what's going on people welcome back to trial talk i hope you're all doing good hope you're well
so today i'm going to look at bookkeeping and it's going to be a really quick guide for those
of you that have set up self-employed you might be setting up your own small plastering business
and you're just looking for something real quick that you can get in place that's going to give
you a good visual and give you a good insight but it's going to help you look at if you're earning
money and whether you're on target with your profit it's a real simple system that i used to use when i
first started up in my first few years and i'm hoping that will help you out i've had a message
from somebody called david allen who's one of the youtube subscribers who left a comment saying look
i'm really struggling with my bookkeeping is there anything that you can help us with so again i'm not
an accountant and this isn't going to be going in real deep into your books it's not going to include
your indirect costs so it's not going to include things like your accountant fees your phone bills
and your insurances um stock that you might have bought and things like that it's not going to include
any of your indirect costs okay that's going to be a separate video that i'll do this video it's just a
real quick thing you can do you can do this on the back of a fag packet guys and it's just going to be
your direct costs that we're going to be looking at today it's a five minute thing that you can do
anyone can do it i mean these days you've got loads and loads of apps and things like that that you can
use um if you want a more advanced system but this is just something really simple um let's get stuck in
and i'll run you through it okay guys so again this is just a quick way that you can log your jobs
um keep track of your customers and just to check to see whether you're making profit on your jobs okay
so real quick simple way um just to get you started just to get you going if you've just started up
so what we're going to do we're going to knock up six columns and ideally you'd want um you'd want a
column pad that you can pick up from the stationery shop or or ebay you want a column pad with six
columns minimum and the idea is to include so the first thing you're going to include is the date okay
then you want your job details
all right then we're going to look at the price
so this is the price that you've put in the price that you've quoted to the customer all right
next column materials
yeah labor
um tell you what we'll do seven columns because we'll stick some fuel in as well
these are going to be your direct costs and then you profit at the end you can tweak change and add
and remove things whatever suits you this is just what i do this is just something i sometimes still
do but i did it a lot when i when i first started up and it really helped me to track my books um
get a hold of my bookkeeping keep a track of my customers and it helped me to when you flick through
and you look back on this as well it helps you to see which jobs were you on the mark with when you
were pricing and which jobs were you did you go too cheap and things like that and which jobs were
profitable okay so i've just knocked up seven columns i can do more or less again this is direct
cost guys it doesn't include anything like your insurances um your stock uh you know your telephone
bills and all that sort of stuff your accountant fees it doesn't include any of that doesn't include
vehicle maintenance mots and van insurance tools nothing like that okay this is your direct cost per job
so we'll go into bookkeeping deeper in the future on other videos where we can look at those other
things i've mentioned but for today in this video five minute bookkeeping it's just for you guys to uh
to track your jobs okay so does what it says on the tin so you're going to put the date on each job
okay in your job details stick in your customer's name and address all right and their telephone number
and job details and a little description of what you're doing in the job yeah then your price
obviously that's where you've put your price in your quote and then your direct material so whatever
you've used for the job how much sanding cement you've used how many bags of plaster how much pva how many
beads how much how much scrim um how many drywall screws how many plaster boards have you used
and it can be um a ballpark figure but the more accurate the better really guys and it will help you to
to uh see the woods for the trees when you're looking at your profit margin the labor if you're um
you know one man mercenary then it's just yourself whatever your um labor is so it's basically how many
days have you thrown at this job how many days have you been on the job okay so you put how many days
you've been in there if it's you and a another lad or you and a couple of other lads you include the
labor costs for them in there and then how much fuel have you used for that job okay because i mean
i've just done one where i'm going from coventry to stratford upon avon and i'm putting 100 quid a
week in the fucking tank um the job's two weeks long so there's a little example because if you don't
include these things it's easy to um it's easy for some of these things to slip when you're doing so
many small jobs so put a put a rough cost of how much fuel that any particular jobs cost you and what
this will do okay you'll put all this against your price all right you'll look at how many days you've
thrown at it and what your direct costs were and then you can work out your profit you see
and as the weeks and the months pass you'll be able to flick through this little uh six column
sheet that you've made and you'll be able to get a good insight into what jobs are working out for
you and what jobs need work what where have you were underpriced and which jobs are the most profitable
you can go back to your job description your job details and you can see um you know is it the
rendering where you're making the most money or is it these small domestic re-skims you know and you
you can you can uh fine-tune uh your marketing to suit whatever jobs are most profitable to you
so anyway listen david i hope that's helped you mate there's no bells and whistles on this okay this is
just something you can knock up yourself um you don't need any specialist accountancy skills it's just
common sense six or seven columns um it does take a bit of self-discipline to sit down and do this
every time you've finished a job or midway through a job or every time you've been into the merchants
to get some materials it does take a little bit of discipline to keep them receipts to hand
and then go through the quicker you do it the better so as soon as you've picked up the gear
it's just take a little um time to put those receipts to one side or even what i sometimes do
take a picture of the receipt far off to the receipt bank which is what i do now with my accountant
and that way you can look back and you can link the receipts to the jobs but it's best to stay on
the ball and try and do it as the job's moving along rather than trying to do it once the job's
finished a few days later which is harder than because then you've got to try and backpedal and
find the receipts and cast your mind back to how many days were you on it and you might get that wrong
so try to be on the ball try to log your jobs and track your jobs as the jobs are moving along
and catch that information in in real time so anyway dave i hope this has helped um have you got
any tips on bookkeeping what's helped you let me know in the comments and again don't forget to like
share subscribe appreciate the subscribers which are now building up and um again i'll do more videos
on this kind of stuff in the future but i hope that's helped see you next week cheers guys
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