Avon Hints and Tips (Part 2)

hutch610

princess_loki wrote: »

think that this is a new thingy - has been happening for a while... maybe they want you to miss the order date and have to pay extra delivery or maybe it buys them some time!

ignore the warning - just submit

Happened to me when i put order through before ion holiday. Was early and warning popped up but still put through anyway as i had to. My C13 is due next wednesday.

Aesop

keep losing my posts.

Last Wednesday is my submit date, I submitted on Thursday and the warning came up and it said you are not yet due to submit C14 are you sure you want to continue, I said, hell yes, it is C13 I am submitting, not C14! And I got my order delivered on tues as normal with 2 items missing. First time it has happened to me.

hutch610

Seem to be an awful lot of problems just lately. My last order had a wrong item and recharge. Had trouble on phone trying to understand person when i rang. Never had so may problems as i've had this year

johanne

I have been recharged again too for stuff i sent back! grr! Need to dig out my returns form and get onto them...:rolleyes:

Really getting fed up of it all as it happens every time i return stuff which is almost every campaign!

confused121 wrote: »

I find myself on here all the time too!

I'm just looking at the mysterious order which I need to find an owner for tomorrow and the order form has the three different free products on page 30 C12. Yet her order form has the facial serum and age repair day. I'm so confused. I'm assuming the lady has written the wrong things down or shes pulling my leg!

Could you compare it to your forms from the past from them houses see if you can match the handwriting? Save you knocking on all 5 doors? And she could order 2 of the beauty bonus bags as shes ordered £35 worth of stuff so maybe shes got confused and shes made a mistake writing all 3 down?



[rant alert]

Bit disheartened tonight...loads of my customers have not been in again or have asked me to call another night when they have the money etc. I have also recorded every hour ive worked on avon this past campaign so far... 22 hours... and due to items missing from delivery, refunding people etc... im only making £22 comission!! So even if i return £38ish worth of stuff (to take it up to the £60 a campaign commission im allowed to earn whilst on income support) i'll have been working for £2.72 an hour!! :shocked:

I also found out off my regulars someone has been knocking on doors in my territory asking did people want an avon book I havent been recanvassing for months because as you can see above ^^^ im limited on my earnings and "usually" i can make the max commission off my regulars so its not been worth me putting the extra hours in to recanvass for no financial gain (and would mean im working for less per hour than i do now) ........ and taking on new customers would push me over the amount im allowed to make BUT not enough to allow me to come off income support so would make all sorts of problems for me with the benefits office ..... BUT now im gonna have to recanvass for a while so that i dont loose the rest of my territory to some rouge rep So when i finally get one of the 100's of other part time jobs ive applied for and i come off benefits and my income stops being "capped"... i can really put lots of effort in and maximise my customer base/earnings from avon.
[/rant]

debrag

do you declair yourself self-employed? also what benefits can it affect & who should you notify that you are working for avon?

Hayley1984

debrag wrote: »

do you declair yourself self-employed? also what benefits can it affect & who should you notify that you are working for avon?

You do have to register as self-employed but can't find the number..I am sure someone else will know it. If you receive tax credits you will have to let them know...it shouldn't affect them if you are working 16 hours or less...

I am sure someone else who are on benefits will be able to help more.

debrag

is there a way of finding out if someone has registered as self-employed?

Hayley1984

debrag wrote: »

is there a way of finding out if someone has registered as self-employed?

Do you mean will they know if someone has or hasnt registered - I believe they can as I know of people that have been fined for not registering....and it is quite a big fine.

johanne

im registered self employed as its a legal requirement and all the paperwork you get when you sign up states this. If you dont register self employed within 3 months of starting up then you can be fined by HMRC. Where theres a papertrail (which there is with avon) its pretty easy to be found out if you dont tell them.

As hayley said you have to declare it to the tax credits peole too.

And benefits wise im on income support (for lone parents) and have to submit my accounts and therefore proof of earnings every 6 campaigns. They average the total earnings per week for the 6 campaigns i submit and anything over an average of £20 a week they take off my income support for the next 6 campaigns.

IF i wasnt on income support but still claiming council tax benefit i would have to submit my accounts to the council and all my bank statements every 3 months too.

Im not sure about any other benefits but personally id declare i worked for avon when claiming any benefit just incase it affected it in any way.

hope that helps.

katchambers

johanne wrote: »

And benefits wise im on income support (for lone parents) and have to submit my accounts and therefore proof of earnings every 6 campaigns. They average the total earnings per week for the 6 campaigns i submit and anything over an average of £20 a week they take off my income support for the next 6 campaigns.

I hope that the avg of £20 per week is £20 profit, and not £20 turnover. I am sure you know what you are doing so I don't want to patronise, just wanted to check that you have worked it all out correctly as I would hate for you to be missing out.

For example as a person who is self employed and works from home, if you have 1 room in the house that you can use just as your office, then you can claim a portion of that back in taxes. So if you have 2 bedrooms a lounge and a dining room, thats 4 rooms, if you use the 'spare bedroom' just as your home office you can claim 25% off the expenses of that room as its 1 room out of 4 thats 25%.
so your gas and electric bill, whatever that is for 6 campaigns, divide it by 4 and you can deduct that from your turnover. If you own your home you can claim back 25% of your mortgage interest too.

As an example, 6 Campaigns:
Avon Takings/Turnover = £600 (Average of £100 per campaign)

Outgoings over 6 Campaigns:
Stock costs = £480 (based on earning 20% commission)
Brochure Costs = £34.92 (based on 25 brochures per campaign - guess?!)
Brochure Bags = £1.95 (65p per 50 bags - this assumes you don't re-use them)
Petrol costs (40p per mile, delivering to customers/ purchasing brochure bags form Lidl etc) = 4 miles per campaign = £9.6
Room rental - 25% of gas bill over 6 campaigns = £33 (this is based on £30 a mth gas bill for 4.5 months which is 6 campaigns)
25% off electric bill over 6 campaigns = £33 (£30 a mth for electricity)
Total outgoings = £592
Total profit for tax purposes = £8

Therefore by properly accounting for every one of your costs you can easily take £100+ a campaign in commission without them reducing your income support!

HTH

Kat x

if thats clear as mud pls let me know I will clarify. I have been self-employed for 4 years and have been doing my tax for that long.