Customers asking to pay cash to avoid VAT.

[muttley9050]

One of the last jobs I did i let the customer order some of the materials as he was very fussy on colour
It reminded me why i don't let it happen usually.
It was a landscaping job. Priced up for bricks and sandstone.
When I got to the job. The bricks were all engineering bricks which take a lot longer to lay. They Had been unwrapped and moved by hand round the back and covered with a holey tarp. They were soaked.
The slabs were granite which also take a lot longer to lay/cut and need slurrying.
Fortunately this customer was very fair and accepted my reasonable extras to cover the changes. Laying dripping wet engineering bricks in December was no fun though.

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

25 minutes ago, muttley9050 said:

It's called business, its not a trick.
I don't charge customers for materials unless it's an extra. I give them a price for a job.
In order to work this out I get a price for the required materials multiply by 1.15 and use this figure to work it out.
If the customer got a price for the materials I doubt the total would be much different.
The 15% is to cover me working out, ordering, collecting, unloading etc the said materials.
If you pay a groundie £100 a day do you charge the customer £100 or more. I've heard of tricky tree surgeons making money by charging more for staff than they pay them.
Also I very rarely leave customers dissatisfied. Probably because I charge enough to do a good job. But some people can't be satisfied.

Didn’t intend to cause personal offence, I just speak from the experiences I’ve had with ropey builders. 
 

 

[topchippyles]

9 minutes ago, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

Didn’t intend to cause personal offence, I just speak from the experiences I’ve had with ropey builders. 
 

 

Go and see to your lambs 🤣

[muttley9050]

Didn’t intend to cause personal offence, I just speak from the experiences I’ve had with ropey builders. 
 
 

Not offended. Takes a lot.
Some builders are shit. Same as some doctors etc.
Just disagree with tarring from the same brush.

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

2 hours ago, muttley9050 said:

One of the last jobs I did i let the customer order some of the materials as he was very fussy on colour
It reminded me why i don't let it happen usually.
It was a landscaping job. Priced up for bricks and sandstone.
When I got to the job. The bricks were all engineering bricks which take a lot longer to lay. They Had been unwrapped and moved by hand round the back and covered with a holey tarp. They were soaked.
The slabs were granite which also take a lot longer to lay/cut and need slurrying.
Fortunately this customer was very fair and accepted my reasonable extras to cover the changes. Laying dripping wet engineering bricks in December was no fun though.

That’s a fair point, nod, dof cap. 
 

Friday I was at a very lovely 70yo customers house - part to just help fix something, part to talk politics and part for cake & coffee. 
 

Whilst there, the postie turned up. 
 

He and his mate had just painted her house. 
 

The builder that was going to do it had asked her to buy the paint and it had sat in the shed since he never bothered coming back to do the job. 
 

The postie said, you’ve got at least double what you needed there. 
 

We exchanged a knowing look and knew exactly what that caper was all about. 
 

Im a bit pissed now, that might not make any sense to anyone else....

[topchippyles]

1 minute ago, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

That’s a fair point, nod, dof cap. 
 

Friday I was at a very lovely 70yo customers house - part to just help fix something, part to talk politics and part for cake & coffee. 
 

Whilst there, the postie turned up. 
 

He and his mate had just painted her house. 
 

The builder that was going to do it had asked her to buy the paint and it had sat in the shed since he never bothered coming back to do the job. 
 

The postie said, you’ve got at least double what you needed there. 
 

We exchanged a knowing look and knew exactly what that caper was all about. 
 

Im a bit pissed now, that might not make any sense to anyone else....

Makes sense but a real man should be able to hold his ale in these discussions 🤣

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

11 minutes ago, topchippyles said:

Makes sense but a real man should be able to hold his sheep in these discussions 🤣

Agreed....  

[Mick Dempsey]

What was the caper?

[Stubby]

1 hour ago, Mick Dempsey said:

What was the caper?

Over ordering to cover another job ?

[trigger_andy]

4 minutes ago, Stubby said:

Over ordering to cover another job ?

Enough for two roofs?