Whatever your line of work, the current economic conditions have meant that you’ll be looking to tighten the purse strings a little as we head into 2023. In any case, it’s always wise to search for ways in which you can save money on your business operations, seeing as the cash that you save will go directly into your profits. Sole traders, who spend much of their time travelling between homes and buildings for work, can save money in several ways. This article introduces four of the simplest ways to save money as a sole trader in 2023.
Fuel
Getting from A to B with all your tools and materials costs money. With the cost of fuel rising steadily year on year, this is a cost that may well have forced you to raise your prices in recent weeks and months. There are, however, other ways to account for rising fuel prices, saving money in the process. Use a shell fuel card to get reductions directly at the pumps, and alter your driving style, and even the types of journeys you’re willing to make, to save fuel and drive in an eco-friendly manner.
Materials
Another area in which sole traders can feel that they are losing money is in the field of materials. When you’re out working on a home or building, you’ll necessarily have to order some materials to get the work done. Some of that material will end up wasted, or you’ll simply not be able to use it on many other jobs. To reduce this wastage and save cash on materials, try to make your material estimations more accurate. You can do this by observing the kinds of lengths and weights you required on previous jobs, for instance.
Billing
When you were working two years ago, it’s likely that many of your costs were lower. You’ll have been able to resource materials and tools easier, and fuel will have been cheaper. In the past two years, as prices have risen, you should have compensated by also raising your prices. Explain this to customers so that they know why you’re putting your prices up. Put simply, if you’re not making the same amount of cash each month as you were in 2019, you need to up your prices and bill more accurately for your time and your expenses.
Job Evaluation
All sole traders know that there are some nightmare jobs out there that simply do not pay well. Among them are the kinds of tasks that you have given a quote for already, but which are turning into far more expensive exercises. Learning, over time, how to avoid these kinds of jobs, or those kinds of under-quotes, will save you a huge amount of cash each year, ensuring you’re only working on the most profitable jobs in which there will be no unpleasant costs and surprises.
Make these small changes to your operations as a sole trader to give yourself more chance of making a profit and saving cash on each job.
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