Starting a business

Hhzg

My daughter has started dog grooming/ dog walking after she was made redundant as a trainee dog groomer she’s nearly 20. Initially we thought it would just “get her by” until she secured alternative employment, but it’s starting to take off and she would like to make it a proper little business. 

She wants to work from home ideally and we are thinking of setting up a little unit in the garden. The grooming is really only part time at the moment with the dog walking featuring more heavily  We are aware we need permission for a business from home, but where do we even start with this?? We are in a housing association property and know we will need permission from them, but as in the actual start up registering, any help with finance, book keeping etc. literally we have no idea where to start! Any advice very gratefully received!

Marcon

Hhzg said:

My daughter has started dog grooming/ dog walking after she was made redundant as a trainee dog groomer she’s nearly 20. Initially we thought it would just “get her by” until she secured alternative employment, but it’s starting to take off and she would like to make it a proper little business. 

She wants to work from home ideally and we are thinking of setting up a little unit in the garden. The grooming is really only part time at the moment with the dog walking featuring more heavily  We are aware we need permission for a business from home, but where do we even start with this?? We are in a housing association property and know we will need permission from them, but as in the actual start up registering, any help with finance, book keeping etc. literally we have no idea where to start! Any advice very gratefully received!

What a resourceful young lady - do hope things work out well.

Good place to start: https://www.gov.uk/browse/business and https://startups.co.uk/guides/dog-walking-regulations/

Remember to talk to your home insurers as well as the housing association, and also check with your local authority if she needs a dog walking licence to use local parks etc.

Savvy_Sue

the HA I used to work for would not unreasonably refuse permission for running a business, but the key question was whether it would interfere with the 'quiet enjoyment' of neighbours. 

Thus, someone who was known to have run a car 'maintenance' business at a previous address was told before the tenancy was formalised that permission would not be granted for that - think breaking multiple cars into their components all over the front garden, multiple maybe-not-quite-roadworthy parked around the house, and regular visitors turning up with vehicles to be 'looked at'. 

There were also restrictions on parking commercial vehicles: again, they weren't unreasonable about this, so if she went mobile with either the grooming or the walking and had one small van, there would be less chance of an objection than if she had half a dozen branded vehicles in the area. 

And if she is going to her clients in order to offer her services, that again causes less 'nuisance' than if multiple clients and their four legged friends arrive at your house throughout the day.

One thought about the grooming side of things: I don't know, but she might need to have commercial waste collections, and even special arrangements for disposing of the water being used for washing the dogs. 

MikeJXE

You hardly need permission from anyone to do dog walking, grooming maybe but get the walking going and you might not need that 

tacpot12

It's possible that your local council runs sessions that cover the basics of starting and running a business, but given her age, she looks to be a perfect match for the Princes Trust. Have a look here: Support for starting a business | The Prince's Trust (princes-trust.org.uk)

She doesn't need to register the business anywhere if she doesn't want to, but she will need to register as self-employed with HMRC (see here: Working for yourself - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

There are certain benefits of operating as a limited company, but there are also certain costs to doing so. It seems unlikely that the limited liability protection offered by a limited company would be necessary for her business. According to direct line, she can cover most of the all the risks she will face with just public liability insurance (see here Dog Walking Insurance | Direct Line for Business)

She will probably need some training in how to manage the finances for the business. It's not that difficult if you can get some training and some on-going support. She may find it easier to have a seperate bank account for the business, and many personal current accounts don't allow them to be use for business purposes. She might find her personal account is closed if she uses it in a way that she's not allowed to. Some accounts do allow self-employed income and expenses to go through the account. 

One of the key financial disciplines she needs to learn is to put money aside to pay future bills such as tax, suppliers, and to replace business equipment when it is worn out. She will also need a pension.

DullGreyGuy

The dog walking aspect should be straight forward, as others have said, check where she is doing the walking as its a commercial activity and public parks etc generally want their cut for commercial activity happening on their grounds.

Building a dog grooming unit on your residential property is likely to be much more complicated if you want to do it all above board (many through ignorance or intention wont go through all the loops). Generally having a clerical type thing at home is fine, holding stock starts to get a bit more problematic but when you start getting people visiting the property is where regs get much more complex and can result in needing planning permission to change the use to include commercial activities etc.