Commercial & Domestic Cleaning - requesting help

hottdang1

Afternoon All

My wife has set herself up as a domestic cleaner and is extremely busy but we've had a couple of low-key commercial enquiries which is a very different ballgame to domestic and not an area either of us know about
(I'm an IT Project Manager so nothing I've ever done!)


Does anyone have experience or can point me to a suitable website to get a firm grounding before I get further into this?
I'm not finding much on here - mostly insurance discussions and elsewhere websites just seem to want to sell business start-up services

My main questions are:
what is a ballpark figure to charge a commercial customer per hour?
(my wife charges £10 for domestic but I read somewhere to double a domestic rate for commercial in any given region - we're lower midlands btw
but that sounds potentially flippant and I dont want to kill anything before it starts or likewise under-sell ourselves

Is it best to lease equipment or buy it? Looking at an industrial vac, maybe carpet cleaner and also floor polisher trolley and mops etc - not forgetting signage etc for H&S

We have no equipment presently as domestic customers supply their own
Im okay looking at the insurance - we're already with Hiscox so they'd probably be quite helpful I'm sure!

But I would have to take someone on to cover this work and this is probably the biggest hurdle
- I'd want to do it so they pay their own tax so I'm not sure where to get good info - did try HMRC but go a bit lost amongst that

Having written this, I can see I'd probably look to taking at least £20 ph to make this worth while btw

I did consider taking someone else on to pick up new domestic customers as we're turning people away now but the area we're in only makes £10 an hour so at best I'd be able to pay them minimum wage so for sake of a couple of quid per hour, it probably isn't worth doing?

sorry for a bit of a ramble - I'm normally quite organised etc but this is well out of mine or my wife's experience but certainly I want to do due dilligence hence coming on here

thanks

fishybusiness

If you pay someone circa £10 an hour for your commercial cleaning, you ought be looking at costing them at £20 per hour.

Take off tax, nat ins, extra insurance, maybe pensions, maybe payroll costs, mileage payments? plus you need to make a profit from them.

00ec25

hottdang1 wrote: »

But I would have to take someone on to cover this work and this is probably the biggest hurdle
- I'd want to do it so they pay their own tax so I'm not sure where to get good info - did try HMRC but go a bit lost amongst that

Having written this, I can see I'd probably look to taking at least £20 ph to make this worth while btw

I did consider taking someone else on to pick up new domestic customers as we're turning people away now but the area we're in only makes £10 an hour so at best I'd be able to pay them minimum wage so for sake of a couple of quid per hour, it probably isn't worth doing?

sorry but you cannot take on someone for either the commercial or domestic work and decide they would themselves do their own tax.

they will be your employees since they would be working under your "supervision, direction and control". Therefore, you would have to register with HMRc as an employer, operate a formal payroll, and make the required monthly returns to HMRC (or get heavily penalised)

Savvy_Sue

I'm not saying not to do it, but moving into commercial cleaning is quite a big step up, because (presumably) atm when you go on holiday you just say to your domestic customers "sorry we're away next week and the week after, see you in three weeks", possibly followed by "I can give you more time before I go and when I get back if that would be helpful."

Likewise if you're sick.

For commercial, there will be a contract. And that contract won't care who does the cleaning, as long as it gets done. Which means that you need a robust backup plan, both for holidays and sickness, and that might mean taking on two people.

As for what you might be able to charge, can you not do some discreet research and phone a few contract companies yourself? That's if whoever sorts the cleaning at your current employer won't give you a pointer ...

You might also find that commercial contracts want the job done out of core hours - it can be fairly intrusive if someone wanders into the office with a vacuum cleaner just as you're trying to speak to someone on the phone.

BTW, there appear to be several 'industry bodies' for cleaners, with websites. No idea if any of them will be any help or not ...

Aquamania

hottdang1 wrote: »

Afternoon All

My wife has set herself up as a domestic cleaner and is extremely busy but we've had a couple of low-key commercial enquiries which is a very different ballgame to domestic and not an area either of us know about
(I'm an IT Project Manager so nothing I've ever done!)


Does anyone have experience or can point me to a suitable website to get a firm grounding before I get further into this?
I'm not finding much on here - mostly insurance discussions and elsewhere websites just seem to want to sell business start-up services

My main questions are:
what is a ballpark figure to charge a commercial customer per hour?
(my wife charges £10 for domestic but I read somewhere to double a domestic rate for commercial in any given region - we're lower midlands btw
but that sounds potentially flippant and I dont want to kill anything before it starts or likewise under-sell ourselves

As much as you think you can get away with

Cleaning is a very competitive business.
Charge too little and (a) the customer may question what your capabilities/experience really is, and (b) you'll probably soon go out of business.
Charge too much and the customer will probably go to one of the many cheaper competitors available

hottdang1 wrote: »

Is it best to lease equipment or buy it? Looking at an industrial vac, maybe carpet cleaner and also floor polisher trolley and mops etc - not forgetting signage etc for H&S
We have no equipment presently as domestic customers supply their own

Consult an accountant.
Essentially it will all depend on the cost of the equipment (and if/how you will fund that) compared to the cost of hiring such equipment - all after appropriate reliefs are applied.

hottdang1 wrote: »

Im okay looking at the insurance - we're already with Hiscox so they'd probably be quite helpful I'm sure!

Perhaps, but I would try an insurance broker who specialises in commercial cover for small businesses

hottdang1 wrote: »

But I would have to take someone on to cover this work and this is probably the biggest hurdle
- I'd want to do it so they pay their own tax so I'm not sure where to get good info - did try HMRC but go a bit lost amongst that

Having written this, I can see I'd probably look to taking at least £20 ph to make this worth while btw

I did consider taking someone else on to pick up new domestic customers as we're turning people away now but the area we're in only makes £10 an hour so at best I'd be able to pay them minimum wage so for sake of a couple of quid per hour, it probably isn't worth doing?

sorry for a bit of a ramble - I'm normally quite organised etc but this is well out of mine or my wife's experience but certainly I want to do due dilligence hence coming on here

thanks

You cannot just decide to abandon your responsibilties for tax and insurance. Whether someone is employed or self employed is not simply something you dictate.
Refer to the HMRC website for what consititutes self employment compared to employment, but an accountant should be also able to assist you in this regard