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I Hate Mondays…

Never a truer word spoken in my opinion.

When 100% of my daytime was spent on the tools, I didn’t seem to mind Mondays too much; but now I’m office based for most of my time I actually hate them.

I’ve never been the most organised person and this certainly shows when Monday morning rears its ugly head. I seem to spend most of the mornings hours in a zombie type state, not being able to engage with anything.  A typical Monday for me is to float through the morning and then spend the afternoon listing the things I should of done.  This however paves the path for my next more productive couple of days.

Tuesdays and Wednesdays seem to be my most productive time of the week with my brain now functioning as it should. I actually enjoy these days and feel good that both have been worth while each week. If I had to choose two days these would be it. I can only put this down to being midway without last weekends antics effecting me and too far away from the next to distract me. I’m organised paperwork wise thanks to YourTradebase, and even sorted out tasks for myself for the rest of the week using it too, so I know exactly what I’m doing.

Since using YourTradebase, I’ve never been so organised or productive with my week. Instead of groaning at the thought of doing my quotes and invoicing, I know now that by having allotted my time to do it, it’ll all done done in an hour or so. So I can actually get on with the work I actually enjoy doing.

Then Friday is my favourite day of the week for obvious reasons and I tend to celebrate this each week by supply the staff with pizza and slipping off earlier than normal, and did someone mention a pint?  I also think that everyone else is in higher spirits on a Friday which must rub off and put a little spring in my step too.

How do you organise your week?

This week’s guest blog post tell us why it’s so important for you to get to grips with your risk assessment paperwork.

Take it away Alex!

Getting bogged down with paperwork.

When it comes to managing paperwork, research shows most tradesmen have difficulty keeping track. In fact, the construction industry is the only industry with it’s own taxation scheme due to the poor administration of so many construction businesses.

It’s estimated that small businesses are now spending over £4,000 annually, or almost £350 a month on health and safety admin, and growing businesses can expect to pay up to £27,345 a year with compliance.

No wonder, then, that many construction business owners say they feel overwhelmed by their compliance responsibilities – if they know their responsibilities at all. A recent government survey, which found that over a third of SMEs think health and safety regulations are the biggest obstacle to growing their business.

That’s why the development of cloud based software such as YourTradebase and HANDS HQ have been so beneficial to the industry, and offer huge savings in time and money to small businesses. Where YourTradebase is solving invoicing, HANDS HQ is making creating risk assessments and method statements a piece of cake.

HANDS HQ offers a way for tradesmen to slash the administration costs of health and safety and drive money back into their pockets. It’s hard to know where to start when it comes to writing risk assessment and method statement (RAMS) documents.

Instead of messing with Word templates that can take hours to edit or hiring consultants, tradesmen can simply put their information into HANDS HQ’s unique online system and create professional-looking documents tailored to the project at hand in minutes. HANDS HQ’s health and safety experts have created a library of activities and control measures that make finding risk reduction solutions quick and easy.

In an industry where margins are already thin, tradesmen are always on the lookout for new ways to cut costs. When it comes to saving money on admin, YourTradebase and HANDS HQ have some creative, cost-effective solutions that allow you to concentrate on growing your business.

By Alex Green, CEO of HANDS HQ, an online tool for creating construction risk assessments and method statements in minutes.

Thanks Alex! Want to see your words up here? Drop Emma an email, and be our next guest blogger!

YourTradebase offers easy-to-use tradesmen software for tradespeople who want an easy way to sort their paperwork.

Electrical Contractors: Are You One Cable Short Of A Full Tool Box?

Bob Geldof must have been an electrical contractor before he hit mega stardom as a philanthropist, political commentator and musician.

The weekend’s over, the alarm goes, it’s cold and wet outside, you arrive on site, your bacon butty‘s actually just a butty, the site manager’s conducting a lengthy risk assessment because you want to move a heavy cable drum up a 5° slope and you think to yourself, “Tell me why I don’t like Mondays.”

There are numerous problems, or “patience sappers”, that electrical contractors have to contend with on a daily basis: customers changing designs and saying “I’m not paying that” when the final invoice is raised, getting clearance to go on site whilst an environmental officer conducts a carbon appraisal, or travelling 200 miles to one of your ‘faulty’ installations only to fix it by flicking a switch (“ohhh, thaaaat switch” he says!).

However, above all others what is the most common occurring problem in today’s hustle and bustle of electrical contracting?

The supply chain.

Professional contractors like to be in control, grasp the mettle, get the bull by the horns (and so on, Ed.) and events which impact on their business that are beyond their control are known to make the tops of heads expand and steam expel from the ears. These problems can take the form of late deliveries, incorrect products supplied, overpriced goods, but either directly or indirectly they usually always end up hitting the contractor where it hurts most, in their trouser pocket.

There are two things that an electrical contractor holds dearest above all others; their tools and their wallet.

Often the two are inextricably linked and for that reason when deciding upon whom to entrust with the supply of materials the important considerations are price, quality, and service. Using cables as an example, to ascertain which supplier offers the best solution usually involves contacting at least three companies so that adequate comparisons can be made.

Waiting for offers to be submitted can sometimes take lots of time and on occasions where it is late in the day or you are pulled out with work, this is time that you simply do not have.

So what do you do?

Bearing all this in mind, a company called ComparedCables was launched in October and has been developed to make the process of buying cables easier and quicker. It is an independent online marketplace for electrical cables that UK cable distributors can use to advertise their latest cable offers. The website includes features such as search by minimum order quantity or lead time to refine your enquiry to meet your requirements. Most importantly, should you log on to ComparedCables we may be able to save you money, which means less Bob and more Happy Mondays instead!

Written by Elliot Hoole

Thanks Elliot!

Want to see your own words up here? Email Emma to be a guest blogger!

Here at YourTradebase HQ we want to help make your paperwork management as easy as possible, that’s why we’ve created our new interactive help desk.

Our new help desk means you can speak to one of our team straight away if you have a problem, question or feedback to give to us. All you have to do is click the help tag when you’re signed in, choose to chat to us live, and a team member will be there to help you out.

Not signed in or not signed up for YourTradebase but still want to chat with us? Don’t worry you can also click the chat button on the YourTradebase homepage and get talking to us!

It talking isn’t your style, you can always send us a message too or search our database for an answer to a query you might have.

Don’t forget you can also get in touch with us on our Twitter and Facebook pages to keep up to date on any changes or updates we’re doing!

In a new section on our blog, our co-founder Dean gives his view on being a self employed tradesman.

He’ll be updating us once a month on anything from a job he’s currently doing, or some tradesmen tips of his own. Just keep an eye out for the hastag #Deansblog!

Take it away Dean!

The start of YourTradebase

When I first decided to make the jump from employment to self employment I knew that the hours I had to commit to working would increase but I accepted that with the understanding that my pocket would (hopefully) be rewarded and allow me to almost purchase my own free time in the future.

How wrong was I?

After 18 months or so I found myself working near on 100 hours a week, either on the tools, viewing potential jobs and sitting in the office knocking out paperwork whilst trying to build my reputation for being an efficient and professional tradesman.

This working for yourself malarkey wasn’t quite as I had pictured.

The money was definitely better but working after a day on site was gruelling! No spare time meant no play time with the kids and I couldn’t manage more than a grunt when the boss (missus) spoke to me.

I needed to change the way things were.  I didn’t want to continue spending every waking hour working. But knew if I wanted these rewards, all of these tasks and paperwork were part and parcel of the job.

Voice box re-calibrated, I sat down and actually ‘talked’ about the situation with Sharron (the wife) and came to the conclusion that I needed to ease my paperwork chores.  Some way of making the boring bit of my business, well, EASY and less time consuming.

After numerous conversations with Adam (the other co-founder) we started to build a way to literally ‘take the pain out my paperwork’. The first version was basic, and only really for my use, but it soon lifted so much of the weight of paperwork that I had to deal with. Now I was actually able to get back to normal, this meant even managing a few cheeky pints down the pub where I told my friends, and soon they were all wanting to try it out.

That’s when I knew I wasn’t alone, and so YourTradebase was born!

Thanks Dean! Let us know what you think by leaving a comment or tweeting us.

Our competition with My Local Electrician to a professional P-touch EDGE label printer and 6 months FREE membership ends midnight!

So you’ll have to be quick to enter:

How to enter

To enter all you have to do is:

1. Sign up for a trial with YourTradebase using this link and enter the code MLECOMPETITION
2. Sit back and relax, until we pick a winner!

It’s that simple, and hey, who knows? You might even save some time on doing your paperwork!

Always running round trying to keep on top of your plumbers’ invoices other paperwork and jobs?

Over here at YourTradebase HQ we’ve tweaked our tasks system to work even better around you and your jobs. Meaning you stay easily organised all the time.

In the new tweaked task system everything to do with your plumbers’ invoices and other paperwork is automatic, meaning that you don’t even have to spend time creating a task for yourself, as it’s done for you.

So for instance if you create a quote and save it as a draft, a task is then automatically generated to remind you that you have to send it to your customer. After you’ve sent a quote, a task is then generated to remind you to chase it up!

Pretty easy right? So it’ll even help you win more work, by reminding you to chase up customers!

This new task system works for all areas of the paperwork side in YourTradebase. So it’ll remind you if one of your invoices hasn’t been paid (not that you probably would forget!), if it hasn’t been sent, or if there is a estimate that hasn’t been followed up. We like to think it’s a friendly reminder that can help things run a bit more smoothly your end, and make sure that you never forget a thing!

All of these tasks are shown on your dashboard. So when you logs in, you can get an instant overview of jobs and paperwork that need your attention.

As well as this, we’ve also added the function to ‘remind later’ your tasks. So if you’ve logged on to YourTradebase to create new quotes, and not send invoices; this ‘remind later’ means you can set it to tomorrow, the next day, or next week, and not run the risk of forgetting about it!

Of course you can still create tasks for yourself. From reminding yourself to buy supplies, or call your plasterer to ask him about a job you have on. But by having this new task system automatically take care of your invoices, and other paperwork, it can help you save even more time, and stop running around trying to keep on top of your invoices!

To stay up to date on all of our news, take a look at our Facebook and Twitter pages, or blog.

Try YourTradebase online software for plumbers free for 30 days.

Did you know that you can create a plumbers’ invoice with YourTradebase in 1, 2, 3 steps?

Here are the 3 simple steps to creating an invoice with YourTradebase.

Step 1) Select ‘new invoice’

Step 2) Input all the details directly onto the invoice

Step 3) Send, save or mark your plumbers’ invoice as paid! You can still edit this at any time too.

Try YourTradebase online plumbers software free for 30 days.

Want to be able to create your plumbers’ invoices as easy as 1, 2, 3?  Sign up for a free 30 day trial with us!

Need a refresher on the key points of a plumbers’ invoice?

You’ve come to the right place!

Here are the 4 key points you need to remember when putting together an invoice!

1. You MUST include a unique invoice number for every single invoice. This is a requirement for when you do a self assessment tax return.
2. The name and address of the person you’re invoicing (should seem obvious, but even the most experienced can forget!).
3. A list of the products provided – for both the customer’s and HMRC’s sake.
4. If you’re VAT registered you MUST include your VAT number.

See our full invoice guide for even more help on what to include on them!

Want to win a professional P-touch EDGE label printer and 6 months FREE membership?

Who wouldn’t?

Partnering with My Local Electrician we’re giving away these away to one lucky winner!

How to enter

To enter all you have to do is:

1. Sign up for a trial with YourTradebase using this link and enter the code MLECOMPETITION
2. Sit back and relax, until we pick a winner!

It’s that simple, and hey, who knows? You might even save some time on doing your paperwork!

Time is always against you when trying to create a plumbers’ invoice

Dragging out receipts crumpled at the bottom of pockets, remembering what needs to be included, and that’s not mentioning the maths involved. Invoices seem never ending when you start them, and you’re constantly fighting with different things such as daily life, and other more important jobs taking away time from you.

So how exactly does YourTradebase help with creating plumbers’ invoices?

1. Invoices are templates – there’s no messing around trying to align the information properly on the page, all you have to do in drop the information in, and you’re done!
2. The details are taken care of – all our invoices automatically add VAT to items for you, and come with a basic terms of agreement that are ready to use, leaving you to just add the important information in.
3. Names and addresses are automatically populated – you select the customer you’ve done the work for, and all their details: contact information, address and name, are all put on to the invoice for you. The same goes for your own business details, so you don’t have to keep typing the same information out, so you save time!
4. Totals are totted up for you – no maths required, as soon as you add an item, the total at the bottom goes up. Simple!
5. You can create an invoice anywhere – YourTradebase can be used on any computer, tablet or smartphone at any time. So you don’t have to be tied down to a desk to create invoices.

So, want to try our YourTradebase to create your plumbers’ invoices and see if you can speed up the time you spend on them? You can try us out for a 30 day free trial, we don’t take credit cards and there aren’t any catches, just an easy way to manage your paperwork and jobs.

Do you know that you should recommend PVC but a bit fuzzy on the details why?

Well our guest blogger this week has you covered with a quick refresher, by telling us exactly what we should be recommending and why, so it should even help you win some more work!

Why recommend PVC?

PVC saves money:

Nowadays people are not only looking for quality tradesmen, but also quality products that do what’s expected of them. PVC products are exactly that, quality products that not only do the job they save your customers money in the long run. They help not only reduce their carbon footprint, but also help them save money on their heating bill. A win, win for them!

So what exactly is PVC then?

PVC is a plastic that is extremely popular and widely used in construction, due to it being a lot more effective than coppers and irons. It’s used for many jobs such as pipes, flooring and double glazing units and is highly recommended for its sustainability and its impact on the environment.

The benefits to tradesmen and the customers.

Firstly PVC saves money.  As a material it is very competitive in terms of price, this value is also enhanced by the properties it contains, such as its durability, lifespan and low maintenance. PVC can last for more than 40 years due to its durability in all weathers. How many tradesmen can offer a 40 year guarantee?

Next is the safety, PVC is extremely strong and is used for doors and windows, making it extremely hard for any burglars to access through these points. So this will be a definite selling point for your potential customers, knowing that their valuables are safe and sound.

PVC is also non-toxic, and a socially valuable resource that has been used for more than half a century. It’s is also the world’s most researched and thoroughly tested plastic. It meets all international standards for safety and health, something that should be explained to customers.

Now the bit you have been waiting for, lowering energy costs.

The image above illustrates were heat is lost through-out the house.

As you can see 26% of heat is lost through the windows but you can prevent this using uPVC. Customers can save on average around £170 on bills, by decreasing the heat lost through windows and also preventing cold draughts coming in through cracks in the window frames. Use these statistics to help with demonstrate just how big a benefit that these can bring to your customers.

If the uPVC is installed correctly your customers will be-

• Saving money
• Keeping a Warmer house temperature
• Reducing the carbon dioxide you emit
• Reducing the outside noise

And what customer can say no to a saving of £170 on their bills?

Finally reducing the carbon footprint with uPVC is another advantage, and gives you peace of mind as you know you and your customers are doing your bit for the environment.

Above is an illustration of the U.K standard on energy savings.

A window rated between A-C is the national average, anything below this could potentially mean you are selling your customers potentially illegal materials that not only dent their wallets in the future but put your reputation as a tradesmen at risk also. So always double check!

Hopefully the information in this has helped you understand PVC and uPVC a little bit better. But also gain a better understanding as to why PVC is the popular choice for many tradesmen and how it will benefit the customers in the long run.

This blog was written by Jonathan Griffiths

www.globalglassworks.co.uk

Thanks Jonathan! Want to get your own guest blog up on here? Email emma@yourtradebase.com and get your hints and tips up on here!