, regular, regular jobs, anything where you deliver a regular service on a regular basis.

And that fee is a set fee.

Gokada's direct debit system would be fantastic for you guys.

Fabulous.

Well, short and sweet this week, ladies and gentlemen, next week we will always be on the Wednesday at 1:00 unless something drastic happens.

So we will always be here Wednesday at 1.

Next week we are going to do live on expenses, which is always a popular topic for obvious reasons and we haven't done one for a fair while.

So obviously things update, things change of hmrc.

So we will do a live next week on expenses.

What's not allowed?

What is allowed, which we know also is a contentious subject.

We will not be discussing massages, chiropractors, glasses, gyms or healthcare.

There was a question in the group and Helen, I'm gonna.

I'll answer your question in a second, Helen, of why that is, but there was a question in the group this week is whether or not somebody is a dog walker.

They're having muscle issues with the lead with the dog's pulling.

Can they buy a massage machine?

The answer is no, because the massage machine isn't helping you walk the dogs.

It is helping you heal from a personal injury.

Whilst the injury may have been caused from repetitive strain with the dogs, unfortunately the injury is to you as an individual, not to you as a business.

So it's a no for an allowable tax deductible expense.

Yeah, that's what made me think about it.

Because I went to find the podcast, I thought, oh no, I don't know which one we did that on, so maybe we should do one on expenses specifically.

But we were not going to cover that because everyone argues with us and we'd spend an hour just talking about massages.

So we want to include all the other stuff and that's important.

As well.

But are you going to answer this quickly then, before we go?

So Helen's asked.

I buy bulk or I bulk buy rabbit food VAT free, but guinea pig is taxable.

So the reason being, the answer to this question.

The reason being is, is that rabbit can be classed as a food within the UK marketplace.

So where you're raising something to be sold for human consumption as food, the food that you feed it is zero rated.

So there is VAT on there, but it's zero rated whilst you can eat guinea pig.

And guinea pig is quite a delicacy in few other countries.

Generally, guinea pigs aren't grown for human consumption within the UK marketplace and is counted as classed as a pet.

And therefore, whenever you buy pet food, any sale of food designed for a pet is always standard rated at 20%, even if that's a dog.

And that's why raw dog food held out to sale for working dogs is zero rated.

But raw dog food held out for sale for pet dogs is standard rated regardless of what VAT treatment your supplier sells it to, you are.

And we'll continue that in our bat episodes in two weeks.

Yeah, but there you go, Helen.

Only Lee would know the answer to that.

There you go.

But again, we might do one of that.

We've done one of that before, but again, it's always good to update it with the changes and things.

So again, please give us some topics that you want us to chat about.

Lee knows everything obscure and hmrc, like rabbits and guinea pigs.

So there we go.

What about hamsters?

We eat hamsters.

Well, probably somewhere do, but yes.

Anyway, we die.

Peru.

Peru was the guinea pigs.

It's Peru you can get.

Yeah, you know, odd fact for you.

Hope you've enjoyed this.

Like I said, check out the store if you want to come on board with us.

Our books are open now.

Our consultancy, 27 pound a month plus that sort won't break the bank.

If you just want some advice, then our consultancy calls are now open.

They were closed in January because obviously it's very busy for us, but they are open again.

So if you just want advice at this stage, then you can get in touch with us and we can set that up and.

But yeah, just let us know if you want to come on board and we will be here next week, on Wednesday at 1:00 talking about expenses.

So please don't miss that one because that's going to be a good one and we hope you have a good week.

Oh, I won't be here next Wednesday, so he might do on his own.

Or he can drag, bring somebody in.

I'll drag somebody kicking and screaming.

Yeah, we'll drag someone from the company on there, maybe Abby, and they'll do expenses.

But I won't be here because I will be sipping cocktails and Budapest, hopefully.

I'm gonna warn everybody now be ready for the tech issues at the beginning because I don't know what I'm sharing or who I'm tagging, so.

So best shed luck with that.

So you might just have to get it on the podcast because you probably won't.

But yes, have a good week everyone.

Stay safe and we, some of us, will catch up with you next week.

Yeah, have a good week.

Take care.

Bye bye bye.

Thanks for listening.

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