Costs for small businesses

This week, I’ve been waging my usual battle between outgoings and income for our business. Wrestling every bit value out of all that we have to spend, and gently nagging to ensure we get money into the coffers on time.

Of course, all businesses are trying to minimise costs, and rightly so. That’s what keeps them in business and secures jobs for their workforce. This puts pressure on the budget my customers (and potential customers) are prepared to set for their cleaning service.

And my team of hard-working cleaners are keen to achieve good rates of pay for their valued endeavours. Every penny they receive is earned and is important.

Having put it off for too long, I’ve starting looking into the impending doom that is the new Auto Enrolment Pension regulations. Another significant pile of admin and paperwork for all businesses to undertake. Another significant cost to all businesses.

It goes against the very ethos of our company, but the cheapest way to approach it would be to keep a worker’s hours and wages down so they don’t earn enough to reach the threshold. How is that helping anyone trying to earn a decent, fair living?

Our deadline date is later in the year, so we’ll continue to work on our numbers to make sure these regulations have little impact on our customers or our workforce.