[00:00:09.050] - Gordon
Hello.

[00:00:09.510] - Taylor
Hello.

[00:00:10.000] - Gordon
My name's Gordon from Drayson Design.

[00:00:11.910] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.

[00:00:14.280] - Gordon
And welcome to "This Week with Taylor and Gordon," a weekly podcast and vidcast where we talk about things that have affected us as self-employed businessmen over the last seven days. Welcome back.

[00:00:25.900] - Taylor
Welcome back. See episode two of the new season or the second episode of the new season 112.

[00:00:35.320] - Gordon
112, yes, indeed. And so we hope you liked our last episode where we talked about how our website was built, the decisions that we made. Hopefully you've had a chance to go and have a look at it, and if you haven't, please do it's at www.thisweekwith.co.uk. So, we are now sort of a couple of weeks into January, so things are already starting to get busy and so we shall crack straight on with our topics. Do you want to start or shall I?

[00:01:15.130] - Taylor
I'll start this week.

[00:01:16.140] - Gordon
Okay.

[00:01:16.900] - Taylor
So this week, and kind of the past couple of weeks I have been doing my end of year accounts. Now, something that I've wanted to do is to keep on top of them by doing them every week, reconciling them every week so that I can stay on top of them and things like that. And obviously because of health and things like that, I haven't been able to do that and so I've been kind of putting it off but kind of just haven't managed to get around to it. Every day I would say, "okay, I'm going to spend some time doing it," and I haven't done it and that's about a year's worth of me saying I would do it. So now is at time I actually need to do it. So I spent quite a few hours going through and first categorising everything, and then reconciling everything to make sure everything matched up with my bank and things like that, which can be annoying and frustrating because you have money disappearing and appearing in some places. And so obviously, hopefully with going forward reconciling them once a week, I'm not going to have to face that issue. It's something that I've always wanted to do and I think it will hopefully make the end of year accounts a lot less daunting because I can hopefully get my accounts in as soon as the tax year kind of ends really, not when the tax is due.

[00:02:44.920] - Gordon
So the accounts and accounting is one of those jobs that have to be done, but it's not what we got into our jobs for. We didn't do it because we went, "oh, we'd love to do some accounting." It's just one of those admin jobs that has to be done and sometimes it gets put off and put off and put off, and then all of a sudden you get to sort of January and you know that your tax bill, for self-employed self-assessment people. We pay our tax bills at the end of January and the end of July. So you have to get your accounts in and you have to make payment by the end of January. And if you don't, there's a fine. So it's lingering there. There is a deadline, but a lot of self-employed people will leave it until the last minute because it's not a job that's fun. It's not something they want to do. The way I approach it is whenever I make a sale, or money comes in, that automatically goes into... Not automatically. That goes into my accounting system. I manually do it. And then if I have any receipts, I always get receipts for things. Those receipts go into my wallet or my pocket, and then when I get back to the office, I'll look through, see if I've got any receipts, put them straight in there and then. So I'm doing it as they happen, rather than on a weekly basis. But what I will do is I'll reconcile my accounts at the end of each month, because I get monthly statements coming through. And I think a month is about the right length of time because it's near enough to when it happened for you to remember what it is. Because one of the problems with doing it after a year is you get to a point and you go, "oh, July, what was this amount here? I don't know what this was for." And then it gets into all sorts of problems trying to figure out what it was. In fact, your personal website has helped you in some respects, finding out some of these strange...

[00:04:48.370] - Taylor
So I used my personal website to kind of go back and see, did I check in anywhere? And if I did, where did I check in? Can that help me figure out what Tesco I was at? For example, if I was getting some food before or after meeting or whatever, or what I ate, if I went to Tesco and I wasn't sure, was this a business expense or was this a personal expense? What did I buy? What did I eat? And I can kind of figure out, okay, well, that's a business expense, not. And I can kind of work it out from that. So that's been really helpful. Especially same with my calendar, so I can look up the date and it shows me sometimes I got meetings and stuff. "Oh okay, so that's most likely related to that meeting." So there's lots of ways for me to be able to look back. Obviously, it's not the best way to do it. And when I say reconciling, I mainly mean kind of categorising it and then, like you said, actually reconciling it at the end of each month. Because of my accounting software, I use Zoho Books. All of the invoicing and stuff automatically gets matched and kind of categorised for me. So I don't have to do anything like that because I use the same system. It's just the expenses and a lot of recurring kind of bills and stuff automatically get categorised as well based on the reference, you know, items it has in there, so if it's got a specific key or word in there that I can match for.

[00:06:28.810] - Gordon
So the other thing with accountancy is that if you do your accounts at the last minute and you use an accountant, January is like the worst month to give them your accounts, because quite often they'll say, "look, I'll try and do it, but everyone else is giving me their accounts as well. If I don't do it, there's a fine to pay, it's not my fault, you should have got them to me earlier." So I used to do the same thing. I used to get my accounts to the accountant, sort of December time, which gave them a bit of time, but not really a lot. But I now do it in the summer. For two reasons. One is it gets it out the way. I don't have to then worry about it when it comes to January and everyone else is scrabbling around to get their accounts done. The other thing which is even more important for me is I know what my tax bill is going to be, and I've got sort of six months notice of that. So it means that I can spend my business money with a knowledge of how much I need to keep back for my tax bill. And so it helps with big decisions. If I'm going to buy equipment, for example, can I afford to do so knowing that I'm going to be spending this amount in January and in July to pay off my tax bill? And it does mean that I don't have to then also scrabble about in January to find out where that money's coming from. So yeah, I highly recommend doing it sooner rather than later. Six months ahead is always a good way of doing it in my opinion, and that's what I shall be continuing to do now I've started doing it that way. And it's what I would recommend you do as well.

[00:08:16.610] - Taylor
Yeah. I remember in my first year, maybe my second, I got my accounts in pretty much a couple of days after we finished the tax year so I was pretty much as early as you could be.

[00:08:30.740] - Gordon
But that's because you didn't have very much to do, right?

[00:08:34.850] - Taylor
Partly that, and also I was just more on top of it and I wasn't as ill and things like that.

[00:08:39.180] - Gordon
Right.

[00:08:39.180] - Taylor
So I think my health has played a big part in not being able to keep up with a lot of the things that I've wanted to keep up with, and things you kind of want to stay on top of, and things that we always strive to be the perfect person with all of our productivity things in place and things like that. And a lot of the stuff that I've wanted to obviously keep on top of and do things like that has been very difficult just due to health reasons.

[00:09:08.010] - Gordon
So now you know that you can put plans in place to sort of do it earlier so that you aren't sort of at the last minute, struggling, just in case you have any health issues that prevent you from doing it. Because the last thing I want to do is to be paying interest on my tax. I don't mind paying tax. I understand what it's for, and I just don't want to pay more than I need to. Yeah, really important. Anything else you want to say on that?

[00:09:37.040] - Taylor
No, I think that's everything. Yeah.

[00:09:40.670] - Gordon
Okay. So one thing just related to that is that there was talk about tax for self-assessment people going digital. Which means that you would have to submit your accounts four times a year, so once a quarter, digitally. So it would mean having software that would do this for you. That has been put back a bit. I believe it's something like 2024 now, when that's going to come in. And the threshold at which you have to do it has changed from a turnover of 10,000 up to a turnover of 50,000. So you won't have to do it if you don't have a turnover of 50,000 or more. So that's going to make it a lot easier for small businesses who having to submit their accounts four times a year is just going to be a major pain. So it's a good thing, I think. But it's been pushed back, mainly because the tax office haven't got their systems in place to be able to accept all this digital tax yet. So it's down to them really. Funny, isn't it? The people you pay are the people that are stopping it from happening because they're not ready. Anyway, my topic is sort of setting up new goals, new ideas, new projects for the new year. So we've just entered the new year. We're in January. I've just finished my December, which is historically my busiest month, although last month wasn't my busiest month of the year. It was much quieter than it normally is. However, we are now in January and I'm doing pantomime. We finish it tomorrow. We've got our last two performances tomorrow, and it's gone very well. Yeah, we've had a good run. Everyone has sort of come together as a whole to make a really fun and enjoyable show. I did, sort of a week before the show started, get a sore throat, and I've still got a little bit of a sore throat now, but I am sort of taking cough medicine and making sure I'm looking after my voice so that it's fine for the shows. And obviously, by doing these shows, I have had to take a couple of weekends off work. So I haven't been doing any of my own shows because I've been doing the pantomime. Which means January has been quite quiet for me as well. But it is the time of year when you want to reflect on your business. And I quite often do this, I look at it in January and I go, "right, what do I want to achieve this year? What projects have I wanted to do that I haven't got round to doing yet, and when am I going to do them?" And there's a couple of projects that. I have been thinking of doing that I would like to do. One of them is to set up this sort of membership system for people who buy DVDs and videos of shows and things that I video. And it's a nicer way of people being able to view them, rather than having to get a DVD and not have a DVD player anymore, which is quite often what is happening at the moment, they have a digital version that they can watch anytime they like. And that's a system that I wanted to have in place for the pantomime, because we film the pantomime. But it's not happening, so we're doing it manually this year. What I might do is I'll know who has actually purchased the DVD, so that when the system is up and running, I can automatically add the digital version onto their account for them, so that they have the advantage of that, which is something I can do. There's another system that I want to put into place, which is Resource Monkey, which I haven't spoken about, but it's something that me and a colleague/friend of mine, are wanting to do. Things just have not allowed us to do so and in fact, I'm quite pleased it hasn't happened up to now, because technology has changed. We've changed the builder that we've been using, and if I had gone ahead with it when we originally did it, I would have been stuck in the sort of the other builder that we've now moved away from. So I'm quite pleased that that didn't happen, but it still needs to happen. And I've got until sort of May, really, to get it up and running. So that's quite high up my priority list. As well as that, other people and other businesses that I host and help with their websites are also thinking about the year and what they want to do. And already this week, I've agreed two new websites for two of my customers and I've got a third quote that's out, waiting to be confirmed, which is looking quite reasonable, I think they're going to go for that. So that will be three websites that I have to build in the next sort of month or two. And my next month is actually quite a busy time, so I need to try and get them done before I go away to America, otherwise they're going to be lingering and sort of they'll have a two week period where I can't work on them. So that's coming up. So other people are thinking about their promotion, and getting things into place now while they have the time because historically, January is a quiet month for entertainers. So it's a good month to get your projects set up; to get your website and promotion sorted; to get your props and everything else overhauled and revamped; any touch up that's needed for painting, that sort of thing. This is the time to do it. And it's also a good time to look at longer term projects and things that you want to achieve during the year. And I've not really sat down and thought about this yet, but there are things that I want to do. I've got a lot of books that I want to get through and read that are piling up. They're ones that I've bought and I want to read it's just finding time. And the way for me to do that is to schedule it in, not as in rigid scheduling, but to find a time slot where I can regularly do this reading. Whether that be an hour every Tuesday or whatever it is, lunchtime on a Tuesday. Just as long as I find a space for it, it will get done. And it will give me something sort of a new habit to get into, which will then allow me to do what I want to do. So that's something else I want to achieve.

[00:16:43.630] - Taylor
Thinking about your kind of New Year's resolutions and things like that, and goals. For me, it's a bit different this year because my kind of New Year goals and things like that are actually going to be starting at the end of January. So I now have a date for my surgery, which is the 26th, and I kind of want to start thinking about my goals and things like that, but I want to wait until I kind of understand and kind of have experienced a couple of days of my new life and kind of new normal.

[00:17:26.220] - Gordon
New way of life. Yeah.

[00:17:27.390] - Taylor
New normal. And just see what the capabilities are. It's like I'm getting a new...

[00:17:34.550] - Gordon
To make sure they're realistic goals.

[00:17:36.780] - Taylor
Yeah. So I want to see what's possible. How much can I... Obviously the first six to eight weeks will be very much recovery, so I won't be able to do too much regarding the gym and things like that. But I want to see what the new normal is for me and see am I able to maintain this consistency of feeling well. And if I am, then I can start setting goals that are probably a lot further fetched than what would have been possible the previous couple of years, purely because I know that I've got more stability, I've got more time that I know that I'm not going to be spending a month at a time or whatever, however long it is, ill. And so when I take on projects, when I'm thinking about what work I have and things like that I take this into consideration. I kind of think, "okay, well, if I get ill, have I got someone to cover me? Have I got enough time, have I given myself enough time in the project?" The kind of timeline that I've given and all of these things. So I want to see what the boundaries are with obviously this new surgery that I'm having, and kind of set goals based on that and obviously I can tweak the goalposts and things like that. But for me, I've got a couple of personal projects. Taylor Drayson is one that is just, I just continue to build on and keeps on growing. I did a little count yesterday where I've got 88 custom snippets, and 40 plus custom blocks, which is just a crazy amount. And yeah, I mean probably could be a custom site at this point, if I didn't want to build them with blocks. But I enjoy the blocks and it's nice being able to reuse. I really like the Gutenberg editor and the fact that you can reuse sections. So a great example is on my "Now" page I have the current time and date in my time zone. So when I go to a different country, or update the time zone it will tell you the time. But if you go to my "Contact" page, which is just an email, it will actually show you the time and date in my current time zone. So if someone comes to me from Australia, America or whatever, and they come to it at 7p.m. in the evening and they think "I'll email him," it will say "well, it's now 3a.m. in the morning for me or whatever." And so they may think, "okay, well I'll send that in the morning then when it's a better time," or whatever. I've also got Snippet Club and when I originally started, I didn't set a kind of a goal of number of posts I wanted to release, purely because I knew that I was going to be ill and I just wasn't going to be able to maintain it. And I had people ask "can you give a number on how many tutorials and things?" I said "look, I don't want to put a number on it because sometimes it could be a lot, sometimes it could be very few, or even none, just because I'm ill or just things get in the way." However, I do want to set a number because I know that's something that I can aim for and it gives me a target. So I can start off small and maybe increase it over time.

[00:20:56.870] - Gordon
I think it would be nice to set it lower and then exceed it every month because then at least you are fulfilling what you've promised people but you're also then giving them extra.

[00:21:09.370] - Taylor
Yeah, and then obviously if I'm consistent with that, I can then increase that, increase the limit or the minimum target.

[00:21:18.100] - Gordon
Once you know it's possible. Yeah.

[00:21:20.810] - Taylor
Yeah. And then I've got a couple of others, I want to release a plug-in. And I've got a couple of other ideas that I want to do, and that's my personal kind of goals and things like that for my personal projects, which I obviously want to schedule in and find time, make sure that I've got time set aside. Like you said, scheduling stuff in. And also just working on client sites and getting them sorted. But yeah, a big thing for me is just routine and being able to build and form these good habits that I can take through. Because I find that when I go to the gym three times a week, I have a lot more energy, I have a lot more focus; my mind is a lot clearer and that in turn makes me more productive, makes me stay on track and keep on top of things. So, like my accounts, and when I'm on top of my accounts, you don't have the anxiety and the you know, over your head of kind of "how much am I spending each month, how much am I earning?" Because for the past...

[00:22:26.770] - Gordon
You've got the stats there.

[00:22:28.030] - Taylor
Yeah, for the past, pretty much year and a half, I couldn't really tell you how much I was making in profit each month and how much I was spending because I hadn't categorised and hadn't written down my expenses.

[00:22:42.490] - Gordon
And that's a really important thing to keep on top of because businesses fail by either not having enough income or spending too much. So if you've got the information at your fingertips, you'll be able to survive. That's, you know, and make smart decisions, basically.

[00:22:59.630] - Taylor
Yeah, it helps with your anxiety if you get that. Sometimes we don't realise the stress and anxiety. We don't have mental problems like that in that kind of mental health issues, but more of just when you have something looming over you, you can kind of sometimes have those effects that we don't even realise. I am, on the whole, quite a positive person and don't really get affected by stuff like that, but recently have noticed that the accounts coming up and stuff and just I hadn't done it, was kind of starting to affect me.

[00:23:33.700] - Gordon
Yeah, because you do worry about it. I worry about things like that if I haven't got the time to do them. So predictions for the year. Let's see, I've sprung this on Taylor, but let me see. My predictions for the year are that AI is going to explode. I think everyone will be using AI in some shape or form this year. And I also think VR virtual reality, I think that's going to come a bit more into the mainstream. It's really, it's quite niche at the moment, but this year, I think, is going to be the year that virtual reality and headsets become a big thing. So that and AI. Any predictions for the year from you?

[00:24:23.090] - Taylor
Not off the top of my head.

[00:24:25.090] - Gordon
If you think of any, come back to us next week and we'll add to our predictions for the year. Anything else you want to say?

[00:24:32.710] - Taylor
No, I don't think so.

[00:24:34.120] - Gordon
Okay, so thank you very much for joining us. If you've got a project that you are looking to do and you think maybe one of us or both of us can help you with that, if it's web related or entertainment related, please get in touch with us. We are sort of planning our next few months schedule so that we can fit all of our customers in and get their jobs done in a good time. So come to us. Get a quote. Doesn't cost anything to get a quote. Talk to us. We will give you some ideas, we'll give you some suggestions and let's see if we can make your idea into reality. Thank you for joining us. As always you can find us on Facebook and on YouTube if you want to watch us, they are available on Friday at 1p.m. You can like, share and subscribe.

[00:25:28.560] - Taylor
You can also go to our website thisweekwith.co.uk to find all of our past episodes and see the new website if you haven't already.

[00:25:35.690] - Gordon
As always, we will be here next week, 1p.m. Friday, assuming everything is all good in the world where we are. So until then, my name is Gordon and I am from Drayson Design.

[00:25:48.840] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.

[00:25:51.580] - Gordon
Goodbye.

[00:25:52.270] - Taylor
Bye.

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