Vat Registered

[pw66]

But the vat threshold is £85k - £1634 per week. Surely nearly half of that - £800 per week - is gross profit, with very few overheads? If you are earning that from your spare room why would you want all the added pressure of a shop and staff?
Assuming that premises and wages come to 'only' £25k per annum, you are going to need your pre vat sales to increase by £50k just to stand still. If your margin is less than 50% you will need to increase turnover even more.

If you are going down the bricks and mortar route, consider going as a limited company. That way you will buy yourself some time until the company reaches the vat threshold. You will still be able to reclaim much of your input vat back when you register.

[Neilb78]

I understand that PW66, the room we operating in at the moment has no capacity to fit any extra equipment and people in. When we move into new shop we will be going ltd, understand the need to turn over a lot more and will be more admin work involved. However we are constantly closing up shop, because my wife is to busy and to stay under vat threshold, so feel now is the right time to give it a good it a good go and see how far we can take the business,

[anniecov]

I started my business with one large format printer and a laptop in my dining room in 2006. Two years later I hired my first employee, now I have 11.

When we were on the flat rate scheme I constantly watched our rolling total and was really excited when we hit the threshold for full fat VAT. I saw it as a milestone not an inconvenience.

You shouldn't throttle your business because of VAT. If everything you sell is VAT'able at 20% VAT returns are really easy. I'm an accounting numpty and they take me 10 minutes. It's the one thing my accountant doesn't do for me.

The flat rate scheme will give you a rate of around 7.5% which is fairly accurate. It's a good way to ease into VAT. You maybe surprised at how many more business customers you will attract. I certainly was!

If you do go full fat VAT later, remember that you only have to increase your prices by 7.5% not the 20% that you think you would.

[Neilb78]

Yeah we are going for flat vat scheme first, 8.5% with 1 % discount in first year, had the offer accepted on the shop, accountant coming round Thursday all systems go, really excited

[5H17]

Looking at getting a load leaflets printed to put in with each order on ebay, directing them to the website with some discounts.

This is the best thing we ever did. Whilst most of our initial custom comes via eBay, every order gets a little flyer detailing the rest of what we do and directing them to our own site. Best £28 I ever spent was those flyers.

[mrs maggot]

I use quickfile for my book keeping, easy to use, and bank feeds go directly into it, so you only need to explain to it what certain things are, and it moves them all around for you. Cheaper option than some others around, and the guys that own it, are always on hand to help via the help forum, and have never been stuck yet. Customers can pay their invoices directly on line as well which is a good thing.