Foreign.

And welcome to the Pat Accounting Podcast with me, your host, Vicky 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, everyone.

Welcome to our impromptu live.

And we didn't advertise it, we just thought we need to come on because we haven't done one for the last couple of weeks because of Crufts.

So I'm just going to do what I need to do and Lee's just going to fill in a minute whilst I do it.

I hate filling in because I never know what to say.

So I'm like, what have you been.

Up to today, Lee?

Tell everyone about the new page.

I have been building the website today, so I've had a quiet day.

I've locked myself away in a little room, asked nobody to disturb me so I can get my creative juices flowing and I've been building the website.

Fabulous.

Right, there's that one done.

Just bear with me a little second.

So hopefully if, if we get another couple of visitors there today, they'll be able to see our new partnership page, which is up and running, talking all about partnership tax returns.

Who is a partnership when you should be a partnership and, and what happens if you're not and you're secretly trading as one but not told hmrc.

So which they'll be informative.

We actually get quite a few of those, don't we?

Where we do, or where two people are working together but are registered as sole traders and registers the partnership, which there's not what we came on to talk about.

However.

However, I feel like it's rather relevant.

So if you had a couple, or I would say a couple because that's generally the ones where we come across husband, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever, and they both have a dog walking business.

However, they're both registered as sole traders and some take some income, some takes the other and they just divvy the expenses they need to be a partnership.

Yeah, they do.

And it, and it's not for the reasons that you think that's necessarily obvious as well.

So the, what we basically say is if any two or more people are working together for the sole collective of one business name, one business, one social media presence, one website, one telephone number and you're building that business collectively together and then you're splitting the profits and splitting the expenses or splitting the income because one of you does more than the other.

Ultimately you are a secret partnership because it's all to Better.

The goal of the one business name that you're building and the issue that we have is when, when two people do it as sole traders, when they should be a partnership, is you can actually breach the VAT threshold without realizing it.

So your proportion of the income of that partnership, your, the money that you generate sales will need to be added to the other partners to work out whether or not you've got over 90,000.

Which is why being and registering a partnership is much better.

Because you're above board from hmrc.

They're not going to come knocking and say, well actually you guys are a partnership, so we're going to late fine you for not registering and then you've got all the back paper back to do as well.

So not only that, you can half your expenses in terms of operating costs, your accountancy fees, your insurances, your software, you know, you don't have to double those up as a partnership because a partnership is a legal entity in its own right.

So, you know, there's, there's, there's pros and cons to having a partnership.

And if you've just joined us and you're saying the Crufts thing and now we're talking about partnerships, it was just an ad hoc thing because we just did the partnership tape.

So if you are in that situation and you're confused, then give us a shout.

And we just thought obviously we did Cruffs a couple of weeks ago.

God, it feels like it was like months ago.

I know it does, but we did.

It a couple of weeks ago.

It is the pet accountants fourth Crufts mine and Lee's third crafts.

Yeah.

So we've done it every year for the last four years.

The last couple of years.

We've always been in Hall 1 and we just thought we'd come in and share our trials and tribulations of having a standard Crufts.

Just in case you are thinking of getting a standard Crufts, like how much it costs.

Costs.

We will stay where to stay, where not to stay.

It is expensive and that's one thing you've got to bear in mind is obviously you need to be covering your costs at the end of it.

So we, our stand was I think three by two.

So they do it on like square meter, which is how they charge it.

And we had the smallest one that you can get, which is three by two and that was about 1700 pounds there.

Thereabouts.

Yeah, yeah, just about around 1700 pounds.

But you've got to pay a 300 pound deposit and then they randomly send you an invoice at some point and say, now you need to pay the rest.

So that 1700 pound has to be paid, obviously, before you go.

I think possibly December, January time, I think it needs to be paid.

I think it's a little bit like a lottery as well, isn't it?

Let's face it, you know, if you can get into crafts, then.

Then happy days.

But it also depends on where they put you as well as.

As we found out this year.

So I'll.

I'll come on to that in a second.

But Crufts is a kind of like a lottery.

You put your name down to try and get a stand and it is luck of the draw whether or not you're going to get one or not.

I do think, though, if you've had one in the past, you're more likely to get selected to get the next year.

So we've been lucky in that we've had it for the last four years.

Like I say, we paid 1700 pound for the stand itself.

Then to get a plug socket.

One plug socket, I think was like £350.

It was just ridiculous.

But there you go.

You do have to pay extra if you want access to their WI fi, so that's another thing to consider.

Like if you got card machines and things that you need access to the.

Internet and obviously, yeah, phone signals, not great there as well, so depending on your network operator.

Yeah, we were on Orange.

It's not orange now, is it?

It's ee.

So I had.

Okay, phone signal enough to be able to take card payments via my phone.

But I think when Jodi was there as well, she may have been on O2 and that had some difficulties.

So you shouldn't really rely just on the network provider because it does get quite congested there and the connections were relatively slow whilst you're inside of Cross.

So that's just one thing to consider.

So that was the stand itself, the plug socket.

You can.

There's loads of extras you can buy, but it's.

But it's an absolute fortune.

Then you've obviously got the hotel costs.

Now.

The first year we did it, we stayed in a Holiday Inn or Premier.

Inn, 20 minutes away, wasn't it, by a drive.

Hell on earth.

Never doing that again.

If you've got a stand, we need to be closer because it was just.

It was a ball ache.

So we decided the second year not to do that.

And we stayed as what Lee describes as the Poxy Moxie.

We stayed at the Moxie, which location.

Wise, 10 hours, you couldn't get any closer.

It was literally across the road.

Noise wise, 1 out of 10, obviously all the dogs stay there and it was very noisy.

I don't even think it was the dogs inside the hotel.

I think it was the dogs arriving early morning outside so.

So at five, six o'clock in the morning that's all you hear is dogs barking outside the hotel, queuing up to try and get into Crofts.

The room was the size of a.

Shoebox and no fridge.

No fridge.

How much did that one cost?

That one wasn't that cheap.

I want to say that was about a thousand pound a room.

So it was quite expensive for the four days that we were there.

So again you've got to factor in that depending how many of you go and if you've got any staff that are going, so that's a thousand pound each for the rooms and then obviously you've got your food and drink whilst you're there, which business expense is fine but still, still costing the business money.

So you've got your hotel cost, you travel down there cost, your food and drink costs, the stand costs.

And then this year we stayed in the genting which is inside the resorts world which is a little bit posh.

We did see all the celebs in the morning.

I was gonna say we were breakfast with the celebs.

So we saw Claire Balding, Ellie, what's Ellie Simmons and that, the old guy that we cannot remember his name but he was Ali.

I recognize him but can't remember his name.

So they were all staying there.

Very nice, very expensive.

I think this one was about 1300 pound a room.

No, it was 1506 pound per room.

Oh it didn't tell me that.

However, there is a perk.

You got to clean out the mini bar which was free, which we didn't realize till the second night so we could have, you know, we wasted a mini bar.

So when we all found out the mini bar got emptied.

Slight caveat, it's only free for certain rooms in that hotel, not every room.

So if you do go there, just double check before you start emptying.

That we didn't realize and then we.

Just emptied it and got our money's worth.

But the room was nice, all of ours was really warm, which I wasn't keen on.

I couldn't get the aircon to work but perfect.

The breakfast was nice, the location was like even better.

You get to park in that underground car park which is an absolute dream.

Anyone that does cross knows you have to park.

I think that is the closest car park.

Yeah.

Which is about four miles away from the actual venues.

Absolutely.

It's just horrific.

So the general gets our vote for location, amenities, car park.

It was just our setting up experience was like a million times better than last year.

Now again, if you saw us last year and saw us this year, you will have seen a marked improvement on our stand.

Now mainly I've never had a stand anywhere before in our lives.

You know we were stand virgin.

So when we had our first two years of stand we thought it was the dog's bollocks.

They're all chuffed last year with our little bags and just the table and.

The banner Nick fold out table with a black cloth over it with a couple of business cards across it in a smiley face and we thought it.

Table with a tablecloth on.

We thought we were like the be knees and on banners, different ones from.

Different suppliers, one with a different logo on from when Vicki was.

Was on her own.

It was, it was.

And before we got did cuffs again, Lee was like oh, sent me a text going I think we should maybe invest some money and getting stand like a new stand.

And I.

My reply was why I'll stand.

Last year was absolutely fine.

Then he sent me the picture of it and I went yeah, that looks.

And it was.

On reflection it was horrific.

But we've learned a lesson and we invested about 15, 1600 quid on a new stand which you would have seen on the photo.

So it had the big backdrop.

Then it had like another little sort of thing that had shelves in so we could hide all the tut and all the booze and then we got another little stand on the corner and it.

And it was just like a million times better.

We.

Yeah, it was worth every penny.

We learned a lesson from that ourselves as well there.

And.

And it's all about the branding and the previous years where we went there we took lots of goodies from like zero and free agent and soft even provide us with some stuff as well.

And I think we were pushing other people's branding rather than our own.

This year was very much about the pet accountant and we went hard with our branding.

Everything was on brand.

Even the cups that we were using to pour the alcohol into was the right color of orange.

You do need alcohol license.

So to give out.

We didn't know.

So we were hiding it and putting it in paper cups.

We wasn't selling it.

It was just for select clients and ourselves.

Yeah.

To get us so.

Yes.

But again we live and learn and we make sure that we do things right next year.

But yes, getting the right branding and investing that money.

You know, if you're going to do these shows whether whether it was the stand that brought us obviously larger clients is in turnover wise or whether said.

In general quality inquiries last, the last years everybody was interested in what was in the bags on the table, what do we have for free.

So we were talking to an awful lot of people but it was a little bit frivolous conversations, they didn't really go nowhere.

There was maybe no meaning or intention to at the start of it.

But this year was.

I mean it was smashed out the ballpark this year.

We were inundated.

The stand next to us got a little bit angry because we were blocking the hallway.

Yeah.

So we'll give you some gossip.

So on.

Oh yeah.

So where our stand was in Hall 1 we were like as you come in the entrance we were like diagonal across and we had like a corner plot.

So we had two open ended bits so we could speak to people around like in an L shape.

So we can see the front doors.

Yeah, because we were on a corner.

We had then two stands that had sides, either side so they only had like a front bit.

We always get friendly with the ones on the end, the wwf, the charity and we always chat to them so they're fine.

But the ones in the middle was originally when we were setting up Pretoria Stillwell.

So we were like, oh yes, play.

Them with booze, get friendly, get friendly.

With her, get on the podcast.

It was great.

However, when we came back the Thursday she'd moved.

Not because of us, because there was.

It was nothing I did personally I.

Blame Vicki, it was just because wanting a bigger stand.

So then there was no one there on the Thursday and then on Friday we had Darren from Motion to Profit who came and did a day worth of videoing to get some video content, some video testimonials off clients.

We've got a blooper reel which I can't wait to see and just let us do some videos and stuff like that.

So if you ever want a videographer or someone to do podcasts and stuff and down as a guy.

So make sure you get in touch with him.

Motion to profit, little plug there for him.

It was excellent by the way.

So.

But bear in mind opposite us was Butternut Box that had like massive square.

They just took up half the room.

But the walkway between our row of stands and but not box was very wide.

I'm not very good at meters.

But I would say it was at least 4 meters wide.

Yeah, I would have said 2 to 3.

Okay, bigger than 2, but 3.

Yeah, about 3 meters.

3 meters wide.

So it was plenty of space for people to walk around.

And obviously asked.

He was.

I'm not going to say what.

He's selling some stuff and I'm not going to plug it.

Whatever.

But anyway, he had his little stand.

You have like a gray line, and you can't go past the gray line with your stand.

But he had pushed his.

Probably that far out.

Yeah.

Of the gray line.

And we were like.

We were like, right, okay.

Anyway, didn't care.

And we were filming and stuff and people were walking around us and obviously we had a lot of people come to the stand.

So at some points it was like two, three people deep because we were all chatting around and I missed it, annoyingly.

I was like, no, I missed.

But basically I came back and Lee's face was fuming.

And I was like, what happened?

And he basically had an argument with the guy next door because he was like, can you just take all your people and talk to them over in that corner?

Because you're blocking people coming to our stand.

Bearing in mind it was like three or four meters wide and we weren't blocking anyone going to a stand.

So basically, I fight someone in cs.

To be fair, in my defense, I didn't catch the first bit that he said.

I only caught the second half of it.

And I was like, what's this guy's attitude problem for?

And then he was just like, you know, you're blocking the stand, people can't get through and button that box of the same.

And I'm like, what the hell?

What the hell's happening?

So he.

He got a short few words from me that were not very nice.

Yeah.

But then for the rest of the time, they were absolutely fine.

However, really chatty afterwards because he realized that it wasn't our fault.

And it was just a very, very quiet lane.

It was very quiet for him, to be fair.

But then on the Sunday, Lee and went off in a wonder and he started a fight with the guy, but in a box.

Now, I thought they were actually going to fight at one point because they were very close to each other.

So I was like, oh, my God.

So, yes, all happened at this year because actually last year we had a woman who was in distress outside moxie because someone allegedly was trying to steal a poodle.

No one else helped, obviously, me with my background and they just being Lee, we thought, we're Going to go and step in and help her.

And then we got spat on and shoved.

Yeah.

So that was like, okay, great.

But we did help her.

And then this year, matey boy next door was having a pop.

So maybe we're just like a madman for these things.

The moral of today's story is if you're going to crafts, take mace, take pepper spray.

But yes, apart from that minor little to do, it was actually a really good four days.

Yeah, it did probably cost us in total, I would say seven grand.

I think so, yeah.

Give or take a grand.

Yeah.

At least seven grand.

And put.

You're probably thinking, bloody hell.

Like that is a lot for four days and it is.

And especially we had me Lee Tegan for all from Wednesday to Sunday and we also had Jody and Nicola Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

So there's five of us, obviously got to feed us and have somewhere to sleep and stuff and all of the travel costs.

But we do make our money back on Crufts, especially this year has been really, really good.

We've paid way more than.

Than.

And that's key, isn't it?

It's regardless of.

It's not just about our.

And today isn't about our business.

What we're trying to do is, is, is educate those of you that haven't been to Crufts before that are considering trade shows of maybe some of the hidden costs that you don't necessarily see.

See when it comes to a trade show.

And it is things like getting your stand prepared, the travel costs down, the, the, the cost that you incur whilst you're there, because it's a captive market, you pay more for food and drink, you know, and that, that's the nature of the beast, you know.

And I think if you have got a product or service to sell you, you've got a very limited window.

And I, I get why the guy next to us was frustrated because they were working on commission only.

And if you've got nobody walking past your stand and I mean.

There were.

6,000 people in that hall and if you stepped outside of the one opposite our stand, you were shoulder to shoulder and you were just shuffling like penguins.

Opposite our stand where they were in the middle of two stalls that had open ends to sort of either end of the veins of people where we had abundance of people, there was nobody.

I mean you could literally set up a picnic table and sit there and interrupted in the middle of crafts.

And so it.

That stand position for them was extremely poor.

So I get probably why Victoria is still.

Well Moved.

It was quite a small stand as.

Well and they needed a bigger stand, didn't they?

So they, they.

I think they had a narrow escape with that one and they, they, what they did was right by moving.

So yeah, I think it's key if, even if you are looking to go to crafts as a, as a consumer to look for something to buy, what would you said, Vic?

Because I personally I didn't find the discounts there that some of them did have good discounts, granted.

Yeah, there was a couple of stands that like me and Tegan went to look for things and we could honestly buy them cheaper locally.

I think it depends what you're looking for.

I think for the groomers when they go to like the shampoo companies and Christie's and things like that, I think they probably do have offers on the shampoo and obviously Elliot from Peanut and Pickle had offers on his shampoo.

He did.

So I think if you're a groomer then it probably is worth going for everyone else.

Like I said when we were looking to get some like raw treats like rabbit ears and fish cubes and stuff, I mean we didn't get chance to go through all of the halls this year again, which another thing, every year try and say, right, we're going to go mingle.

We just didn't have chance this year.

We couldn't get out the stand.

But we went and had a look at a few of the raw food stuff and it was actually more expensive than where we get it from locally.

So you have to do your research.

I think if you're going as a, as a consumer, the best way to get around Crufts is to find the people that are going to be there and then and plan where you want to go and which ones you want to find in each hall rather than just willy nilly going in there with, with your map because you can get lost.

I think you follow the crowds as well.

And that was the problem with the stand, wasn't it?

Was that people were following the crowd rather than walking around the halls aimlessly.

So you're just in this long conveyor belt line of people.

Like a conga line.

Yeah.

Going around certain parts of the stores and there was so much that you can miss.

So, you know, and there was, there were stands there that I didn't even.

We didn't even get into stand three, four, five.

We literally did stand one, stand two.

So next year we're gonna have Georgie and Nicol the whole time just to give me and Lee a bit of Relief so that we can go and mingle and talk to people.

Because we have clients that show there.

Yeah, we have clients have got stands there.

And obviously for us, we don't do it just to get business.

We do it as a.

As a central point for clients to come and say hello.

Greet, isn't it?

Yeah, it's a meet and greet and.

And clients get to come and say hello.

They know that they can come and speak to us face to face.

Obviously, because we deal with everyone across the UK.

It's.

It's hard when your accountant might be 200 miles away from me.

Obviously you've got zoom and things like that, but it's always nice to come and see them in person.

We get a lot of people.

We get a lot of people every year come up to us and go, oh, I just wanted to make sure that you guys were real, because obviously I follow you online, but I just didn't know whether, like, you know, you were actually real or not.

We had quite a few people that came up and said, oh, we listen to your podcast and it's weird seeing you in the flesh because now we know you're actually real and it's weird that people think we're not real, but you can never be too careful in this day and age.

So we've had that.

We had people come and ask us what we did.

Oh, we had a T shirt as well, didn't we?

Hang on, I've got it.

So, as we know, there's a running theme.

Well, last year, as a joke, we had a hashtag that said, hashtag, don't need an accountant.

Because I went on a bit of a rant about people saying on social media that it's easy and you don't need an accountant.

So I started this thing and said, hashtag, don't need an accountant.

And then a few days later, I've got a lovely mug from one of our clients called Sam that said, hashtag, don't need an accountant, which is.

We still use.

And then another client that comes then he came in with a T shirt that said, hashtag, don't need an accountant, which I thought was hilarious.

And I took the shirt off his back, bless him, he put a vest.

Literally undressed him in the middle of.

Literally undressed in the middle, of course.

So he came prepared this year because he had a spare T shirt and he wore a vest underneath.

But this year he did this T shirt, orange, obviously, brand on brand, and it says.

And he was wearing this round cruffs, by the way.

It says, I've got the best accountant, the pet accountant.

And just to make it an allowable expense, he put his little business name as well.

So there we go.

So this is my 2025 cross t shirt.

I am going to frame them all.

So next year he's got the task of a gray one with my face on it that says, vicky is the best.

So if you listen, Kevin, it's for you.

So that is.

That was.

So, yeah, we had people, a lot of people come up to the stand saying, what do you do?

Which does make me laugh every time because there's a massive sign behind me that says accountant Now, I don't know how more obvious we could make it.

We even changed the strap line, didn't we?

So rather than for pet professionals, we changed it on the banner to say accounting for pet profession Businesses.

Know what he changed it to?

No, I don't.

I mean, let us say an accountant.

And we had people coming up going, what do you do?

I thought, really?

And someone came up said, do you do stationery?

Yeah, I had one saying, do we have like an online directory where people can add their service then clients can find them?

Oh, yeah, no, we don't do that.

So we have a lot of that, which does keep us busy.

We had a lot of advice time.

It gets to 5 o'clock mainly.

We've just had enough.

Yeah.

Then we get a lot of what makes you different to my local accountant?

Which we don't mind that question because we do get that a lot and it is a very valid question.

However, some people just literally walked up and went, well, what's what?

Why are you different?

And with a bit of an attitude.

And I thought, well, okay, we'll go there.

So they could have been accountants, because we did see some of them walking back recording.

Yeah, we get all the accountants come up and steal the stuff and look at it.

And then you can tell their accountants, because they look boring and they're old and they're just like.

You could just tell their accountants, you're like, have you got a dog business?

And they're like, no, I'm an accountant.

So bore off then and get your own ideas.

We shimmy them along.

We had a lady that picked up a leaflet and tea and said, do you have a dog business?

And she went, no, but I have got a dog.

Not quite the clientele we're looking for.

So we, we do get funny questions.

We did get the what makes you different to your local accountant?

And, you know, one of the things is which is very obvious is we specialize in the pet industry, which your local accountant doesn't.

And you know, Lee makes a very good thing is, you know, you wouldn't go to an accountant that specialized in hair and beauty if you were a.

Dog groomer or hospitality sector.

So you would come to us rather than your local accountant because we are specialists in the pet industry and we are one of the only ones in the UK that do it.

And there's, there's lots out there that say they, they do them like dog groomers and they do all of the other stuff as well.

But we, we focus on the pet industry, so that is the main difference.

So we know what to do.

So.

Which I'm not getting to that because it's not the point of the podcast.

But yes, we had a lot of questions, Lee, obviously, yes, as Tegan rightly said, had one that said, came up to the stand and just went, never heard of you before.

And what was your response, Lee?

That's all right.

I've never heard of you either.

So we were making friends at Crooks.

My mother laughed behind her.

So it was said in a funny way.

It was said in a funny way.

But yes, we, we do get some very strange requests and very strange questions at Cross.

But we spoke to a hell of a lot of trainers this year, dog trainers and a lot of breeders.

Breeders this year?

Yeah, I think because of obviously all the changes with HMRC and the letters and the fact you have to now license to then be insurance company come.

Up to us and asked if they could partner with us because they had was it 60,000 breeders on their database and they wanted the accountancy firm to say that it's not them that's releasing the data to HMRC to job these people in.

But obviously if HMRC requests the information, then they have a legal obligation to release it.

No, I agree.

I don't know how you pronounce it.

I couldn't remember exactly.

But again it, you know, so there's, there was an awful lot of breeders around this year looking for accountants or looking for advice just, just in general, probably because of how public the HMRC have been with the letters that they've been sending for the, the disclosures of the puppies.

So, yes, we had, we had a lot of mixture of everything.

Vet physicals, dog grooms, dog walkers, borders vets, farriers, bloody all sorts.

So, yeah, always good to meet new people there.

Obviously people like to see us in the flesh rather than on the telephone.

So we always do really well at Cross anyway.

But this year was just really nice to catch up with some clients.

We.

We will release the videos that we took.

There's some few bloopers, some characters this year as well.

In all fairness, it was, it was probably my best year just because of the people that we met there.

So just, just being able to have a laugh with clients and non clients.

It was people that we've not necessarily met before and people that we see year on year.

So Nelly even got someone sperm.

So she did.

Yeah.

You know, you never know who you're going to meet across or what you're going to get offered.

So there we go.

So yes, we had a lovely mix of people and dogs.

We had the very cute little mini sausage dog from UK Sniffer dogs who came and spoke to us and we got to hold his little dog for half an hour which was cute.

We had some bijons come over.

What else did we had?

Oh, poodle.

Oh, I didn't realize we.

We had somebody and I'll be careful with all the details.

I have to be careful client names and things.

But we had a client with a dog that come over that was going through some training.

It had a little tendency to bite people if they touched it.

So in my wiseness of being there, I decided to fill the water bottle on my hands and knees next to the dog without realizing it's come up and licking my face.

The dog was lovely, really friendly and what I didn't realize afterwards is actually the dog come from one of our other clients as one of the rescues.

So I didn't know that at the time.

So that was.

That was nice.

Yeah.

A security dog in train and a German shepherd who was cute, who I didn't stand anywhere near because I was too scared.

But then some lady for in her infinite wisdom.

So the.

Our client and Tegan had their backs to the thing and the dog was obviously in between.

It was.

Just sat there.

It was just sat there and this woman came up behind, behind our client who was training the dog and stuck a hand in and was like oh, cute dog.

And she, to be fair, the client was like no ninja fat.

And it did have a yellow thing on saying like do not pet.

But this woman just came up from behind us behind the dog and like stuck a hand in.

So thank God our client was like on full alert, smacked a handwear and said look really sorry but you can't touch the dog.

Yeah.

So that could have been interesting.

But yes, so we do get all sorts.

We had a couple of dogs Poo in front of the stand, which absolutely stunk.

That was a bit this year, wasn't it?

It was a bit.

We got rid of all our fizzy wine.

So, yeah, Sarah and Natalie always come and sit behind the stall on the chairs and just go through a couple of bottles.

So that's.

Pretend that the admin staff helping out.

Yeah.

Put all their shopping behind the stall so they don't have to carry it around CR for a few hours.

But no, for us, it's.

It's such a nice central point where we can see clients, have a drink with them, have a chat, you know, answer any questions, see how they're getting on.

And also new clients as well.

And like, we've had people that come up to us and go, do you know what?

You know, we had one lady that said to me, I've been following you since you start the pet accountant in 2021.

And I've just plugged up the courage now to come and speak to you.

And we do get that a lot that people say, oh, we've been stalking you for a couple of years online, you know, now we feel comfortable enough to come up and actually take your services.

So it does take some people a while.

And also, you've got to remember that as a business itself, you know, people need to trust you and especially if you're looking after their dog in any capacity, then the trust bit is going to be earned.

So that's why we always say, you know, put your stuff on social media all of the time, it's not spammy, because otherwise people are never going to know who you are or get to know you.

So, yes, we had some interesting, interesting characters, interesting dogs that were hidden in crates and it was all, yeah, it was bizarre and saw some very odd dogs.

I actually stroked a poodle.

So if anyone knows me that much, they know I'm not a massive fan of poodles.

The giant ones I've got issues with.

The little ones, not so much, but this one didn't have the creepy feet or the shaved face.

So, yeah, it was a miniature poodle, but still a poodle.

And I did tell one of her other clients that has the giant ones, and luckily she didn't come to cuffs because she always brings them.

And then I petted the little miniature poodle, which is a big thing for me because I'm not a fan of poodles, so didn't see any giant ones, so thank God, because I'm not keen on those.

But I did one and it does count Egan Because I touched it.

So I face my fear.

There's some very expensive paintings on the ones opposite.

It was, yeah, good.

Odd quid for a tiny painting of a dog.

That was really weird because they were priced in euros.

But he doesn't tell you the price.

Until you go, oh, yeah, until you buy them.

And he said, I'll have to do it in euros.

And it cost you more than what?

And it costs you money.

That's real.

Yeah.

That might have been a bit dodgy.

I bought prints, by the way, which are 40 quid, not 350.

We're like, oh, that's good.

Oh, maybe not.

Yeah.

But no, it was very good.

We will be there again next year, hopefully.

I bought a harness for my six stone boxer.

Yeah.

The lady went, I can't even repeat.

The words that she said.

I know, I went over, I said, look, I've got a boxer dog.

He's a little bit on the larger side and I need a harness rib.

She went, oh, how heavy is he?

And I said, oh, he's, he's six stone.

And she gasped a four letter word beginning with F.

And then, and then picked up this harness, but you might need this size.

And obviously my mum was there with us on, on the stand and she went, no, it needs to be bigger.

So we got the biggest jewels harness that we could get and it fits him perfectly.

So he doesn't need to lose weight now because he's got a harness of it.

So we were at the vets last week or no, no, earlier this week on Saturday and even the vet said that whilst he is a big boxer, he's not massively overweight.

He could do losing a few pounds.

But he's not, he's not huge, he's just, he's just solid big.

Like he's a big dog anyways.

Big dog, yeah, yeah.

Considering when he's got his brother next to him who's a stone lighter.

So, yeah, there we go.

So we will be there next year.

We'll probably go at the same hotel and we might have a few extra things on the stands.

I think Lee's getting excited, he wants to buy something else now.

We will might have some socks with our faces on because every client that came up to us and said, where's the socks?

We didn't have any socks this year.

So I only have one rule going forward.

The reason we didn't have them this year is because I said everything has to be on brand going forward.

So.

And we couldn't get them produced quick enough.

To be able to get them in time for crafts.

So we, we left it too late this year, but next year we'll, we'll.

We're looking at like our own merchandise as well, to give away like pens or poo bag holders, something that we can give to our clients whilst they're there, to have little things with our logos on just so that people can take them away.

Because I think we did miss that this year.

But I just didn't see the point in having the software provided with bits and pieces.

It, you know, from a business perspective and ultimately that what this is, what it's all about is growing your business and growing your brand.

It did nothing for us, but did for those software providers who didn't pay to be there, which is the mistake that we've made in previous years.

So, you know, it's good to reflect on what you're doing as a business and what worked and what didn't work and the changes that you're going to make going forward.

And that doesn't matter whether it's a trade show or whether it was your last week of sales.

Reviewing what it is that you're doing within your business and then making a plan of how you're going to change it going forward will have big, big effects on, on your profits, on your takings and.

And your enjoyment from the business as well.

Yeah, no, cool.

I feel that's very good parting words.

Yeah.

So we'll be back next week and there was a post in Bill's group.

Someone said they would like a live on tax saving tips for that.

I think that was, wasn't it?

Yeah, it was around that.

But then just sit fat saving tips or tips on fat and things maybe people can do through a limited company to save some money.

What they can do as a sole trader is try and save some money.

So we will do that next week.

I think we're both here, so that'll be on next week.

We've still got our offers on, on the all in one package.

So if you're interested in getting on board with that, especially if your turnover is over 50 grand and you're not on software because you're going to have to be next year.

So it's something you need to think about.

I think now is a good point to point out as well, is that we are coming to the end of the tax year.

We have literally weeks left before the tax year ends.

So the self assessment season and the window for being able to complete the self assessments are going to open back up.

From the 6th of April.

So I know, yeah, maybe like, oh, again, it just ended.

But if you're going to be organized and you want to know how well you've done, you're going to want to know whether or not you want to be on that MTD if you're over the £50,000 mark.

So get those records together, start reaching out to us now.

If you're not a client that you want to become a client, we work with proactive business owners who like to get things done nice and early so that we can work with them, change any of the behaviors that maybe are haven't been so tax efficient for you previously and it now gives us the opportunity to do that because we're starting a clean slate from the 6th of April.

So if you, if you want to reach out to us, you want to pick our brains, you need to ask us any questions about habits that you need to drop and tax efficiencies going forward, now is the time because you can do them from the very, very get go of the tax year.

And also we still have a few record keeping packs, the physical packs left over from Cruft.

So if you do want one of those to start from next month, if you are a paper and pen person and you don't need to go on to the digital software yet, then please, please get yourself onto our store on the website and get those ordered because.

Because we don't have many left so.

We'Re not going to be printing out anymore.

So once they're gone, they're gone.

I think Andy said there's a few left.

So get those orders in now ready for April.

I think Tegan's gonna do a video on them at some point in the next couple of days to show you guys what's in there and how they work.

So keep your eyes peeled for that if you are interested in getting it.

It's only like 20, 28 quid or something which is a business expense and it's full of stuff so definitely worth getting your hands on.

If you struggle a little bit with your.

They can be used if they are.

If you are our client and you like fill in pen and paper and you just want to return them to us completed, you can use them for another accountant and you can give them to your other accountant or if you're doing your own tax return, they are ideal for keeping all of your records all in one central place for you to record the month in, month out.

And they're designed in a way that helps you record as the month ends you can transfer it all to the back of the book so that by the time you get to the end of the year you've tallied everything up ready so your figures are ready to go into your self assessment.

Very neat.

Right, well we will let you guys get back to work and we will catch you next week on Wednesday, our normal day.

Taxi.

We couldn't do tomorrow because I booked an airplane to go fly into Blackpool so I can have an ice cream on the Pleasure beach and then fly back again.

So that's why we're not here tomorrow.

I hope it rains.

Yeah, so we'll be back normal time and day next week unless Liz is swallowing off somewhere else for an ice cream or a donkey ride.

And we'll.

Yeah, just have fun.

Make sure you keep all your receipts and yeah, have fun everyone and we'll catch up with you guys next week.

Have fun.

Take care.

Bye bye, bye bye.

Thanks for listening.

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