Disclaimer
First a disclaimer: I AM NOT A CPA/ACCOUNTANT OR EVEN A FINANCIAL PLANNER! I am a business owner. You will only take this as an example, a guide if you will, and will not hold me liable for any missed information or incorrect information. It’s on you to fill the holes. Everything here is an example, these are in no way my personal values, etc.
A Little Intro
This is how we’ve (specifically me) have been calculating our overhead/expenses, which in the end, dictates your rates so you make a profit. Hopefully this will help people to quit asking so much about rates…
This is all an example, sadly, you’ll have to look over your own bills and figure it out for yourself. It doesn’t matter where you operate your business, because it really boils down to what you need to pay to operate your business. I break my expenses into 4 main categories: Survival, Sustainment, CYA, and Growth.
The key is, you have to separate business from personal (for the US I know for sure). If anything can be classified as personal, it gets tricky. Find a CPA.
Survival
Survival is what you need to continue operating business, regardless of location. It could be your house, a garbage can, it doesn’t matter. It also includes the tools we need, whether it is a wrench or a piece of software, to do the job. The survival breakdown is as such with example expenses, try to keep it what you need, not what you want.
Property/Rent: $1,200/month
This is your businesses location and how much rent you need to pay. If in your house, the designated % of space of your home for your business when it comes to tax time applies, not the amount you designate. Our example is high, because we are going to say we have a store front or a mortgage payment.
Utilities
This is your businesses utilities. If in your home, for US tax purposes, the % allocated to your business for space also gets allocated to this as well. UNLESS, you purchased a phone line specific to your business and your business only. Same with the internet. That’s more complicated though, so speak to a CPA. He’ll fill you in.
Vehicle
It gets complicated with personal vehicles (in the US). The bottom line here though, is it the businesses vehicles or your personal vehicle. If it personal, then track your miles doing business stuff and turn that in to the tax man instead. Otherwise, you can count all of this as business expenses.
Professional Tools
Banking does not include any loan repayment or paying your credit cards. Banking is your merchant services you pay for, or what you pay your bank for a business checking account and INTEREST CHARGED FOR ANY LOANS!!!!
Other - $0/month
Anything you need to calculate as part of survival will go here. You need to break it down however as to what it is. Is it office supplies? Is it professional services you pay for? Break it down cause tax time, it matters.
Add up your survival costs, in this example we get: $2,630/month.
This is the minimum you need to bring in per month. Now, if, say you work from home, your actual mortgage amount or rent, or utilities, which need you to pay each month, can go here. But remember how to separate them for tax purposes.
Next take your monthly survival costs and break it down to assume 30 days in any given calendar month. (Ex. $87.67 per day). That means, every day you need to bring in about $90. So if you work 10 hours a day, 30 days a month, you need to gross at least $9 per hour worked (just round up to the whole $10 for this one). Again, survive, not maintain or even sustain.
Sustainment
Next we need to calculate sustainment or “maintain”. Maintaining means being able to maintain ourselves, like food, gas for the stove, etc, as well as have some money for emergencies and comforts. To figure out our maintaining amount needed to sustain us, not just the business, multiply your current daily amount ($90) between 1.5 and 2 (you should get with the example $135-$180).
Assume a 10 hour work day and that comes to $13.50-$18/hour. This is also what your employees come to expect as well. Notice how it all kinda flows with typical wages people earn? $9/hour being around minimum wage? This is also assuming you work 30 days a month, which will become exhausting to you and we’ll get there.
To recap, we need to make $13.50 to $18/hour to both survive and sustain.
CYA
Now we want to figure in the CYA costs like insurance, and a few of the unexpected to occur. We want to take our current expenditures to maintain (we will say we settled on $15/hour) and double it. This means we need to make at least $30/hour. This gives us about $9,000 a month, or $108,000 a year. You might be thinking “yeah, I can do a lot with that”. Well, remember, you are going to be buying insurance (general and professional), workman’s compensation insurance, medical, etc. with all of this.
You aren’t employed; you’re the employer, which means it all falls on you. None of this is really yours to buy a new house, etc. This is still all going to your business, and providing you with basic insurances.
Come tax time, you are going to want a CPA (another expense, but not that bad), in some bad weather a lawyer, etc., etc., etc. This is what that $30/hour is designed to cover. You won’t be living the best life, but hopefully you won’t be on the street either. Keep in mind, this will help bring some home, but it may not be enough by the end of the year, especially with taxes due.
Any legal and professional services you purchase (CPA, Legal, General Insurance, Professional Liability Insurance, etc.) All goes here. The money accrued under what is allocated to CYA is for this right here. This is very important, because if you want to be treated like a big boy (a serious business), you are going to need to be able to have insurance. It’s also advisable that you get workman’s compensation. You might be thinking “but I’m self employed”. Let me put it to you like this….I’m self employed. If I get hurt on the job, and I can’t work, believe it or not, my companies Worksman’s Compensation covers me. Because I’m a managing member of my business. I may not be a W2, not even salary, but I’m still a full time, working manager of my business. It pays to have workman’s compensation for a sole-proprietor (even though I’m in a partnership.
Personal medical insurance, say for you and the family, is not typically tax deductible, but speak with your CPA about this as well. New exchange laws, and all that crap (in the US).
Now you might be thinking $4,500 a month allocated to CYA is excessive. Not really, the CYA is there to cover any survive and Sustainment expenses that spike or occur for any reason. Come the Summer time, we dig in to our CYA fund to pay for the higher electric bill we get. We’ve dipped in to a few times to pay for mistakes, like cracking a new screen we ordered for a screen replacement. This CYA fund is both for insurances and as a small buffer to not be whacked up the head by the unexpected.
To recap, we need to make $30/hour to survive, sustain and CYA with this example.
Self-Pay > Going In To Growth
DO NOT GET GREEDY IF YOU ARE FLYING SOLO! Add in what you think is fair for an hourly wage, for yourself. Let us start easy, and with $10/hour. This is your take home. Now we are at $40/hour for expenses.
This is to help bring home the bacon if you will. If you run out of an office, or a storefront, then nothing has been take-home at this point, remember that. If you’ve been working out of an office or a store front, your sustain does not put food on your table each night. Your sustain probably goes to things like “Services Offered” etc. Things that you earn on a recurring basis that you have to turn around and pay off. “Office Supplies” and “Consumables” are other sustainment’s when talking about running an office or store front. Things that maintain the business. Self-pay is what you are paying yourself.
“Yeah but I’m a senior ranking Network System Awesome Administrator…”
Yeah, maybe at a bigger company. But not in yours. You’re a tech for all general purposes, doing it alone and you’re having to justify costs to your wife each night while she complains how your business isn’t bringing home crap and she’s working 40 hours a week making $25/hour. So again, don’t get greedy, be happy with your $10/hour right now.
Growth
You are going to want things like shirts, with your logo and business name on them. You are also going to want to invest in things like advertising, networking groups, a chamber membership, etc. You are going to want to add an additional $10/hour. Now we can buy shirts, business cards, some advertising space, etc. In all, up to this point with the example, we are looking at about a minimum goal of $15,000 month or $180,000 year. Look back though, you aren’t bringing in much for yourself really. The business is paying for itself with this, and helping you scrape by. Your business is going to be eating the majority of the costs, not you.
Summarize it all up
Now if you don’t want to work 7 days a week, everyday of the year, for 10 hours a day, then don’t. Figure out the math, say take every Sunday off. 30 days in a month minus 4 Sundays equals 26 days. We know our minimum monthly is $15,000, divided by 26 days is about $570 a day, or $57/hour for a 10 hour day. Anything else you add to that hourly amount becomes your profit, or an increase on your $10/hour wage.
If you are just starting out, or can’t work a full 10 hours a day everyday because the workload isn’t there, don’t worry. Continue to use this scheme as if you were. This shows you what you need to obtain hourly. This is why being able to work on multiple computers at one time becomes important, SLA’s, etc. Don’t expect the world in the first month. This is why so many on here say “don’t start unless you can afford it”.
Don’t expand unless you can afford it. If you are only brining in 50% of what you need to survive, why do you think you can hire a second person to help you out? You see these techs advertising $20/fix. Chances are, they are not full time in the business. They are more like part time, because the customers aren’t there. The workload isn’t there, and there is no way that $20/fix is bringing in enough to cover their overhead.
Things That Help Your With Expenses
Hardware/Software Purchases For Resell - This should have no impact on your rates what so ever. Any hardware you purchase, when sold needs to pay for itself. Any markup you apply is considered profit. Markups vary greatly from one shop to another. A minimum low is 10% in my opinion, a maximum is 25% in my opinion. Money used to make purchases for resell need to come out of your Pocket/Growth at the start, but it is okay, cause it’s not sitting your shop collecting dust, it’s going right in to the customers hands. So your loss is only temporary.
Supplies, Consumables, Expendables - These need to get calculated in to the jobs you do automatically. For example, when we perform a network drop installation, we charge by the run. Costs of these supplies are calculated in to the cost of the run to include labor. If you provide a computer cleaning, things like wipes are calculated in to total cost of the service (fixed price). We call it a Shop Supply Fee. But anything that is a onetime use, and after that is useless to you or can't be salvaged after use without even more charges and headaches will get classified as this. If you really want, feel free to break down the per foot, per item, per sheet costs and add them in separately. Let’s see how long you do that before it becomes cumbersome on an invoice.
Contract Labor (1099) - Any time you need to bring in someone temporarily, and you don't intend to hire them, this is where they go. Keep them separate from Wages and Benefits for employees. Why? Cause these guys don't get paid a wage or receive any benefits from you. In the US, any person you pay more than $600 in a given tax period has to be considered an employee or a 1099. Contact your CPA/Accountant for more on this. These people will typically only be brought in on projects, so give the client a quote, and make sure whatever you pay a 1099 is calculated in to the quote. If only the contract labor is on the site, having them work off your hourly rate, where they are receiving a portion of that, means whatever brought in is considered profit from the job.
Services Offered - If you offer any type of continuous, recurring payment services, what you have to pay is considered sustainment. If you are charging the customer what you have to pay, you are breaking even (this is bad). By applying a markup, you bring home a small portion, and the profit can go to things like meeting the monthly goal.
Working On Multiple Computers - When you can work on multiple computers, whether it is in your garage, or in a shop, you have the potential to make more per hour. It is difficult, but my advice is try to be working on at least 10 computers in shop a week. Once you get to 10, increase that. You want an end goal of 2 computers on a bench per day.
In closing for right now, this is not static. Some months you’ll have more expenses than others. That is okay. Watch your expenses if you are not at your monthly goal. You have no idea what can happen between now and tomorrow. No one does. So make sure you are saving money every step of the way. Having a CPA or an Accountant as your best friend, or in your speed dial is a very crucial component if you ask me. Their knowledge about not only taxes, but how to put together a budget is well worth it. I advise you sit down with one, bring all your bills for the last 6 months, bank statements, etc. We sat down with ours and we found out while we were grossing a profit, we were actually netting a loss. Sounds hard to believe, but apparently it can happen.
I’ve also attached something that will help you out. We called it the master book. Feel free to use it as a generalized expense ledger that helps you see money coming in and money coming out. It’s broken down pretty well.
Lastly, always ask yourself when buying anything:
First a disclaimer: I AM NOT A CPA/ACCOUNTANT OR EVEN A FINANCIAL PLANNER! I am a business owner. You will only take this as an example, a guide if you will, and will not hold me liable for any missed information or incorrect information. It’s on you to fill the holes. Everything here is an example, these are in no way my personal values, etc.
A Little Intro
This is how we’ve (specifically me) have been calculating our overhead/expenses, which in the end, dictates your rates so you make a profit. Hopefully this will help people to quit asking so much about rates…
This is all an example, sadly, you’ll have to look over your own bills and figure it out for yourself. It doesn’t matter where you operate your business, because it really boils down to what you need to pay to operate your business. I break my expenses into 4 main categories: Survival, Sustainment, CYA, and Growth.
The key is, you have to separate business from personal (for the US I know for sure). If anything can be classified as personal, it gets tricky. Find a CPA.
Survival
Survival is what you need to continue operating business, regardless of location. It could be your house, a garbage can, it doesn’t matter. It also includes the tools we need, whether it is a wrench or a piece of software, to do the job. The survival breakdown is as such with example expenses, try to keep it what you need, not what you want.
Property/Rent: $1,200/month
This is your businesses location and how much rent you need to pay. If in your house, the designated % of space of your home for your business when it comes to tax time applies, not the amount you designate. Our example is high, because we are going to say we have a store front or a mortgage payment.
Utilities
- Electricity: $400/month
- Sewage/Garbage, etc (Property Maintenance): $150/month
- Internet/Phones: $120/month
This is your businesses utilities. If in your home, for US tax purposes, the % allocated to your business for space also gets allocated to this as well. UNLESS, you purchased a phone line specific to your business and your business only. Same with the internet. That’s more complicated though, so speak to a CPA. He’ll fill you in.
Vehicle
- Insurance: $150/month
- Petrol/Gas: $100/week or $400/month
- Maintenance: $80/month (you’ll have to figure in tires, oil changes, washes, brakes, etc., and calculate that out to an annual amount and then divide by 12).
It gets complicated with personal vehicles (in the US). The bottom line here though, is it the businesses vehicles or your personal vehicle. If it personal, then track your miles doing business stuff and turn that in to the tax man instead. Otherwise, you can count all of this as business expenses.
Professional Tools
- Software Tools, single purchase: $25/month (these are software tools you pay for once. Calculate an annual amount, divide by 12, and that is your monthly amount)
- Software Tools, recurring: $0/month (these are software tools that are subscription based, not peruse based. Whether it is annual or monthly, it should be easy to calculate the costs per year)
- CRM Software: $25/month (administrative software used to keep track of everything. Like quickbooks and PCRT)
- Hosting/Email/Other Software: $75/month (stuff you need to communicate with electronically with your customers and everyone else)
- Tools, physical: $5/month (unless you break your screw driver on a regular basis…figure out how often you need to replace or add to your tool-kit or box)
Banking does not include any loan repayment or paying your credit cards. Banking is your merchant services you pay for, or what you pay your bank for a business checking account and INTEREST CHARGED FOR ANY LOANS!!!!
Other - $0/month
Anything you need to calculate as part of survival will go here. You need to break it down however as to what it is. Is it office supplies? Is it professional services you pay for? Break it down cause tax time, it matters.
Add up your survival costs, in this example we get: $2,630/month.
This is the minimum you need to bring in per month. Now, if, say you work from home, your actual mortgage amount or rent, or utilities, which need you to pay each month, can go here. But remember how to separate them for tax purposes.
Next take your monthly survival costs and break it down to assume 30 days in any given calendar month. (Ex. $87.67 per day). That means, every day you need to bring in about $90. So if you work 10 hours a day, 30 days a month, you need to gross at least $9 per hour worked (just round up to the whole $10 for this one). Again, survive, not maintain or even sustain.
Sustainment
Next we need to calculate sustainment or “maintain”. Maintaining means being able to maintain ourselves, like food, gas for the stove, etc, as well as have some money for emergencies and comforts. To figure out our maintaining amount needed to sustain us, not just the business, multiply your current daily amount ($90) between 1.5 and 2 (you should get with the example $135-$180).
Assume a 10 hour work day and that comes to $13.50-$18/hour. This is also what your employees come to expect as well. Notice how it all kinda flows with typical wages people earn? $9/hour being around minimum wage? This is also assuming you work 30 days a month, which will become exhausting to you and we’ll get there.
To recap, we need to make $13.50 to $18/hour to both survive and sustain.
CYA
Now we want to figure in the CYA costs like insurance, and a few of the unexpected to occur. We want to take our current expenditures to maintain (we will say we settled on $15/hour) and double it. This means we need to make at least $30/hour. This gives us about $9,000 a month, or $108,000 a year. You might be thinking “yeah, I can do a lot with that”. Well, remember, you are going to be buying insurance (general and professional), workman’s compensation insurance, medical, etc. with all of this.
You aren’t employed; you’re the employer, which means it all falls on you. None of this is really yours to buy a new house, etc. This is still all going to your business, and providing you with basic insurances.
Come tax time, you are going to want a CPA (another expense, but not that bad), in some bad weather a lawyer, etc., etc., etc. This is what that $30/hour is designed to cover. You won’t be living the best life, but hopefully you won’t be on the street either. Keep in mind, this will help bring some home, but it may not be enough by the end of the year, especially with taxes due.
Any legal and professional services you purchase (CPA, Legal, General Insurance, Professional Liability Insurance, etc.) All goes here. The money accrued under what is allocated to CYA is for this right here. This is very important, because if you want to be treated like a big boy (a serious business), you are going to need to be able to have insurance. It’s also advisable that you get workman’s compensation. You might be thinking “but I’m self employed”. Let me put it to you like this….I’m self employed. If I get hurt on the job, and I can’t work, believe it or not, my companies Worksman’s Compensation covers me. Because I’m a managing member of my business. I may not be a W2, not even salary, but I’m still a full time, working manager of my business. It pays to have workman’s compensation for a sole-proprietor (even though I’m in a partnership.
Personal medical insurance, say for you and the family, is not typically tax deductible, but speak with your CPA about this as well. New exchange laws, and all that crap (in the US).
Now you might be thinking $4,500 a month allocated to CYA is excessive. Not really, the CYA is there to cover any survive and Sustainment expenses that spike or occur for any reason. Come the Summer time, we dig in to our CYA fund to pay for the higher electric bill we get. We’ve dipped in to a few times to pay for mistakes, like cracking a new screen we ordered for a screen replacement. This CYA fund is both for insurances and as a small buffer to not be whacked up the head by the unexpected.
To recap, we need to make $30/hour to survive, sustain and CYA with this example.
Self-Pay > Going In To Growth
DO NOT GET GREEDY IF YOU ARE FLYING SOLO! Add in what you think is fair for an hourly wage, for yourself. Let us start easy, and with $10/hour. This is your take home. Now we are at $40/hour for expenses.
This is to help bring home the bacon if you will. If you run out of an office, or a storefront, then nothing has been take-home at this point, remember that. If you’ve been working out of an office or a store front, your sustain does not put food on your table each night. Your sustain probably goes to things like “Services Offered” etc. Things that you earn on a recurring basis that you have to turn around and pay off. “Office Supplies” and “Consumables” are other sustainment’s when talking about running an office or store front. Things that maintain the business. Self-pay is what you are paying yourself.
“Yeah but I’m a senior ranking Network System Awesome Administrator…”
Yeah, maybe at a bigger company. But not in yours. You’re a tech for all general purposes, doing it alone and you’re having to justify costs to your wife each night while she complains how your business isn’t bringing home crap and she’s working 40 hours a week making $25/hour. So again, don’t get greedy, be happy with your $10/hour right now.
Growth
You are going to want things like shirts, with your logo and business name on them. You are also going to want to invest in things like advertising, networking groups, a chamber membership, etc. You are going to want to add an additional $10/hour. Now we can buy shirts, business cards, some advertising space, etc. In all, up to this point with the example, we are looking at about a minimum goal of $15,000 month or $180,000 year. Look back though, you aren’t bringing in much for yourself really. The business is paying for itself with this, and helping you scrape by. Your business is going to be eating the majority of the costs, not you.
Summarize it all up
Now if you don’t want to work 7 days a week, everyday of the year, for 10 hours a day, then don’t. Figure out the math, say take every Sunday off. 30 days in a month minus 4 Sundays equals 26 days. We know our minimum monthly is $15,000, divided by 26 days is about $570 a day, or $57/hour for a 10 hour day. Anything else you add to that hourly amount becomes your profit, or an increase on your $10/hour wage.
If you are just starting out, or can’t work a full 10 hours a day everyday because the workload isn’t there, don’t worry. Continue to use this scheme as if you were. This shows you what you need to obtain hourly. This is why being able to work on multiple computers at one time becomes important, SLA’s, etc. Don’t expect the world in the first month. This is why so many on here say “don’t start unless you can afford it”.
Don’t expand unless you can afford it. If you are only brining in 50% of what you need to survive, why do you think you can hire a second person to help you out? You see these techs advertising $20/fix. Chances are, they are not full time in the business. They are more like part time, because the customers aren’t there. The workload isn’t there, and there is no way that $20/fix is bringing in enough to cover their overhead.
Things That Help Your With Expenses
Hardware/Software Purchases For Resell - This should have no impact on your rates what so ever. Any hardware you purchase, when sold needs to pay for itself. Any markup you apply is considered profit. Markups vary greatly from one shop to another. A minimum low is 10% in my opinion, a maximum is 25% in my opinion. Money used to make purchases for resell need to come out of your Pocket/Growth at the start, but it is okay, cause it’s not sitting your shop collecting dust, it’s going right in to the customers hands. So your loss is only temporary.
Supplies, Consumables, Expendables - These need to get calculated in to the jobs you do automatically. For example, when we perform a network drop installation, we charge by the run. Costs of these supplies are calculated in to the cost of the run to include labor. If you provide a computer cleaning, things like wipes are calculated in to total cost of the service (fixed price). We call it a Shop Supply Fee. But anything that is a onetime use, and after that is useless to you or can't be salvaged after use without even more charges and headaches will get classified as this. If you really want, feel free to break down the per foot, per item, per sheet costs and add them in separately. Let’s see how long you do that before it becomes cumbersome on an invoice.
Contract Labor (1099) - Any time you need to bring in someone temporarily, and you don't intend to hire them, this is where they go. Keep them separate from Wages and Benefits for employees. Why? Cause these guys don't get paid a wage or receive any benefits from you. In the US, any person you pay more than $600 in a given tax period has to be considered an employee or a 1099. Contact your CPA/Accountant for more on this. These people will typically only be brought in on projects, so give the client a quote, and make sure whatever you pay a 1099 is calculated in to the quote. If only the contract labor is on the site, having them work off your hourly rate, where they are receiving a portion of that, means whatever brought in is considered profit from the job.
Services Offered - If you offer any type of continuous, recurring payment services, what you have to pay is considered sustainment. If you are charging the customer what you have to pay, you are breaking even (this is bad). By applying a markup, you bring home a small portion, and the profit can go to things like meeting the monthly goal.
Working On Multiple Computers - When you can work on multiple computers, whether it is in your garage, or in a shop, you have the potential to make more per hour. It is difficult, but my advice is try to be working on at least 10 computers in shop a week. Once you get to 10, increase that. You want an end goal of 2 computers on a bench per day.
In closing for right now, this is not static. Some months you’ll have more expenses than others. That is okay. Watch your expenses if you are not at your monthly goal. You have no idea what can happen between now and tomorrow. No one does. So make sure you are saving money every step of the way. Having a CPA or an Accountant as your best friend, or in your speed dial is a very crucial component if you ask me. Their knowledge about not only taxes, but how to put together a budget is well worth it. I advise you sit down with one, bring all your bills for the last 6 months, bank statements, etc. We sat down with ours and we found out while we were grossing a profit, we were actually netting a loss. Sounds hard to believe, but apparently it can happen.
I’ve also attached something that will help you out. We called it the master book. Feel free to use it as a generalized expense ledger that helps you see money coming in and money coming out. It’s broken down pretty well.
Lastly, always ask yourself when buying anything:
- Am I buying this for my business?
- How often do I have to buy this or pay for it?
- Does it help me survive, sustain, CYA, or grow?
- Is this an expense I won’t make money on, but I need it (ex. Insurance)? How much do I need to make to maintain/keep it?
- Is this an expense I can make money on? If so, how much? (ROI)
