Quotations!

[forestboy1978]

Well Khriss you are absolutely right. Last week a guy got back to me and said mate, I know you'll do a good job and I wanted  you to be the cheapest but you weren't. Can you adjust the price? I said dude, I also got a good vibe and that's why I'm bothering to take the time to explain to you that I just don't need to negotiate prices, so why would I rationally even contemplate it? He said fair play mate. I say the exact same thing in my business. Job's yours. 

[BrendanTreeFeller]

Good on ya first boy stick to you guns [emoji106][emoji106]

[donnk]

9 hours ago, forestboy1978 said:

Hi guys, 

 

Just wondering what your views are on people negotiating the price of quotes?

 

I basically just don't need the work cos I stay under the VAT threshold each year so can only turn over 85k per year. Due to fencing materials this is easily breached so I tend to do about 40 weeks per year roughly to achieve this. I take on guys as and when I need them, basically as little as possible and turn down all work outside of 4 miles away or that I don't like the look of or don't get a good feel for the customer. Obviously my position is quite fortunate also in that I get enough work to work 7 days per week all year if that was possible. 

 

I get a lot of customers saying things like.. "I liked your approach but I was quoted x amount. Will you consider knocking £200 of the price"

 

Frankly this offends me cos we're often talking about knocking 200 off a 1500 job which is a huge cut in profit  when the expenses are say 750 and I know my industry pretty much inside out so I know the absolute cheapest a job can be done for soooo. To me this translates as.... "I know you're almost guaranteed to do a stellar job cos you have excellent reviews and portfolio and installation guarantee etc etc but Billy Bob who isn't paying tax or is throwing the waste in the forest is £250 cheaper and I pretty much know his game so I want you but I don't want to pay for you"

 

Anyway.....rant over, what are your thoughts?

setup a ltd co VAT registered for your business clients and all your materials, they get the vat back anyway.

 

Sole trader for your domestic.

 

When you first register for vat you can go back 7 years to reclaim VAT on allowable expenses (KIT).

 

If your not earning cash already then you will pay a lot less personal tax as well.

 

donnk

[Mick Dempsey]

This has been discussed before.

 

It was stated that it’s not lawful to run two firms (one vat registered and one not) doing the same thing.

 

Just what was said here, seems legit though.

[donnk]

Just now, Mick Dempsey said:

This has been discussed before.

 

It was stated that it’s not lawful to run two firms (one vat registered and one not) doing the same thing.

 

Just what was said here, seems legit though.

Please quote the Act stating that as I call BS on that.

 

 

[Mick Dempsey]

No idea, as I said it was said on here. Might be right, might be wrong.

Edited February 20, 2018 by Mick Dempsey

[Mick Dempsey]

https://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/threads/can-you-have-two-companies-one-vat-registered-and-the-other-not-vat-registered.129537/

 

Found this after googling.

[forestboy1978]

Mick is absolutely right. It's called artificial separation and it's a government scam if you ask me in a lot of circumstances. 

 

For example I have another business which is 1000% different to my fencing business. Couldn't be more different if you wanted it to be and I had to set it up in Hongkong officially avoid both businesses VAT registering. 

 

My fiancée is a pharmacist and she wants to make soaps and things like that on the side. This also will contribute towards VAT, even if the business is hers, in her name and is entirely different in every way. 

 

 

 

 

[Inoff the Red]

8 hours ago, forestboy1978 said:

Mick is absolutely right. It's called artificial separation and it's a government scam if you ask me in a lot of circumstances. 

 

For example I have another business which is 1000% different to my fencing business. Couldn't be more different if you wanted it to be and I had to set it up in Hongkong officially avoid both businesses VAT registering. 

 

My fiancée is a pharmacist and she wants to make soaps and things like that on the side. This also will contribute towards VAT, even if the business is hers, in her name and is entirely different in every way. 

 

 

 

 

The attack on artificial separation of businesses is to stop someone simply splitting a business in two to stay under the VAT threshold. In the UK it would not stop you from operating different activities as different business, each with its own status and vat threshold.

It only gets tricky if the "unrelated" businesses use the same items of equipment or the split of services is artificial. In an arb context, having one business that cuts down trees and another that chips is likely to fall foul of the regs. A soap making business is demonstrably different to an arb business and I doubt the question of artificial separation would be raised.

[Matthew Storrs]

19 hours ago, forestboy1978 said:

Hi guys, 

 

Just wondering what your views are on people negotiating the price of quotes?

 

I basically just don't need the work cos I stay under the VAT threshold each year so can only turn over 85k per year. Due to fencing materials this is easily breached so I tend to do about 40 weeks per year roughly to achieve this. I take on guys as and when I need them, basically as little as possible and turn down all work outside of 4 miles away or that I don't like the look of or don't get a good feel for the customer. Obviously my position is quite fortunate also in that I get enough work to work 7 days per week all year if that was possible. 

 

I get a lot of customers saying things like.. "I liked your approach but I was quoted x amount. Will you consider knocking £200 of the price"

 

Frankly this offends me cos we're often talking about knocking 200 off a 1500 job which is a huge cut in profit  when the expenses are say 750 and I know my industry pretty much inside out so I know the absolute cheapest a job can be done for soooo. To me this translates as.... "I know you're almost guaranteed to do a stellar job cos you have excellent reviews and portfolio and installation guarantee etc etc but Billy Bob who isn't paying tax or is throwing the waste in the forest is £250 cheaper and I pretty much know his game so I want you but I don't want to pay for you"

 

Anyway.....rant over, what are your thoughts?

You sound like you run your buisness in a very similar model to myself, I also do mainly Agri fencing and digger based works.  Work mainly on my own through choice as i sooner put my investments into better machinery than staff- I’m also just under the VAT threshold, although I may put an end to that this year as I think I will be better of registered. I tend to price reasonably competitively but price directly reflects whether I like the job/customer or not! If I get hagglers, they generally get put to the back of my priority list- I’m lucky enough that I have enough decent customers without wasting time with this sort of thing. I have no problem discussing pricing and alternatives solutions to reduce costs if that’s what they want- but   I’d never reduce my price just to get a job or because so and so is cheaper as I generally only put in a quote which I thing is acceptable enough to do a good job and not have to rush like a fool.