invoice book for plumber

hsan

hey lads hows the goin.im starting up my own plumbing business soon.i want to get invoice books as soon as possible.i am doing a back to work scheme so i have been advised not to register for vat and just register with the revenue.im just wondering what i should have written on each page.obviously my name and number on the top.do i need anything else?also on the bottom of the page is 'total' the only line i need down there?thanks lads

JohnnieK

Why not register for VAT? I done it when I started and it's the best thing I ever did.

Most print shops would organise invoice books, just give them your company name and contact details. SNAP, Reads to name a few. Plenty of local independents as well.

esox28

dont spent too much money on invoice books to start off with get things going and concentrate on that, what I did was got local printer to make up a rubber stamp with company name , address, phone no, and vat no all you need is a cheep duplacate book one with the carbon copy page should do.

best of luck with the start up.

ps the figure at the bottom of invoice book is all people look at.

pss keep the pencil sharpe

Jedstaff

Get triplicate invoice books if u can. One copy for customer,accountant and your records.

mathepac

Well done OP and the best of luck to you.

Don't register for VAT in the short-term, it's one less piece of unprofitable admin work you can ignore (calculating the VAT, keeping track of it and doing returns) until you pass the threshold. Concentrate on getting your new business running profitably, then in time, the VAT will roll around.

You can buy triplicate invoice books in any good office stationers or bookseller like EASONS, etc. The books have (or had) red covers and they used to have order-books (for buying from wholesalers etc.) and delivery dockets in matching sets.

To personalise the book(s), get a stamp made up with name address and phone no, no need at this stage for pre-printed books. Again EASONS, Viking Direct for on-line stuff or other office stationers are your best bet. Get a big one-page per day appointment book, keep receipts for EVERY thing and make sense of them and file them at the end of each day - at the end of a week or month they'll probably just be gibberish.

Keep us posted and good luck again.

hsan

thanks a lot for all the replies.i was told that i shouldnt register for vat unless i was earning over 37500 euro a year.i was also told that if i dont register for vat that i wouldnt need an accountant because i would be able to manage my books myself.do ye think this sounds right?

shane0007

Do register for VAT immediately. It will make it cheaper for you and your clients overall. You can claim back the VAT on all your diesel, expenses, etc.
For the client, you only have to charge 13.5% on labour & materials whereas if you don't charge VAT you are charging 23% on materials as you cannot claim it back.
Example, materials cost €1,000.00 & labour cost is €300.00, you will be charge at suppliers €1,000 + 23% = €1,230 + your labour of €300 = €1,530.00. If you are VAT registered, you claim back the 23% you have been charged by supplier and not your cost to client = €1,000.00 + €300.00 + 13.5% = €1,475.50 inclusive of VAT. It is cheaper for the client and you as you will also be able to get back VAT on fuel, tools, etc. & of course the vat on letter head invoice paper!

hsan

but the only thing is that if ive to get an accountant it will set me back about 2000 euro and to be honest thats a lot of money before i even earn a euro!

shane0007

You will need an accoutant anyhow. There are many unemployed/part-time accountants that should do your returns for about €800 per annum. If you keep your accounts in order, do your vat returns on-line with ROS and accountant will finalize accounts at year end. His/her costs are also tax deductable. My accountant charges me €1,600 + VAT but he is doing my employees wages every week, prsi, vat returns, etc. I get his vat back.

hsan

well to be fair shane i was hoping to register for vat aswell but the advice i got was that it wouldnt be worth my while.they also said that i would be able to do my own accounts because all i would have to deal with was my takings and out goings and income tax.

shane0007

But what about all your other expenses:

Public Liability Insurance
Training
Van Insurance
Van Tax
Health Insurance
Refuse
PRSI
Levy's (Health Levy also)
Diesel
RGII & OFTEC costs
Stationary
VAT

I could keep going with this list but that is what an accountant is for. Believe me, a good accountant will earn their fee and some... They will also keep all your records in good order should you ever get an audit. Start as you mean to go on. I worked for a company for nine years and have been self employed since 1996. It is tough but I would not have it any other way. Expand only when you need to and be able to adjust quickly to new markets. Stay up to date with new technologies and never stop learning.

Take everything in and have a goal to complete every job as "this one will be my best". If you do one bad job, the client will tell twenty people. If you do one good job, they will tell one person, so always cherish every job to get that one referral.

I take my hat off to you for trying to start a business in this market and I am sure, should you need it, you will receive a lot help along the way by the more than willing contributors here on boards.

shane0007

Btw your accountant should be charging you at year end. Alternatively, you can pay them monthly or bi-monthly or whatever you can afford now and again.

Rafloution

Have a look at some easy and cheap accounts software instead of manual... Google Sage One

hsan

thanks a million for the advice shane.ive one last question.ive done a few jobs over the past 3 weeks which i will be writing invoices for.i have paid cash for all the diesel i have bought over this period<about 500 euro>.do u think i will get the vat back on this or am i wasting my time keeping the receipts?thanks again for the help

shane0007

You can back-date your vat certainly but to what period, I am not sure. Keep all receipts anyhow as even if you cannot claim the vat back, they are a ligitimate expenses and can be written off against income tax liablities.
Every receipt should be kept and your accountant will advice as to what you can claim and what you cannot. For example, when I work away, I claim my travel costs, hotel bills, but I cannot claim my food bill.
If you have a home office, then you can claim a small percentage of your home heating & electricity bills against your business. The same percentage of the VAT can be claimed back also if you are registered. Your home office can be your computer and some shelves to store your business files. Just don't go mad claiming everything. Be reasonable and you won't have any problems.
The other advantage of being vat registered is when you see a diesel pump with €1.50 per litre, then it is really costing you €1.22 as you are able to claim the vat back @ 23% or you see that "to die for must have" tool, well now it just became nearly a quarter cheaper.

shane0007

hsan wrote: »

ive one last question.ive done a few jobs over the past 3 weeks which i will be writing invoices for.

I forgot to mention, you won't be charging your clients VAT on your invoices until you are registered to do so and then you must display on your invoices a valid IE vat number.

Also on your invoice, your trading name, address, contact number, vat number, invoice number, date of invoice, whom the invoice is to and normally their address should all appear on your invoice.

Finally, get yourself a website. It will bring in business but don't be fooled by all these companies that guarantee to get you number one on google. Nobody can guarantee that. I created my own website that costs €120 per annum (www.letshost.ie) and google sends me my analytics every Monday on who has visited my site, what pages they looked at and where in the country they based in. They also show you through Google Analytics how to get your website ranking high with them. Easy step by step guides.

hsan

thanks a million for all the help lads

slavetothegrind

shane is spot on, i will add that it is not hard at all to keep your own books if you do it weekly.

Open a seperate business bank account and pay yourself out of this, saves a lot of messiness if you were to use family account and will save bookkeeping aswell as easier to reconcile at period end.

if you have iphone or android there is a great little app called redoaksnap, you take a picture of every reciept with it and it stores them for you, think it's free.

Diesel reciepts and such types fade FAST so photocopy them and file them stapled to the photocopy WEEKLY. ( or use above)

Also best of luck to you!!!

slavetothegrind

shane0007 wrote: »

Yor you see that "to die for must have" tool,

got that disease too have you

gone_fishing

I did the same myself, got a short term enterprise allowance off the social welfare and started working for myself as an rgi just over a year ago. best thing i ever did. registered for vat and in the first two months i got nearly 350 euro back. That nearly paid for a quater of my accountants fees. In my opinion register for vat , get an accountant and try and keep things simple when you start off. then just build things up as you go.keep good records and files from the start and you'll make life easier on yourself further down the road. hope this helps

pache

Fair play to you and best of luck,do you have a paticular area of the plumbing business that you will specialize in or is it general plumbing&heating.

shane0007

slavetothegrind wrote: »

got that disease too have you

Oh yes. Have most of them. But I know a one person here on boards that is worse than me....lol

JohnnieK

hsan wrote: »

thanks a million for the advice shane.ive one last question.ive done a few jobs over the past 3 weeks which i will be writing invoices for.i have paid cash for all the diesel i have bought over this period<about 500 euro>.do u think i will get the vat back on this or am i wasting my time keeping the receipts?thanks again for the help

€500 do you drive a truck or a van .
I have no regrets getting VAT registered. In fact I think I've only had two returns to them in two years.

Also learn the two thirds/one third rule.
If the cost of your materials is two thirds or more of the sub-total you have to charge 23% VAT.

F**k i'm still getting used to things.

shane0007

JohnnieK wrote: »

Also learn the two thirds/one third rule.
If the cost of your materials is two thirds or more of the sub-total you have to charge 23% VAT.

That rule does not apply. It only applies when items are moveable, for example, a cabinet maker supplying & fitting a new kitchen, he charges 13.5% on labour & materials, but it he supplies & fits a kitchen table, then his labour is @13.5% but the materials are @23%.

All plumbing installations are non-moveable, except for certain clients who love copper!!!!

JohnnieK

It does i'm afraid.
If your materials are over two thirds and your only charging 13.5% then revenue will loose out because you will be claiming back the 23% from your materials but they will only be receiving 13.5%, and revenue dont like loosing out.

I have gone through this over and over again with my accountant.

shane0007

Revenue themselves have confirmed this with my accountant. Secondly, we do the installations for Electric Ireland and all their invoices & quotations to clients are also in this manner. Their accountants I am sure would also not get this wrong. The ruling as per Revenue is as per I previously outlined.

JohnnieK

That's because the labour for upgrades would be more than a third so 13.5% would apply.

If revenue have stated this it must be only recently. And it was my accountant who has clarified this for me. So who am i to argue in his profession.

Board gas always charge 23% on there invoices.

shane0007

Boiler replacements are still always 13.5% with EI.

Doctors differ, patients die!

I am sticking to the confirmation received from Revenue. All companies I know that are friends and competitors charge identically to me also, i.e. 13.5% on everything.

To be honest in this market, revenue should zero vat all energy saving upgrades to kick start the labour market. They would then recoup their losses in vat returns by increases in tax receipts and less outgoings for dole payments.

JohnnieK

Excellent idea regarding the kick start.

Once again I have become confused regarding the 2/3rds 1/3rd rule. Just when I thought I have got to grips:rolleyes:

JohnnieK

shane0007 wrote: »

Boiler replacements are still always 13.5% with EI.

I hope you get more of EI than the guys doing the upgrades for BG

shane0007

They are not too bad actually. I know it hard to say but there are too many leads at the moment with all their advertising. We cover a vast area for them and we have to do all the quote work in addition to the installs. On top of that, they snow you under with paperwork, paperwork and then some more paperwork. And if that is not enough, they will even give you a bit more paperwork.

Having said that, they are very good to work with and deal with everything professionally.

JohnnieK

shane0007 wrote: »

They are not too bad actually. I know it hard to say but there are too many leads at the moment with all their advertising. We cover a vast area for them and we have to do all the quote work in addition to the installs. On top of that, they snow you under with paperwork, paperwork and then some more paperwork. And if that is not enough, they will even give you a bit more paperwork.

Having said that, they are very good to work with and deal with everything professionally.

I heard the contractors have large territories to cover. Are you independent or is there a team of you?

I done a job in November and she had EI in. It was a northern company who was doing the work for them. She was a bit pissed off about that and went with me (it could have been that I was cheaper though)

I met a fella from Kerry on my OFTEC course who was there because he was getting work from EI they said he would get two a week. He had his fingers crossed, I hope it worked out for him he was bang on.

shane0007

The country has been split in two, dublin to galway north and dublin to galway south. Galway is in the south and dublin is in the north. To do with population. We cover the south. This week I was in kildare, wicklow, offaly, carlow and kilkenny. Last week in tralee, limerick, wicklow and kildare. I left the house at 7am yesterday morning and got home at 10.00pm. Gone again at 7 this morning.

A northern company won the contract for dublin to galway north and an southern company has the contract for dublin galway south.

I am an independent sub-contractor with my own team.

shane0007

As I am now seeing 4 screens in front of me with tiredness, I bid you adieu til another day.

hsan

pache wrote: »

Fair play to you and best of luck,do you have a paticular area of the plumbing business that you will specialize in or is it general plumbing&heating.

sorry for the late reply.general plumbing mostly.ive the oil boiler servicing and solar panel course done and i was thinking about doing the gas but the area i live in is mostly oil heating so im not too sure if it would be worth it!

hsan

JohnnieK wrote: »

€500 do you drive a truck or a van .
I have no regrets getting VAT registered. In fact I think I've only had two returns to them in two years.

Also learn the two thirds/one third rule.
If the cost of your materials is two thirds or more of the sub-total you have to charge 23% VAT.

F**k i'm still getting used to things.

i was working in kinsale for a week and im from west limerick so thats why the diesel bill is a bit high!ya ive heard of that rule alright.thanks johnnie

wytch

Hi Hsan,

Invoice books, - Keep it simple, I use an accounts package on the computer it was cheap and works great, just a little tricky to get used to at first, rubber stamp idea sounds like the best way to go.

Vat- Don't register until you have to, there is nothing to be gained from it financially, if you think about it, you will always need to be taking more money in (billing Mr. X for work done), than paying money out (to heatmerchants and garages for diesel), to make money to live off.

So lets say over the year you spend €10,000 on all business costs - diesel, invoice books, tools, parts for jobs, copper the list goes on and on. Now you bill out €30,000.

So if your registered for vat you will be due back 23% of €10,000 = €1,870
You will owe 13.5% of €30,000 to revenue = €4,050

€4,050-€1,870= €2,180 is what you will have to pay revenue for vat.

You earn €30,000 - €10,000 - €2,180 = €17,820

Now if you weren't registered for vat its easier:

You earn €30,000 - €10,000 = €20,000

This is assuming you meet the two thirds rule as stated by others, otherwise you will be at 23%. I am with jonniek's view of the rule. Shane0007 sounds to good to be true.

The 2/3 rule comes from 13.5% rate being roughly 2/3 of (old) 21% rate.

Be under no illusions the revenue will not let any business make money from Vat, if you are getting Vat repayments all the time your business would be in dire trouble.

I am not trained on any of this so don't take anything I write as 100%. Best advise is to go to Partas and let them look at your unique scenario and advise you, they are the, or are to do with the enterprise board and free.

Best of luck pal.

hsan

good advice,cheers wythch

Traditional

dont forget to charge vat on your call out charge , and tell the ole one that , i remember one morning in Ballyfermot when i mentioned it that i would have had to charge vat , i was ran from the door, in these times no one will want to know you , the accountant was charging me 50 quid for every vat return 600 a year what a headache anyway its all ahead of you .

hsan

one more question here lads.lets say i dont register for vat,i do a job and supply 150euro worth of fittings which i pay for in cash.when i write out my invoice including materials-150euro and labour-150euro am i going to lose money on the materials all the time?sorry for poor explanation!!

JohnnieK

You will not be able to claim the VAT back on the fittings if you are not VAT registered.

I'm right about the 2/3rds 1/3rd rule:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056573106

Billy Bunting

hsan wrote: »

ive the oil boiler servicing and solar panel course done and i was thinking about doing the gas but the area i live in is mostly oil heating so im not too sure if it would be worth it!

Maybe think about adding CD11 type documentation into the invoice to save on paperwork, also maybe a complience statement.

shane0007

JohnnieK wrote: »

You will not be able to claim the VAT back on the fittings if you are not VAT registered.

I'm right about the 2/3rds 1/3rd rule:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056573106

Just because somebody on another thread agrees with you does not mean that it is right!

shane0007

Another point is if the material cost is 2/3 and you are charging 23% on the whole invoice, then you are overcharging the client by 9.5% on the labour cost. Labour rate is 13.5% only. You are saying that you should have 2 different vat rates on every invoice.

The correct ruling is if the item that you are supplying and installing is moveable, then the overall rate is 23% or can be split into 2 invoices, 1st invoice of material @ 23% and 2nd invoice of labour @ 13.5%. If the item is non-moveable, i.e. a person would have to use tools to remove the item, then the overall charge is 13.5% on both materials and labour.

JohnnieK

shane0007 wrote: »

Just because somebody on another thread agrees with you does not mean that it is right!

Maybe he is an accountant.

JohnnieK

Well here one for you.

I changed a bath mixer yesterday. It was easy to do the taps where on pillars.

The taps where €118
The labour was €35

The materials where over 2/3rds of the sub-total.

If I charged 13.5% VAT on the job and I then I claim back the VAT on the taps The revenue will loose 9.5% in VAT. As stated before the revenue do not loose.

Nothing will happen. It will come up when you are audited and you will get a bill from them and that could be thousands because it could be years before you are audited.

Heating upgrades are 13.5% because the rule is normally not broken between materials and labour.

Your accountant says one thing and mine says another so maybe they should get in touch and discuss this.

To be honest I always sway on the side of caution when it comes to tax.

My income tax bill was miscalculated in 2009 (when I was employed) and they came looking for it last August. It was €6000. Between one thing and another its down to €2785 so any money I'm making it's paying them knobs off.

My lesson here was give them as much as you can when you can and it can be sorted out at the end of the year.

The online ROS service is brilliant and any sole trader should be using it.

Bloody tax bill:mad:

shane0007

JohnnieK wrote: »

Maybe he is an accountant.

Maybe my accountant is an accountant too. Accountants differ, the self employed, well they just.....pay