The Friday Numbers

Most trade rates were set by looking sideways at what someone else charges. That is not a rate, it is a guess with a witness.

Your rate has to cover more than the hours you're on site. It has to carry the quoting, the supplier runs, the paperwork, the van, the insurance, the tools, the training, the holidays and the weeks the phone goes quiet. Divide everything the business must pay for by the hours you can actually bill, and you get the number below which every job loses money.

The usual shock is the billable-hours figure. A 45-hour week is rarely more than 30 billable hours. If you priced on 45, you have been running a 33% discount without deciding to.

Passing materials on at cost is common and it is expensive. You carry the money, the collection time, the storage, the waste, the returns and the warranty conversation. None of that is free.

Markup and margin are also not the same thing, which is where a lot of quotes quietly lose money. Marking up £1,000 by 20% gives you £1,200 and a margin of 16.7% — not 20%. Over a year of material-heavy jobs, believing the wrong one is thousands of pounds.

If you buy the materials and get paid on completion, you are lending money interest-free to someone who did not ask for a loan and will not thank you for it.

Deposits are not cheek, they are ordinary trade practice. Materials deposit before ordering, stage payments tied to visible milestones rather than dates, balance on completion. The rule that keeps you safe: money arrives before the spend it funds, never after.

Late payment does not feel like a cost because no money leaves your account. It leaves anyway: in overdraft interest, in the discount you took to get paid, and in the evenings spent chasing instead of quoting.

Put a figure on it and it stops being an annoyance and becomes a decision. Then fix the process: terms on the quote, invoice the same day, a dated reminder sequence, and statutory interest referenced calmly rather than threatened.

Tax bills only feel sudden because the money was already spent. The fix is mechanical: a percentage comes off every payment received, on the day it arrives, into a separate account you do not spend from.

The same applies to VAT if you're registered, and to the quiet costs — a tyre, a boiler warranty callback, a week off with a bad back. A business without a reserve is one bad month from borrowing at the worst possible moment.

More work is not growth. Growth is the same work at better margin, or the same margin delivered by more than your own hands.

Before a first hire, know the turnover that person has to generate before they pay for themselves — wages are rarely more than two thirds of the real cost once employer NI, pension, holiday, tools, insurance and their unbillable hours are counted.

That's the six. Nothing else is coming unless you want it: the tools and templates stay free and you can work through them at your own pace.