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Optimum Professional Services are delighted to launch the new monthly conversational series, “Optimum: LIVE!” which will provide the opportunity for you to hear from members of the Optimum team and special guests each month as they delve into a variety of subjects in light-hearted, fire-side chat style productions.
Each episode will be shot or broadcast live (yep! One take!) which means that it is not scripted or edited and has a more natural and engaging tone.
This is a https://www.visual-pr.co.uk production
Welcome to Optimum Live. We're back for episode fifteen. We're also doing this one a little bit different to the normal ones. We're not fully live. We're definitely doing this as live because hopefully you're watching this being broadcast in the evening. We've decided to do it where you've already finished your work for the day so that hopefully it's able to be digested. And this is a good one. This is a great one for this time of year. It is my co-host, I feel like I should say, rather than guest, Mike Blake. And it was your idea, this one, because starting a new business is... Quite often a mindset people have after the sort of festive break. That's it. Once everyone's stopped for a couple of weeks and they got over the Christmas lunch, they start thinking of what they want to do. It's always a time of year where we get quite busy with new businesses coming in. We've had three or four already this year of new startups, new change, change of direction. They want to do this. So it's always a good time of year to go through these ideas, what you need to be aware of and stuff. I know I was chatting earlier is that I've heard that a second time that this happens is after the summer holidays as well, where again, people have sat on the beach maybe for a week or two and kind of gone, do you know what? I want something different. I've got a brilliant idea. I'm going to go for it now. Yeah, it's that or the chaos of being with the kids off of school holidays is gone. I ain't doing this again. Very, very true. Yeah, because they do say people have the daft idea. They go, I want to be my own boss so that I can work my own hours. Well, they don't realize that that's all of them. Yeah, that's it. It's not just very few. It's a lot of them, isn't it? Okay, so people come up with an idea that they want to go and do something that probably they're highly skilled at, experienced at, whatever it might be. And we want to sort of like have a look at the things that they need to be aware of before and when starting up a new business. First of all, you posed the question, why set up? That's it. So quite often people have had these ideas. They've sat, they've woken up one night and gone, I've got a great idea. Or it's been festering for a while whenever they sit and have a pint. but it's January where they go, nah, this is it. New year, new start, let's go for it. And like you said, it is something that they either they're doing and they're employed and they want to go and do it off their own bat and be in charge of themselves. Or we get people who've just want to do it because they've never run a business before. And they go, I just want to try it. I want to go for it. And they come up with an idea that they're going to go and do, and they do it as a side hustle. And there's a lot of that at the moment. Lots of people, you read lots of things up about people doing side hustles and stuff. And you just go for it. And so what we try to do with this is to give the idea of what things you need to be aware of. So you've just got some awareness. You're not expected to take it all in and understand every little bit of it. But it's more of when you hear or get that gut feel of something happening, it's like, hang on a minute, I remember reading something about this or listening about it. So they come back and watch it or they know to ask a question. So that's what we're trying to do. And a couple of years ago, I tried to set up, and it was more me than anything else that didn't make it continue, but like a new business workshop. The idea was you set up these things to go through a little bit of a lesson over the course of six months of starting up your business. so that you had a room of people that you knew about and was in it together like a baby group or so that you all get together and go going through that what the hell do we do now kind of stage um with me dropping in some some bits of information for them to do um and this is where this idea stemmed from was that and that that first I did two out of a six workshop thing and it was all right it was good but I just didn't I didn't drive it enough but that first episode that first meeting that first module if you want to call it which is what a lot of this is about went down so well and all of those businesses that turned up to that are still trading still going well um so uh and they're to be honest they run they don't have the questions that they had at the start so we've taught them in that journey we've helped them on their journey to get to be business owners and running a business what's that phrase you don't know what you don't know Exactly. That's it. And it's and so a lot of times there'll be bits we'll talk about that references back to other other videos we've done. But sometimes they get they think they know it, but it's just a slight variation, which means that what you don't want, what you don't want to do taxes a known quantity. And it's usually tax is the problem. Tax or making money. But. If you just know what you're aiming for, you know in advance before you get to it what the costs and stuff are. So rather than being twelve months down the line forgetting what it all was and realising you've got a bit of a problem. And so it's just trying to impart that bit of knowledge so people can understand it. Because I don't remember the statistic, but there is a stat about an incredibly high number of new businesses fail within the first two years. And that's because they haven't the knowledge to plan further ahead. And I'm allowed to blow smoke at this instance, because you guys are obviously, I'm obviously from Visual PR, we do these productions. and you guys with that and a couple of other businesses have helped me out from the start. I was, I am gonna say it, I'm not gonna give any names, but I was with another accountant to start with and they literally did the accountant's thing, which I can't fault because that's what they were being tasked by me to do, but it meant that, right, can you then get all of this information through, we'll do your end of year accounts, there we go, we've done it, here they are. I'd never run a business. Yeah. So you didn't know what that terminology potentially meant or what needed to do. Exactly. I had the same thing. I asked someone to go and get some information. And even with the level of understanding that I have with clients and what they expect, I was expecting him to go off on a two-minute thing. And six hours later, he was still working on it. And I was like, oh, no, no, no. I didn't mean it like that. Hang on a minute. But that's what the danger is, is making sure that we're all talking the same language when we're going between each other. Which is why I always refer to you guys as... It's business advice as well as doing the accounts. And I guess that's to your advantage because then it gives the longevity of the businesses. Absolutely. And if I don't exist anymore, then I'm not a client anymore. Yeah, I've got to find someone else to replace you. Exactly. So it makes sense. But that includes, I used the phrase a moment ago, we don't know what we don't know. And that will include certain situations will arise that you go, I didn't realise that I needed to know that. Great, you guys are there. And so that is where we're going to work through a number of things. It's giving the confidence to ask the questions at the right time. And that we don't need to know everything straight away. And don't let that hold you back because I think as Brits, the entrepreneurial spirit is massive and something that makes me very proud to be British is that I think we're very strong with that. And I never liked seeing that being stifled at all. Yeah, that's it. I think it really makes sense. Okay. So that's the why we would set up. You raise a big question. Have you made a business plan? We did an episode. I think it was episode eight, busting myths of business plans. Because, and I've had the same, is that in my mind, that is this, oh my gosh, that's like a hugely specific, complicated thing. And it doesn't need to be. No, I think with any idea, you need a form of plan. To know where you're going to. If you don't have an idea of where you're going to, you don't know whether what you're doing at that moment in time is on that right journey or the wrong journey or you're nearly making it. So it's always one of those, like starting a new business, that initial phase is really tough. Putting the hours in, trying to market it, trying to... Wearing a whole load of hats. You've got them all on there. Yeah, absolutely. So if you can... have a plan that when that gets tough you can go that's alright I can see where I'm going I can see that I'm getting close to the end then it's okay some people like to wing it and that's fine there's always going to be people out there the people who can turn up on an exam day at school and not do any research or revision and stuff and still smash it that was never me But I could go and do an exam and smash it, but I need to do quite a few hours of work. Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think that even in those early stages, could that be as simple as let's go, right, this is the business plan. This is what I'm able to create and sell or provide as a service. This is what the pricing that I believe will work for that. I believe that I can be selling this money. I know I'm going to have these costs, i.e. me, if I need premises or whatever. Because that gives you a foundation. I've really made that very crude and basic. But that's what it is, though. You're then able to sort of grow it from that, aren't you? Yeah, and it's... someone's plan will be different whether it's a side hustle or whether it's the main income because if it's the main income then it's got to pay the mortgage so there's already a certain amount that you have to get on with whereas if it's a side hustle you've got more reinvestment time yeah you've got longer maybe to get it to grow so you can do the right thing sometimes when you it's got to be the main income you do things that in the long term you won't continue to do but someone's there offering you some money to do it so you go It's not quite what I want to be doing, but I will do it because I need to make the ink. And that's where reality comes in. And you've got against a book, a textbook. And that's what it's just understanding that you just have to go sometimes with what works rather than what was the initial bit. But again, if you've got the goal, you know, actually, I'll do this for a while. I'm not going off the path a little bit, but that enables me to get to here while I tootle around working on the bit underneath. And I think if I think back, and I say think back, even if I'm going to sort of like diversify as well, I think we go through the same sort of thought processes. But one of the biggest ones that always struck me is like going, how for this business plan do you expect me to actually know how much business is going to come in? Yeah. How can I categorically know? And that was a thing that always used to sort of like put me off the whole business plan. But it's like, no, it is exactly right. And you work that out. And I don't know whether this is right or not, probably not knowing me, but is that I always used to go, right, how long can I go without any of that coming in? Yeah. And that's it. What war chest have you got? And so if it's a side hustle, you don't need it as income to start with, you've got longer. That's why the side hustle is so prevalent now, isn't it? Because people can just top up. And there's lots of different industries out there. Haven't the government even caught on to that and sort of like going after the side hustles a bit more? Yeah, they're just reminding people that even if it's a side hustle, if there's still a motive to make money, then it's income, it's taxable. But what people then got hepped up about is like, well, I'm just selling my kids clothes, like a few items on eBay or Vinted. And it's like, hang on a minute. Yeah, it still goes back down to what's called the badgers of trade. where what are you aiming to do? Are you aiming to make money or are you just sort of selling off some bits? So the same rules still apply. Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. So make sure you do go back and watch episode eight, Busting Myths of Business Plans, because we do go into the business plan in more detail there. And any questions, that's the essence where I started this from, is just come and speak to you guys about it. Okay, what about the different types of business structure that we could be looking at? Yeah, so again, I didn't check which module video we've done on this, but we talked about limited company LLPs and stuff. So in short, you've got a sole trader where essentially you register with HMRC yourself. And you go and earn some money or make some losses, whichever it is. So and that's fine. It's all on you. The risk is on you. So if you don't, there's no protection of risk. So if you go and make a load of losses and you can't afford to pay for it, your own assets are on the line to pay for it. And that's where you can get people go bankrupt and stuff. Yeah. You then get a limited company. So that's where it's like a baby for you, a kid. You look after it and you run a business. It's not you, it's over there and you get paid for running this business. That's the most popular that people go for. However, with the changes of taxes, I think it's going to, For the smaller businesses, it's going to come a little bit less appealing. Yes, because that was the episode, wasn't it? Because that was news to me, the LLP, that I always thought was just like solicitors and things like that, when it's like, no, LLP is becoming a more attractive product. That's it. So now LLP is a form of partnership, so it has to be more than... two or more people that go into business together, but it's to protect that risk. So if something goes wrong, it's protected in an LLP rather than an old fashioned partnership, as we call them, a traditional partnership where you're financially still at risk anyway. So it's like halfway between a sole trader and a limited company or a partnership and a limited company where it's got that bit of protection, but it's still not a formal company. And so the mechanics of how they run a little bit are a bit different. But people can look back over those before what we've done. But to be honest, at the moment, limited companies are still the most popular because it's simple. Most new startups are one person doing it rather than a pair. So they can't go down the LLP route anyway, unless it's like wives or spouses, husbands coming on. So then it's, you go with, it's a limited company, but they want the protection of risk. So therefore that's why they go limited company rather than a sole trader. Yes. So most of the way through the rest of the episode, we'll talk about it being from a limited point of view, because I think it covers most bases that people are looking at. And would you advise that if someone's kind of got the, right, I want to set up my own business, is that to even come and speak to you guys about, before you've even made that definitive decision. I think so. It's always worth a conversation because, again, don't know what you don't know. There's certain things that can work well. There's certain things that people might go set up and go, you don't need a limited company. You don't need all that. You've got minimal risk. You've got a small bit of contract or something, work like that. Just pop it on your tax return at the end of the year. It's nice and simple. Yeah. Makes sense. Okay, so as you say, we're going to assume limited company. I love the way you've worded this, actually, as a question. What are the roles one has? That's very posh of you, Mike. Michael. Yeah, that's him, Michael. Yeah, I'm not sure where that came from. It was just one of those afternoons. There was no Wurzel in there, was there? No, you got rid of the Wurzel at last there. But yeah, what are the... It's been chat GCP. The role... What are the roles that exist within a limited company that you'd need to consider? So typically it's a one person ownership running it. Okay. So you have first hat, you're a director of the company. So you're an employee of the business in charge of running that business for the best interest of the people who own it. Okay. take that hat off, put the next one on, that's you, you're a shareholder, you own the business, you have shares in the company, usually a hundred one pound shares you own, it's like most common, you could be out one share, it doesn't matter, right? And it's like pieces of the cake. So you either got one piece or you've got a hundred pieces, but you own it all, you got the whole cake. And so there's two roles. but you're still one person. And that's where it gets a little bit like people get a bit confused when they're starting to bring in other people because they're trying to bring in people maybe as owners to get dividends. Dividends are paid to shareholders and that's a payment of profit after tax of the company. but actually they're calling them directors. Directors is the employed role over here. And so the term of directors and shareholders gets moved about as if it's the same thing, but it is very different. You can be one without the other, which again is news to some people. So you could put someone on as the director to run a business, but they don't own the business. So you have the people who are... directors of Tescos. They're not the people who own it because they're a PLC company. Everyone's got the little bits here and there in it. And that's where it is. You've got to think of the limited company rule applies for... small business earning thirty grand a year and someone turning over two hundred and fifty million pounds it's still the same setup and the same rules so again that's what makes it some to some people scary but actually it's still fine because even though it's the same rules you can still make it work for you as an individual yes that makes sense I mean, obviously, you could get two people coming together that, you know, complementary skill sets or knowledge. Yeah, usually you get, I've been friends with this person for ages. We're going to go into business together. I've only got a couple of friends that have actually still made it as a business. It starts well and then it ends badly. And that's a friendship and a business that's gone. Yeah. And I think another one that I hear that's common is, I have no idea whether this should be aired or not, but is with your spouse, is a sort of... No, sorry, forty-nine, fifty-one percent either. Yeah, or fifty-fifty, doesn't sort of matter. Even if they're not physically... But they'll commonly be a director of the company. Yeah. So they're still holding a role of responsibility and stuff. Like, say, for me, is that I've got a sounding board. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. So as a role of the company, you're still in charge of doing it. You're still culpable if things go wrong as a director. Because then you've got, and I'm not going to take us down this rabbit hole because you've got A and B shares and things like that. That's it. And people come to me with questions and what I tend to say is that, look, that's fine. I can look after those bits in the background. It's more important that you do the running that you do from your seat properly. Otherwise you don't exist. Make money. We can work on this bit that takes that stress away so you don't have to work all this out. Focus on making money from the business. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so, and that is an interesting distinction, isn't it? Directors and shareholders being a difference there. And that can change as well, further down the line as well, isn't it? Don't need to panic about that. I would say in the last two or three months, I've had several changes in the business. One that was finalised last night with someone. was to bring in people into the business to run it and part own it and stuff like that. So those things can change whenever. And I guess the reason why I went down that comment was to go, Don't think you've got to decide everything. It's like you've made your bed, you lie in it forever and ever and ever now. And that's a really important bit that's come up quite often where people don't like the company name and they want to change it. So they make a new company because they want that name. And it's like, no, that's okay. You can go to company sales and you can pay, I think it's thirty three pounds now. to change your name and that will update everything. But people think that once you've chosen it, that's it and it's done. The only thing that stays the same is the company number. That's the only thing that stays the same. The name can change and you can go onto people's things and you can see the list of all the name changes. They're all there so people can see the history of it. but it's the company number that will always stay the same. So even if you go as ABC Limited, get a contract with someone and then change the name, the contract's still to the company number. Got you, okay. So again, if down the line the business changes from what it was when you first set it up, then you can change the name. You don't have to set a whole new business. So again, it takes the pressure away of going, I've got to think of the perfect name today. You don't have to. Which I would be a massive advocate of because I have openly said I've learned my business even more each year. It doesn't mean I was an idiot from the get-go, but the more you're doing it, you kind of go, Now that we're doing that, we could also be doing this or that actually that's the better way to wrap it up or whatever from your original nucleus of an idea. And it's like, it's okay to let it breathe. Yeah, and that's what new businesses are known for is being able to pivot. Yes. Rather than being a boat in the ocean moving slowly. You can just go, actually, I want to go that way now. That's the whole benefit of a small business. That's where their advantages are. And suddenly change and go, I want to go and do this or I want to change it or do completely different. And I know, and I don't suppose we'll go into too much detail on this, there probably isn't that much to say, you're also able to throw trading names at your business at a later date as well. Yeah. That says, still the limited company is... ABC Limited, but you also want to trade as XYZ. Yeah, we do the same. We trade as Optimum, but our official name is Regulatory Accounting Limited. Who I was with originally as well. Yeah, that's it. But everyone knows us as Optimum. The branding is all Optum, and that's our trading name. But if you look at the formal paperwork, it states the limited company name. And that's purely a legacy thing, isn't it? And it just not always makes sense to change the name. And I think that's good, to know that the flexibility's in there. okay I feel like I'm about to pull a pin now um what oh no I will pull a pin this one as well We talked about shareholders and that one of the ways that you get paid as a shareholder is dividends. Not one of the ways, I've probably worded that wrong. No, as a shareholder you can only get paid as dividends. But you've put a big important bracket in there that I've learned along the way is that you need to be making a profit to be paying dividends because it is different to a salary that is all about if the cash is there then you pay. It's not about cash, is it, with dividends? No, it's about the profit. So typically the most efficient way is to have a small salary and the rest is dividends when you get paid. So you get a small salary on your director's pay, dividends on your shareholder ownership. to most people it drops into the bank account interpersonal bank account to pay the mortgage the same way yeah but it means two different things salary fine that's an expense of the company it goes out as long as you've got the money to pay it pay it dividends is a payment of profit after tax so you start with your turnover come down with your costs including your salary you get to a net profit that's what corporation tax is paid on so we'll come to that in a minute and then you get this profit after tax and that's the maximum amount you can pay dividends on Now, if you say one year you made ten grand after tax, you only paid two grand of dividends. That rolls forward that you can use that to pay that out next year. Oh, really? Yeah. So you always got it's like a year to date from when you start to now of how much profits haven't yet been spent on dividends. However, just because you've got twenty grand in the bank, if you've only got ten grand of profit after tax and you take the twenty, you take them too much money and you've got a problem. Which I want to put that into context. It is a problem that needs to be resolved. But it's not suddenly like if you took thirty and you tried to take thirty and you only had twenty grand of cash. That's a big, big issue. It can get it gets resolved and you work it all out. It goes on the director's loan account or as you call it, the naughty boy tax. And that thing has to be whittled down with making more profit to bring that back down the following year. Because what you've ended up doing is you've borrowed next year's profit. So when you make next year's profit, if you go and spend it again and take it out, then you keep this perpetual problem. So it is remembering that you might have a really good year. So like in the first year of trading, you don't pay any corporation tax. doesn't mean that you don't incur it yeah so that money in theory should be at the end of the year in your bank account yeah and if you've looked at it and got really excited because you saw five grand in the bank account you can I'm gonna have myself a bonus you spent the tax money not dividend money and that's where most people fall into into a trap because they they see the money there and assume Cash in the bank. I can spend it. But you can't necessarily. And it's not surprising because we are brought up with the mantra, cash is king. And it's like, not quite true. Profit is king. And people hear from their mates down the pub that when they go into business, you don't pay tax for the first eight months. Yes. Absolutely correct. You don't physically pay tax for the first eight months. But if you're a sole trader... you'll pay eighteen months of tax when you've been in business for about twenty months, right? So that's a whole load of tax you've got to pay at that point if you haven't saved for it from the day you started earning it. In a company, you pay twelve months of tax after nine. But again, you don't pay the next bit for another year, but it still means you can't spend it on yourself. And it's just, it's getting awareness. And with the new businesses that start up, they're like, so how do I do this? How do I do it? It's like, that's fine. I said, let me worry about that. Let you worry about running the business. We'll check your profit and loss every month. We'll check that you'll make, because most people are on a software now, QuickBooks Zero, free agent, right? So we can log in and see, right? Quick snapshot, we can see how much money you're making. I can then tell you whether you've taken too much. And then we can do it in the next six months of the same year, counting year, rather than going, oh, yeah, we can't really do much with it now. Your year's passed. You're already in trouble. So what we'll do is we'll do that handholding. And people, when they realize that they can trust us, then it takes all that pressure away of making sure the payments are right. The number of people that come in when they've been a bit panicky, I've been told this, I've been told I'm going to go to jail because I haven't got this money, the wife's read this on the internet, and you go, hang on a minute, let's have a look at it. And then you explain to them that it's all okay, right? Yeah, you have got a bit of a problem, so let's spread it out over this period of time. And then... I can physically see people just go, oh, okay. And we can become whatever you want to call us, like the guardian angel, hold your hand all the way through. For me, that was the critical difference is that I got a set of accounts through after my first year, maybe second year, I can't remember now, of trading one of my other businesses. And it had on there, director's loan account. And I don't remember, it was four figures. I didn't know what that was, and they never drew my attention to it either. Nothing, it was just like, there you go, there's your end of year accounts. And it was the legendary Richard Matthews, when it was regulatory accounting, who I believe you saw yesterday. Hopefully I'll catch up at some point. who was recommended to me by another one of your clients and he came in and he had my not long published set of accounts and he went, I'm a bit concerned about that. I went, what? And he explained what it was and my stomach hit the floor, absolutely hit the floor because I was like going, where do I magic that money from? And he said, relax. now we make a plan. And I think within twelve months or eighteen months or something like that, gone. Yeah, and that's it. These are little things with running a company that you're not going to know. Correct. And that's why... We're not doing it deliberate. We're not fleecing anyone. It's like going, originally I was told I'd do it that way. And most of the time, as long as the business doesn't go bust... actually, you'll come out good at the end of it. So if you run for ten years and you're always nicking the tax money, next year's tax money, when you get to the end and you're not trading and you've got to pay that tax bill, that tax bill's coming out of your pocket because you'll go and clear it. So by the end of it, most businesses all get settled up anyway. It's just in the middle as it goes along. And it only becomes a problem if... you've taken too much money out and you haven't paid Jim over there for the stuff you've had. Absolutely. That's when it comes a little bit differently. But if it's along the way, it will always sort it out. And that's what, again, it might be a bit painful in the short term, but in the long term, it'll sort itself out. And it's just understanding where and how far along the journey you are to sorting it. Yeah, because I even... So the company paid the director's loan bill. I don't know what the official name is. That's what I call it. Yeah. and then the following year I got it back again yeah because I did enough profit that not only made that year fine but it's only it's like it's like a a payment on account to hmrc yeah of some respect it's there until you repay it and then they'll go that's right we'll give it back you know which from memories was it that comes off the corporation tax yeah you can yeah because it's all part of corporation tax bill yeah I know december's horrible um but uh yes and so so that's important and I guess I think We've gone off on a very specific tangent there, but I think it is one of the most important ones. What I'm emphasizing as a neutral here is that that's where have the knowledge and the confidence to say, look, you don't need to know all the answers. You don't need to remember all those answers. The support is there, and you guys actually work on a proactive basis, a more regular basis than once a year, let's do your accounts. I've got someone who I don't really see too much, but twice a year before we do the end of year accounts, he'll phone up and just go, He'd be driving between jobs and he's like, could you just let me know what my profit is and what tax I'm looking at at the moment? So you can go on and I spend ten minutes, fifteen minutes putting the world to rights whilst we're doing that. I'm just churning some numbers through, checking it out. I give him the figure and he goes away because he was a warrior before. He used to not sleep at night because he wasn't sure what tax bill. And he would wait and wait and wait. And in his previous account, he used to give him the bill two months before it was due. Whereas now, he knows how much to be putting away, so whenever it gets to it, he actually pays the bill three months after his end of year, six months early, because he just goes, I just want it gone. I don't want to pay it. I don't need it in my account. I don't want it. If I've got to pay it, I'd rather it go now, rather than accidentally spending it and then having a problem. But he rests easy. Exactly. Knowledge. We could be in a dark room, not sure what's out there. Our mind will create the worst case scenario. Whereas if we know categorically what is out there, you're fine, you're relaxed. And that's what the signing board from us is, is that we're that peace of mind. It's all right, everything's fine. Peace of mind, translator and informer. You know, just keeping us informed. That's where I sit, which is why I know I wrap it up in sort of almost business advisor, which I know is not a phrase that you... categorically use but for me as a business owner is that that was the important thing and and to bring it now back to this episode in terms of excuse me starting a new business and again I've already said I'm a massive advocate of the entrepreneurial spirit is you know absolutely don't let your concern about yes but I've never run one how does that work how does that work Come to you with the idea. We'll talk you through it. And I say to clients, in that first year, you'll have a lot of questions. And that's fine. I'm aware of that. I've looked after many new startups. So I know how the process works, how many times you're going to ask a question in the first year. But like I said, the ones that went on this little course I'd done two years ago, I might speak to them a few times a year because they understand it. I've taught them the knowledge. They know how to go about things. They also know not to panic about stuff because they know we're keeping an eye on things. Absolutely. And so we'll go to them if there's a problem because we'll be doing their VAT returns. We're looking at it quarterly, if not in between. So as a bare minimum, we're looking at it quarterly. The bookkeeping team know to flag anything that looks a bit strange or doesn't quite stack up properly. So then we'll have a conversation with them. No, it's ideal. I find that it's not slopey-shouldering and suddenly going, great, you just get on with it, you're the expert. Possibly a mistake I made in those early first year or two is going, well, my accountants are doing it. Yes, but actually it pays to be learning from you as it's going. But don't feel that I need to know absolutely everything. You guys are the ones that are the knowledgeable ones. What you won't realise is how much you're picking up as we're going through the process. If we're a couple of chats a year, one before the year end, one after the year end to go through the accounts, at a minimum there's probably three or four touch points there in the first year or eighteen months of trading. you're not realising how much, once you do that first set of accounts, it all comes together and people understand what it means, how it works. Much more naturally than in, say, a classroom environment, because it's in context to your business. Learn by experience. Yeah, exactly right. Okay, the other pin I'm going to pull then, we have sort of slightly touched on it already, taxes that you need to be aware of. Now, we've mentioned, we've thrown in things like corporation tax, VAT, I think we kind of mentioned the income tax, but some of those businesses, some of those people, there's a lot that we need to be aware of. It's one of the things you've got to accept when you start a business. If you're VAT registered as well, you're going to be paying HMRC quite a few times a year. It'll feel like every month. It'll feel regular. Yes, that is right. You are paying them. And it's for all different things. So if we start with one that a company should always be paying is your corporation tax because you made a profit. We're working with business. We're helping them out. We're making a profit. We're not making losses. So we get your profit, okay? So for every first fifty thousand pounds that a company makes of profit, so that's your sales, less your expenses, okay? So a lot of people can get concerned that the corporation tax is charged on how much money comes in through the door. Yeah. It's actually, it's the net of what you've done to make it. So if you think, if you made a widget, you sold it, you bought it for a pound, you sold it for two, you made a pound of profit. That's what's chargeable to tax, okay? Not the two quid that came in, right? Yeah. So you make your profit and you pay tax. So your first fifty thousand pound of profit is taxed at nineteen percent. OK, and then you've got when your profits over two hundred and fifty thousand, you pay twenty five percent. OK, now the bit in between that most people haven't realized so much is that in between there for every pound between the fifty and two fifty. you're actually paying twenty six point five P tax or twenty six and a half percent tax. So you're paying quite a heavy amount. So where income tax goes, you earn up and then when you go over the next pound is the next bit, like the next rate and not all of it. Yeah. Corporations tax changes. So effectively that pound extra is charged at twenty six and a half percent. So. So the way they suggested the tax changes, these bits, is that the big businesses will pay twenty five percent, small businesses pay nineteen percent. Factually correct. Very political. But what they haven't said is how expensive it is in the middle bit. Yeah. The same as if you're you're on the thresholds between um on income tax and we won't that won't go down a rabbit one there's certain bits it's like effective rate of sixty five percent and stuff right people just don't haven't really they never publicize that no but we know that so we've got to try and explain that and understand it but so corporation taxes that nineteen percent if you earn up to fifty k profit heavier heavier amount of tax after that right yeah but again It's a byproduct, okay? It's the same as if you sold this widget for two pound, it cost you a pound. If it's cost you one pound, ten, you put your price up. Yes. Or you try and be more efficient, something like that. So tax becomes a cost to the company, like an overhead. It's always there. It's a percentage of your profit. So if that percentage increases, Therefore, to make the same money at the bottom, you've got to tweak the product mix. So that's either pushing the price up, cutting some costs to make sure that the amount at the end is still the same. Because if you were earning thirty grand after the tax bill and then the tax bill goes up and you were there earning twenty eight. Well, that's not great because you were living off of that money. Yeah. So it's understanding that it's just a cost. And if you work it back up, you work out what you've got to do to your product mix and your machine to make your money. And that is something I've heard in conversation with yourself and the rest of the team here at Optimum, is that you've been very proactive with a number of clients from what I hear, where it's like kind of going, right, if you're still wanting that... what you need to do is go and do this much more sales or save this much money. It's not just the black and white of this is what it is. You're still able to then translate that to kind of go, okay, but this was your important figure. The increased tax has now meant that it's down here, and it isn't always a linear equation, is it? But you guys are able to process that. And so we then sit there as the business owners and go, okay, I need to go and get X amount of thousands of pounds more. The government's kind of banked on it in this latest budget. I'm not going to get political at all, but they are banking on the fact that as business people, we will always find a way to trade through. Yep. And we've all seen the headline points and gone, oh my God, we did it in one of the earlier episodes, the budget review, where you did the maths, you did the work in maths. And it was like, I've got to find thirty, fifty grand more a year. And you go, that's just impossible. Where am I managing that from? But most businesses will. Yeah, because we'll go and find a way to trade more. When your back's against, as a small business, when your back's against the wall, There's two approaches. Roll over, let it all go. Yeah. Or pull your sleeves up and get on with it. Yeah. But the mistake I think we make is that we go, where am I going to find, I don't know, let's just use an arbitrary figure, thirty thousand pounds in a year. I haven't got thirty thousand pounds down the back of a sofa to find. That's the mentality we have is that I've got to find. Whereas it's like, no, no, no, go and do thirty thousand pounds worth. of more business, whether that's diversification, whether it's like, right, let's go for this. I've always believed things like recessions and even to a lesser extent, summer holidays and Christmas period can be a self-fulfilling prophecy where we go, oh, it's not worth the effort because everybody's off or it's a recession or whatever, whatever, whatever. It's like, well, actually, you're now putting in a quarter of the effort. Are you surprised that the business... It might mean that you've got to work twice as hard to get the same amount of business, but it's still there. And they're banking on us trading through. But I will come back to the wonderful entrepreneurial spirit we have, that it still makes me kind of encourage anybody that has got a business idea, go for it. Look how many people in lockdown pivoted their business because they had to. Back was against the wall. Their income stream had gone. Absolutely. But actually, how many businesses came out of that growing? Loads of them because they went, oh, I need to earn some money because I need to pay my bills. I need to live. No one else is going like this for it. So let's go and do something. Correct. And I found another one that's really happened as a result of things like that and the new budget fear for people was collaboration or take it to the nth degree is even mergers has been a big one where you kind of go, actually, do you know what? We shouldn't be separate entities. We should be together. So we end up relaxed as collaboration or... Yeah, and the benefit of that comes, some of the overheads can disappear and therefore you can get the benefits together. Yeah, that's it. I mean, I'm getting way ahead of ourselves and off the sort of new business, but what I'm always trying to do is put people's minds at rest and say there's so many options there that are available. It's just understanding the business. And so that's it. So once you've accepted that corporation tax bill is there, hopefully, things can change it. And we, as a process at Optum, we always do, we try to do this review after about nine months of the accounts. So we can see where the business is going so that we go, look, this is what a tax bill you're looking to have come the end of the year. What things do you want to, these are the options available to you. There used to be a whole book of tricks that you could do to save tax. There isn't. They all involve generally spending a bit of money to save tax. So it's one of those that the business needs a new van. Okay, buy it on the last day of the year, not the first day of the next year. So you just speed up that tax relief as a cost and stuff. And there's little bits like that that we'll talk through to explain. Sometimes it might be pension contributions, absolutely. But I think people got to realise that if they want to take money out of the business to live on, there has to be a tax bill. Absolutely. At some point. It might not be in the first year, but it will be in year two and three, right? So I think once people get over that thing of, I don't want to pay any tax, okay, well, don't make any money then. Hence, I remember Rich's comment used to be, you know, let's not chase the dragon. If you're going to pay tax, pay tax and be proud that you're making enough money to need to. Yeah, and that's it. That tax bill comes as just a cost. You can put it in a cost in a P&L. And I remember in one of the earlier episodes, Rob, and I forget the figure, and I wanted to actually double check this again, is that we're saying that put a percentage away in a separate account so that you've got your corporation tax bill sat there ready, or most of it at the very least. And that's where these new bank accounts, challenger banks, do really good things, because you can put it in your space, your pot, and you put a percentage in. So if you put in fifteen, sixteen percent of every bit that came through, at least it might not be perfect, but it's a darn sight closer than having zero saved. And it takes it out of there and it's not there flashing at you, spend me, spend me. It's just gone. As humans, we always live right up and sometimes slightly past our means, don't we? Yeah, there's a lot of that because of the culture. You can pay for stuff monthly. Well, people think rich people have loads of disposable cash. No, they don't. They borrow a lot. But they're just spending right up. They've just spent more. We always will live to our means. I apologize. I'm probably tiring everyone with the same brush there. But you get the idea. And we do the same with business. So even if you're sitting there going, I can't afford to put, you know, sixteen, eighteen, twenty percent, whatever, away. It's like, yeah, you can. If that's the way it is, then you know you've got that cash. You work it into your model that it can afford to do that. Yeah. And then it's there. Exactly. Okay, that's corporation tax. Yep. VAT, now I find that an interesting one in the fact that I don't think I was advised... I, from day one, went VAT registered. And that was purely... not an ego thing, but as in I thought that it would look more professional to bigger clients if I was VAT registered. Because in my head, little business, because you don't have to do it until you're up to, which I'll come on to. But you have a choice of not being VAT registered or choosing to be VAT registered. And there's pros and cons for both, isn't there? Yeah, and that's part of what we'll do is we'll tell you why it would work or why it wouldn't. But typically what people got to understand and just have the little nugget of information in their mind is that it's on when the money comes in from customers exceeds ninety thousand pounds, right? So people typically go, right, I'll measure that from accounts to accounts. And that's not profit, that's actual revenue. Money coming in through a customer. So even if a customer, you're a builder and a customer gives you twenty thousand pounds for materials and the rest is labour, it's the whole thing coming through. It's not just a bit that's your profit or the labour or anything like that. It's everything that comes through from the customers to yourself. Now, it's ninety thousand pounds, it's on a rolling twelve months. That still freaks me out, that part. Yeah, and so these are the bits that I, in this first course, I had some white faces and bits like that, but the good thing is, two of the people in that room have kept a little tracker running, and one of them messaged me the other day to say, this is where I'm at, so I'm getting closer, but I've had a little plan, I think I'm all right for a bit. Another one's gone, no, I watched the tracker, I've now gone over, I'm now VAT registered, right? So they took that information in. So it's a roll in twelve, so essentially you go- Not the financial year, it is a roll in twelve. Yeah, so you go for the last complete twelve months, And then you go forward a month, you take the oldest one off, but the newest one on and you keep going like that. And then the minute that goes over ninety, typically you're going to be VAT registered, right? There's all sorts of different things where you might not have to be depending on where your sales are and stuff like that. We don't, again, that gets picked up on a conversation. We understand the business and we know what we're doing. We know what type of sales you're doing. We'll advise you whether you are that or not, or whether you need to be aware of it. Now, like you said, the bit about should you or shouldn't you, up until that ninety thousand, you don't have to. It's not compulsory. HMRC won't force you to. But it may be beneficial to you. It may be beneficial because of status and image and impression. It might be because actually your customer is a business customer. So your costs at your buy in, you can get all the VAT back. Yes. And your prices don't go up to the customer because They're a business. They're VAT registered. They claim it back. You might be working for the domestic world. So therefore, if you go VAT registered before you need to, you just put your prices up twenty percent. Right. Yeah. So if you're not who's not claiming, they can't do anything with it. So at that point, if you think you can get away with that, you might go, well, actually, let's just put my prices up twenty percent until I get to the point of VAT registered and earn some extra profit to put in the bank for later. And so it's all these different things. And we'll pick up that. We'll pick up those conversations. And you back register someone? Yeah, we do all that. So again, these new startups we've done, we've gone back to registration from the start because it was right for them. With the costs and stuff they had coming in, the customer that they had. the customers, it was absolutely fine to do it. The bookkeeping team look after them, the vats get done, they put the money in the pot that we say to on the spaces, so when we get to their first one and we tell them how much vat to go, it's just gonna move out of their space or their pot from their online account, bank account, pay HMRC. no hassle and in the meantime there should always be some profit there left over that makes it worthwhile doing and that was another one I've learned is that have the separate account to put the vat in because you pay that quarterly yeah that obviously is right there's the vat that I've claimed on my invoices but I've paid that much fat out works itself out and says you owe x thousands of pounds once a quarter uh it's all digital these days so that's it If you're doing your bookkeeping online and it just go in, or we're doing your bookkeeping and just ticking it over, you should, in theory, be able to log on and go, worst case, that's what my VAT is. That's fine. I'll make sure that I've got that aside so it's not this panic coming up to the VAT. Because otherwise the cash becomes the false confidence, doesn't it? Because you're sat there with that much in, and it's like actually only that much of it is yours. Yeah, it sits there as a neon sign going, spend me, look at me, it's great. One client, it made huge profits and he was like, what should I do with all this money? I was like, you just put it in a savings account for now because it's not yours. Or if you spend it, you know at this point, this is the date you've got to have it back in. And if you're investing it and doing stuff, it's got to be back in here. You might have just been paraphrasing there, but can companies have savings accounts? Yep. Really? Yep, yep. So, yeah, you can have savings accounts. You don't have to just have it in your current account. You can have savings, you can have shared investments and stuff like that. So some people I've got that put their money into the stock market and do that just to try and, whilst they're holding it on behalf of HMRC and it's not due to them, try and make a bit of money in the meantime. Yeah. Naturally, you need to look at that because if the money goes down... Where is it going to come from? No, exactly right. But some people do that. They look at that and work with their financial advisors to see what the best way of doing is for that. Cool. Okay. I know that was a tangent, but that was an interesting one, that one. Okay, so and we've got episode thirteen, which was in December, I think it was. We did the VAT pitfalls. Yeah, that was like a refresher on that. And I think it was episode one where we talked about the challenges of actually even getting VAT registered. That was two years ago now. I know, that's mad, isn't it? In my old office as well, by the way. And... Has that streamlined? We don't need to go into this. Yeah, it's a hell of a lot better now. Because there was a big backlog, wasn't there? I wouldn't say there's a problem now. Fabulous. That's great news. So have a look at episode one, but know that it's okay now. Okay, some other ones. Income tax. I'm going to make a jump to the next one. National insurance. Yeah. So you start your business, go and great guns. You get your first employee. You're going to put them on the payroll, give them a pay slip for the pay. So the things to be aware of there is that if their salary is, say, three grand a month, that's where it starts. We'll do the calculations of how much tax you take off the employee, how much national insurance to take off. But the thing to be aware of is that you pay as a company, employers national insurance on top of their salary. So it's from April, it's going to be on an annual salary that's over five grand, you're going to pay fifteen percent on it. So it's quite a bit. But for those small businesses, those new startups, typically three staff on minimum wage, you won't pay any of this national insurance because you get a bit of a credit for free. the thing to be aware of is if you've got more than that or you've got some higher earning staff that you might have to have an extra cost on on their salary so it's not just the gross salary you're going to have the national insurance bill on top you're also going to have pensions as well that you need to be aware of now again uh liz in the payroll team she could look after all your payroll run those things for you and essentially all you've got to do well you don't have to do that on one of the several of our clients we got um we actually got a system that sets up to Once you've approved the payroll, the payments will automatically go out on the morning of the payroll to the staff. So again, that's for when you get a bit bigger. I think if you've got one or two, you don't need it really. But those, again, national insurance. Now, as an individual, as a director, we talk about this small salary. There's a couple of reasons for the small salary that you get and dividends. One, you've got personal allowance to use up that's tax-free earnings. and say you get a ten grand salary, you earn that tax-free, the ten grand saves tax in the company because it brings your profit down. But the other thing to do is you want to salary the thresholds about six grand, where if you earn over that, you get a stamp, a tick in a box, this is state pension, right? It's really important that that happens because otherwise if you run your business for twenty years, you get towards retirement and go, great, I haven't got a state pension because it wasn't done. So we go through any new businesses to check it. Why have you not got a salary? Or if you have, what's your pension credit? Because we've seen it too many times where we've taken over clients and they haven't actually got their state pension working. So that's another reason. It's like a national insurance credit. And so a lot of clients will come to us and say, oh, we're not actually paying any national insurance. Is our pension okay? Absolutely. We make sure it's happening and it's fine. To double check, you can load into your personal tax account with HMRC. Go in there, fill out the details, and it will give you your state pension forecast, all your years that you've got. And then you can see from there firsthand that the salaries we're doing match. Got it. So that's quite important to know for later on, because we're all hoping these businesses set up and you run them for ten, fifteen years. So they need to be running right. And again, we do this. Most clients don't even know that it happens in the background because we're just the payroll gets run. It appears on the tax return, appears in the accounts. We're just tidying all that up. We're taking all that stress away and we just look after it for you. No, absolutely. Okay. So there's national insurance. Do we go back to income tax? Yeah, that one's fine. So income tax. Okay. So you've got your limited company. It's paid you a salary. So that's come over the line into your personal bank account. And then you've been paid some dividends. Okay. Because you've got some profit after tax and you've paid it over. Okay. So this money has come over the line and come to you personally. Okay. So you... you pay income tax on what income you personally receive. So although you pay tax in the company, you do pay personal tax on any income. All right. So let's say you have a twelve and a half grand salary. OK, so that's use your personal allowance up and then you get the round twenty eight grand, let's say of eighteen. I was going to go within my head. eighteen grand of dividends okay so that those dividends incur another tax called income tax and that's at eight point seven five percent yeah okay when it go when your total earnings goes over fifty grand then it jumps to thirty three point seven five right so that's where then the taxes start ramping up a bit because you paid twenty to twenty five percent or so in the company you then got if you're higher rate you're paying a chunk more as well but again it's fine because it's a tax is just a byproduct as long as you know where it is you either have to earn a little bit more so you can put the money aside for the tax or don't take as much So it's one or the other. So again, we're always talking you through it. We all understand. So most people will set up roughly on a fifty K package and go, right, this is how much you take out a month. This is to keep the tax the most efficient. If you want to earn more, not a problem. We're not telling you not to. These are the amounts that you've got to put away this extra. Got you. And so that people are aware, whereas most of the time the under-fifty, we can make it work quite nicely. But again, people come in and go, I want to earn a hundred grand. That's fine. If you're making the money, you've got to pay the tax. And again, just put the money aside. We'll tell you how much it is to put aside. And when those tax bills come, it's not a problem. It might be a bit painful paying it all in one go, but it's come out of a bank account you've already saved for. But what I'm really picking up on there from, you know, learning if I'm looking to start and therefore grow a business is that going I wouldn't just suddenly wake up and go, do you know what? If I'm sure there's enough cash in there, I'm going to now pay myself that much. It's like it actually pays to speak to you guys and go, I want to now pay myself this. What's the landscape look like? Should I? Shouldn't I? What do I need to do, et cetera? Because there's checks and balances everywhere, isn't there? And you guys are on the ball enough to be able to work that out for us. We can look down with pretty much any set of accounts and give a rough idea of where we are and where things are, what taxes, what you can do, what you can take. We don't have to go and do full-blown accounts to work it out because QuickBooks and Xero is running a lot of that stuff for you. And you hear people say, well, it's doing it all for you. It's doing the core bit. It's like with the AI and stuff. It's doing that core bit of stuff for you. It's then how you use it. It's how you use it. And that's where we're key at Optima. We can take all that information And we can translate it to you so you can go, right, that's the bits I need to know. I don't need to know about all the rest of it. Those are the key bits. Off I go. Lovely. Because at the end of the day, you've got to go back to run your business. It's a new business. It's like a baby. It needs a lot of attention, a lot of time. You don't want to be spending it on trivial stuff over here that we can look after for you. It's everything else. No, that makes sense. Conscious of time, so we're going to go on to one last topic on this one. And if anybody else has questions outside of this, please do come to Mike and ask more. expenses. Yep. And I know that that probably could, should go on for quite a bit longer. Yeah, so there's lots of different things. So quite a common one is cars. Okay. I'm going to go through the ones that could cause problems. Yep. Okay. So cars and travel, right? When you've got a limited company, okay, typically you will, you charge, you own the car personally, you fuel it, fund it all yourself, and then you charge the company mileage for the business miles you do. Yep. Okay. uh forty five pence a mile typically unless you do more than ten thousand and the rate comes down so that's fine now people want to have the company pay for the car because it's doing most of their time they're doing all the business journeys and everything like that the thing to consider there is the benefit in kind So, if you've got an electric car... Which we did an episode on that as well. Yeah, we've done that. That's it. So, again, we can go back to that episode. So, electric cars, good, because they're not expensive for tax. Range Rover, they're very expensive for tax, okay? So... And vans, a bit in between on the lower end, okay? So, again, we'll explain what the benefit is. Some people... you got to, as also, unless you're buying it for cash, because you're putting the money in at the start, you're not going to be able to get a car in the first year anyway, or two years, because you haven't got the credit rating, okay? So, unless you're going to go buy it for cash. So, most of the time, it's like, you've got a car, you're making it work, you just charge mileage, okay? And we work that out, you keep a log book, and you go, right, there's the number of business journeys I've done, that's the mileage, We can put it all in at the end of the year. It doesn't have to be as the journey goes at the end of a month or anything like that than when you would have been if you were an employee. We can do all at the end of the year. That's fine. So again, that takes the panic away of, oh, I've not done it last month. I haven't done this. We can tidy all that up. You've got pensions. So most people who start a business that come from an employment role. OK, they've been pensions, been paying for them. Lovely. It just happens. Then they're here. So typically the best way to do it is for the company to pay a pension contribution on your behalf as an employer's contribution. So from a tax side, that's what's better. That's the cost of the business, so it saves corporation tax. If you were to do it from your own personal spending, there is a little bit of tax law that makes it a bit complicated how much you can put in. I've had my first one where they put large contributions in and it caught them a little bit of a surcharge tax. Typically, you work out what the business can afford. um and it goes through it's like in your budget and your forecast it goes in as your monthly one okay you work with the advisor you work out how much they want to put in you work out how much the business can afford and it's probably somewhere in the middle um but again that goes out there but the important thing is there is to make sure the contribution payments are set up properly as an employer as well when it comes out the company yeah because if it goes through the company but it's going into the pension fund as a personal one the pension fund take the top government tax top up and you're saving tax here. So you get double tax relief. Okay. Could cause you a bit of an issue. Okay. So again, it's making sure that when you set it up, the accountant and the financial advisor just have a quick chat to make sure that we're all on the same page for what it's going through as. Okay. Nice and simple. It's a five minute conversation. Doesn't cause you any pain in the future. So again, it's an easy thing, but it could go wrong if you're not aware of it. Yeah. entertainment and sort of food to go and stuff like that. I think we did an episode on entertainment as well. So entertainment, right? So that's fine. You can put stuff through. You can take your clients out. You can take your suppliers out for lunch and bits as that. HMRC accept that that's part of business. So they'll let you put it through the books, but they won't let you have the tax relief or the VAT back on it. Because they're like, right, we know you've got to do it. We don't quite like it. So we'll meet halfway. Right. So if you go and spend two hundred quid on taking the client out, then you won't get the tax back. You won't get the fat back. But it's still paid for by the company and it's not your personal bank account after you paid your personal tax. Right. So it's still worthwhile doing. But it's making sure that it goes into the right category. Okay. Right. Buying assets, vehicles. So typically seen as an expense to a client. I've gone and bought a van. That's an expense. Okay. Yes, it is indirectly. So it goes as an asset. It sits on the shelf because you own that van. Okay. And it comes, we as accountants just write the value down slowly. But on a tax side of things, if you buy a van, you get generally the full amount of the cost of the van off your profits. Okay. It's called capital allowances. Again, we can talk about why and who. Essentially, the tax person doesn't trust the accountant because we can put whatever right down we want and they go, we don't like that. So we'll just give it to you all in the first year. Right. It's the crux of it. That's for most businesses. But again, we'll explain all that in the process of what it means. So a lot of businesses, if they've got a lot of startup costs, they might be buying loads of kit. Yes. And that's fine. So they lend the business the money. Lending the business money doesn't incur any tax. So if a director puts twenty grand in to buy some kit, that's just a loan. No difference going to the bank and asking the bank to put it in. When it comes back to you as an individual, it's just a repayment of your loan. So that then doesn't become taxable. And it's a question that gets asked regularly. So the money going in doesn't create income for the company to pay tax. And when it gets repaid, it doesn't create income for the individual. It's just an in and an out. It sits there until it's repaid. And so, yeah, that's a real whirlwind tour of Summercross there. I think, and I think we would spend a lot more time on it if we hadn't sort of really extended our time already. And I'm kind of of the mind, there might be an episode there in itself, actually, just as we were touching on a few of those bits. I know we've kind of gone into some things in specifics, like entertainment. I think it was with you and Hannah that we did that one. No, you and Hannah was the car one. You and Rob was the entertainment one. Yep. And that's great. But I think expenses maybe will, you know, keep your eyes peeled. We might have a future episode that goes into those and a bit more. But in essence, what I'll also bring you back to this one is that going, look, yes, there's a lot to be aware of. Don't have the answers now. But the crux is know that there's conversations that probably should be had. Yep. And that they can come to you with those conversations. And I've found from experience, there's no such thing as a stupid question. No, because if you ask it once you understand it, you won't ask it again. Or you won't fall down a potential trap down the line. So happy, and that's what I always say with new businesses, I know you're going to ask a lot of questions at the start, but that's me feeding you information to know what you're going and off you go. And I'd actually expand that, not just new business, but early businesses. Yeah. I think it's fair because there'll be things that you won't incur in the first year or two. And there's people that fall into the bigger businesses that might have thirty, forty employees that it still applies to because you might start into a new finance role and it's those people that this appeals to as well because it's making them understand how someone else's business is run that they're in charge of the finances of. That makes sense. I think that we've taken that on a journey. I hope that it still enthuses you enough to give it a go. If you've got a business idea, don't stop. Embrace that entrepreneurial spirit, go for it, but get yourself the advice that is going to help. Do it early, I think is a good one. Don't go and set it all up and then go, right, I've now got this, what do I do? it helps to it's okay if that is the case but try and speak earlier and know that there's probably conversations that you think oh well I can just do that maybe but cover yourself, I think, is a good thing. Yeah, just peace of mind. Yeah, exactly right. Have that peace of mind. So drop them a line and find out more. I think that that's enough for now, but we'll be back for episode sixteen next month, which I think is actually, should be, that we're going to have a client in and we're going to sort of bring some of this to life to some extent in the fact that how you have worked with growing businesses and gone through all of those things with them And it's to really put some real life spin on it. And, you know, watch this space. We'll get that scheduled in due course. But Mike, for now, thank you very much for joining me for episode fifteen. Thank you, Chris. Cheers. Cheers all.