 Accounting services. How are you doing Andrew? Yeah, not bad. Not bad. How are you? Very well. Thank you very well. Welcome back to this new episode, right? So if you are watching for the first time, make sure you go back and watch the previous two, right? And the last one, if I'm not mistaken, we talked about banking, right? So finding a good banking service for your business. Is that right, Andrew? Yeah, that's correct. Yeah. Perfect. All right. Excellent. So today I'm really excited about today's topic. We're going to be talking about good record keeping. Very important with coaches, right? And I'll be completely honest. When I first started my business, this was something I needed a lot of help with, OK? Because as your business starts to grow, you know, you're doing a lot of things and having a good record keeping, I feel is really important. And to be honest with you, the most successful coach is that we currently work with in our company, have this to a T. So I'm really excited about this. And thank you, Andrew, again, for coming on and sharing your experience and your knowledge with us. Yeah, no problem at all. No problem at all. Yeah, shall I get started? Yeah, yeah. Get cracking away. All right. Brilliant, brilliant. Yeah, so I think it's definitely follows on from what we're talking about banking and as a business owner, new business owner, even a growing business, you want to make sure that your record keeping is great because that does lay the foundation to a healthy business. So I want to kind of start going to the legal requirement first. There are in the UK, there are legal requirements to keep records, business records. First one is six years. If you don't keep good records, you could be fine up to three thousand pounds. It could even be worse for you. There could be court hearings, disciplinary hearings and also investigations by by certain professional bodies as well, especially if it's in auditing. If if you're a large business, there could be audits into your business. Obviously, we don't want to go into into that, but it's just to give a bit of an overview of, yes, there is a legal requirement to to your records keeping compliance. So the next bit, let me stop you there, Andrew. Sorry, like if any coach watching who might not understand when you talk about legal requirement, is that what what the coach is making money coming in the profits? It's in terms of in terms of record keeping, we're talking about keeping receipts, keeping invoices, sales invoices, having a good system because if HMRC, whether you're a sole trader or you're a limited company, you could get an audit from them, an inquiry, whatever it may be. And it's to ensure that everything is accounted for. And you've got the source documents, i.e. as I mentioned, the receipts, invoices, bills, things like that. OK, perfect, perfect. Yes. Yeah. So so the next part is just general financial management of your business. As I said, it's having a good record keeping system really lays a foundation of a healthy business and just to skim over these. And we will provide a copy of this this mind map as well. But essentially, you want to know your money coming in, you know, you want to know what when you're expecting money from clients, chasing clients, things like having a payment system set up, you know, maybe something like a direct debit. Leo, when, you know, in your experience as well, in your business and working with coaches, it's so much better having a direct debit payment system where you don't have to worry about chasing clients all the time. Yeah, yeah, 100 percent agree. And also from experience, I know that the coaches who kind of become a little bit more organized, they end up making a lot more money in the long term. At the beginning, I know I've worked I've worked with a lot of coaches who are all over the place with their with this side of the business. But once they get organized, they find someone professional like yourself to help them. What they end up then doing is they end up making a lot more money because when they're unorganized, they're losing a lot of money because they're not keeping track of money coming in, money coming out, receipts, invoices, et cetera. Yeah, exactly. And when, you know, when even when you're starting out your business, you're you're you're quite busy and you don't want to be tied down with knowing, OK, what's next, you know, payments coming from clients and keeping track of that can be quite a lot of admin side. So you want to have certain systems in place to allow you to free up time and even things like refunds from even if it's from suppliers or if a client has overpaid you or underpaid you, you want to make sure you keep track of that, you know, and I can understand having a busy busy sports coaching business, something that can slip through. And it's and it's the importance of having a good system in place to to avoid that from happening. Same things with, you know, money out, you know, you want to make sure that you're paying the right amount of taxes. If you have other employees in the business, you want to make sure you're paying the right amount to to the right employee. If you've got supplies, you want to pay the right amount. You don't overpay your supplies. You don't want to underpay them because that obviously can be things like you want to have a good work and relationship. And it all starts with knowing exactly, you know, what amounts to pay. Even if it's subcontractors, if you're subcontracting a, you know, another coach for whatever reason, you want to make sure that they're paid on time and the right right amount because you want to have a good working relationship with them. Same thing with, you know, with lenders, if you've, you know, loans, if you're paying a loan out, you want to make sure you're paying the right amount, you don't want to get charged any additional interest on that. So it really is helpful for your business overall. Can you, can you give coaches? Because this is something that I get asked on a regular basis. A lot of coaches want to bring in a subcontractor to help them with you know, the growth of the business, running extra training sessions. So what's a couple of tips in terms to help them with the legal side that they need when they bring in a subcontractor such as like contracts, invoices, et cetera? Yeah, so so that's a good question. And it kind of, it really does flow into the third bit, but a bit more on that is first of all, to start with a sports coaching business. The first thing to do is you don't need to set up a, you know, a payroll system for them, not yet anyway, especially if you're growing business. You want to pay them on, you know, an hourly basis. You might want to get them part time. And they will just be treated as a subcontractor. So having maybe a good contract with them. Detailing the work that they're going to be carrying out is good and ensuring that they invoice you as the business for the amount of hours worked. So everyone is on the same page. Now, when your business grows and you may want to have, you know, a part time employee or a full time employee, then you have to set up a payroll scheme to then pay that employee through the PAYE system. So so yeah, and that to be honest, that really does flow through to the next part, which is, you know, tracking your performance, because as you said, as a sports coaching business, you want to know at what point is it worth getting a subcontractor? At what point is it good to get a part time employee, full time employee? Now, if you have a really bad record keeping system and you don't know how your business is doing based on that information, very hard for you to make those decisions. And you know, and here, as you said, you know, identify opportunities for growth, you can then hire additional coaches. But as I said, it's important to get the foundation pieces in place, which is good record keeping. And another part of this is is time and cost saving is if you have well organized records, that means that you're spending less time doing all the admin side. You've got good systems in place. You can track invoices to customers, send them to customers, automate it as well. That saves time. And, you know, you can then start planning and filing your taxes on time as well. And that allows you to plan for the future, better for cash flow. And, you know, if you've got any queries with customers or suppliers, let's say, for example, a supplier believes that you've owed them that they owe you, sorry, that you owe them more money, your suppliers. You can look into your invoices, your bills. But if you've got a really bad record keeping system, you're going to be their ages. And I've had some I've had some businesses that they just believe whatever the supplier says, and they just pay them all. But in actual fact, their system is is quite bad and and they've had to get a refund from them. Same thing with with your your customers, your clients. If you've got people that they believe that they paid you already, but you're like, oh, no, you haven't actually paid me. Have good systems in place to show that. So it does save time and money in the long run. So question for you, going back to business growth, because this is another common question I get. At what points do you think a coach should bring in an additional coach? So business owner bringing in additional coach to help them with the business? Yeah, so it really depends on the the scenario. So for example, if the business needs if you're if you're a coach, you may need temporary a temporary coach just to fill in, let's say you're ill or that that could be quite early on. Now, if your business is turning over. A good amount of money, let's say, for example, for sure you want to make sure that you're breaking even. That's one of the basics. You want to make sure you're breaking even and let's say you're beyond capacity in terms of your time and you want to focus more time on, let's say, marketing or things like that. That's probably a good time to bring in a coach and you want to test out the waters as well. You want to make sure you you bring in different types of coaches, get feedback from the participants as well from the clients, get feedback because that will be something where in the future, you might want to have them, you know, part time or full time. So it really, yeah, so that's the thing. You want to make sure you first of all, you're breaking even. And then the best time to do it is when you as a coach, you are just at full capacity and you've got a lean business model. For example, your expenses aren't too high for what the business requires. That is the best time to bring in an additional coach. Great piece of advice there. Like it. All right. And then just a couple of other things now just to wrap up is sailor business. You know, as a sports coach, I know early on in your journey, you're not probably going to be thinking about selling your business in the future. You may want to do something else. But if you do want to have an exit strategy strategy and in two, three years, you were thinking about selling your business, well, you've got to know that you've got to have at least three years of impeccable accounts, good record keeping, because any buyers of your business, that's the first thing they're going to ask for, good accounts. So that's one thing that I would say as well, especially for growing businesses. They want to do different things. They want to sell their business. And it all starts with good record keeping. And it's not good doing it last minute because that's a that's a pain trying to back day everything. So that's one thing as well. It's just it's about future planning. And the last thing is tax relief. You know, knowing knowing that you can get pre-trading expenditure for your business. So what that means is you can essentially take into account seven years before starting your business, any expense expenses incurred for that business. But it's important to know that you have the right receipts, the right invoices, bills to ensure that it's an allowable expense. And and another thing as well is that refund. So if you ever become about registered in the future and that's for businesses that are turning over 85,000. So obviously it's a future thing. You can actually have a that refund four years prior to registering. But it also means you can have a good record keeping system to ensure you can account for all those expenses over those four years. So there and these are just a couple, really. But it's it's important as you can, as you know, it's it's really important in so many aspects of the business journey. I like that. So for obviously, there's going to be coaches all around the world watching this. So every country has their own tax system. But what I've what we've noticed is that mainly the coaches we work with are in the US and in the UK. The systems are quite similar. So obviously do your research. But for any coach watching, so just to recap. So if you started your business, for example, in 2007, right, you can expense it from 2000. So from seven years back, is that right? Correct. Correct. And that's that's the pre-trading expenditure. And as you mentioned as well, in the US, there's going to they're going to have a similar sort of tax relief system. And, you know, at the end of the day, you've got to make sure that if you do get an accountant, if you have good record keeping, not only will they charge you less fees because you've got a good record keeping system anyway, you don't really need an accountant, you know, especially if you're starting out or you're thinking about it. Just make sure that you have everything in place because then when that accountant gives you advice in terms of, oh, you can expense X, Y and Z, if you've got a good record keeping system, it's easy. It's easy because there are a lot of accountants out there and and it is true. If you don't have the paperwork for it, you just you can't expense it, essentially that that's that's, you know, that's a nuts and crannies of it. Of course, there are other ways, like, you know, for example, bank statements and and things like that, looking at bank statements, but it really depends on the amount and it gets quite complicated. So having having the receipts, the invoices save so much time. I like that. That's good, good, good advice because I know a lot of coaches and spoken to a lot who they they don't they don't take these things into account. They just do session after session after session. They're making money, but then they don't keep their receipts. They don't invoice. And then when they get to a stage where they have to set up their business legally or properly, shall we say, there's a lot of things that they're they're losing out on, as as you mentioned, right? They could have tracked seven years behind and and expense a lot of the stuff that they they might have bought, such as equipment, etc. So yeah, that's that's that's really good piece of advice. Yeah, no, of course. And I come across a lot of businesses that they just don't know these things, they don't know these things and they're scared because they don't they don't have the resources to get an accountant. But, you know, a series like this that we're doing, it's really good because it gives new business owners a bit of an insight into how to, you know, have a good foundation for a successful business. Perfect. So if you if there's a coach out there watching who is looking to start a business or is that like the start in stages? It was a little piece of advice you can give them before they actually bring on an accountant to help them with their their taxes and the legal side. Yeah, I would say do as do as much research as possible in terms of, you know, setting up a business. Of course, have a look at the the podcast series we're doing. That gives you a good insight into these things. But yeah, do research, go on to government websites. Some of the information can be quite detailed, but they do tend to create information which is easy to read. And I would say start with that and, you know, do things properly. You know, watch the podcast, understand that, keeping good records. Is is so important for their business. And then once they've got that foundational knowledge, because as a business owner, you do have a duty to understand your business finances. You can't. Ignorance is not something that the, you know, that HMRC. The tax authorities will will say that's an acceptable excuse. Yeah, love that. Perfect. So making sure that you obviously have all your receipts for any expenses that you make at the beginning and then obviously invoice tracking as well is important. Yeah, exactly. And just looking, as I said, go on to your, you know, the website for HMRC or the tax, like, you know, the government website. They have good information on there as well. And a lot of it is in very kind of simple plain English. So definitely a good starting point there as well. Perfect. All right, Andrew, well, thank you very much again for coming on, sharing, sharing your knowledge on this, this topic, right? So if you're a coach watching, again, you've enjoyed what this type of content, go back, watch our previous ones. And Andrew, thank you again. And I look forward to our upcoming chat where we're going to be talking about something different in, in relation to the legal side of a sports coaching business. Brilliant. Thank you. Thanks for having me, Leo. Take care. You too.