The Boring Checklist for Business

One of the good things about being a bit older is that you pick up a lot of the not-so-obvious elements of running a business.  And you realise the parts that are important to have in place. When you’re first starting out, these “boring” bits and pieces don’t seem so important. Or you simply don’t know about them. Back in the early 1990’s when I was setting up my first companies, I had no idea when it was important to register a trademark. Or what insurance we needed to have in place.

Decades later, I’ve either seen my own mistakes by not ticking the boxes or I’ve been around to help clients get out of some sticky jams.

That’s why I’ve put together this checklist. In the office, we called it the boring checklist, because to most business owners, sorting out insurance, contracts and intellectual property protections is extremely boring. Getting sued because someone else has the trademark for the product name you worked for weeks to develop and have now fallen in love with is not boring. It’s excruciatingly stressful, expensive and awful. I recommend boring instead.

Here’s how to get your Boring Business Checklist for Founders

Keep your business safe, boring and successful with the free Boring Checklist. Pop your email address in here and I’ll send it right out. I’ll also send you some other true stories from real businesses to learn what to emulate and what to avoid.

The Boring Business Checklist is based on conversations with hundreds of business owners and founders. Plus, talking to a lot of lawyers and accountants. From this, I’ve put together a list of everything you need to make sure you and your company have everything covered.

The Boring Business Checklist is for business owners and founders who know that they don’t know it all. But they know enough to know that their beloved business could be at risk because they missed out a tiny detail that no one told them about.

I think you’re ambitious enough, clever enough and resourceful enough to go through this checklist and ensure you’ve ticked off all the elements your company needs.

Let’s get into the nitty gritty…

Protect your brands

Have you…

• Obtained the trademark for your company name?
• Also, did you obtain the trademark for any brands or products you sell?
• Bought some other domain names similar to yours, and people might type in by accident. Or any that someone else might start using in the future.

Where I went wrong…

I bought the domain name www.thejoyofbusiness.co.uk many years ago. And I got www.joyofbusiness.co.uk as well, so if you type it in without the “the”, this one points to the same site. But somehow, I managed not to renew the registration for the .com. I wonder how many clients I’ve missed out on over the years because of this?

Grab your brand names on social media

Even if you’re not going to use social media (or you have no plans to be on, say, YouTube), make sure you have claimed your space by setting up a LinkedIn company page, personal page, plus your company name on X, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. Go in and set up an account in your name. Ideally, do this for your company name, personal name and any brands or product names. It costs nothing and takes about 10 minutes. When someone brings out a new social channel, grab your space on that channel, just in case it takes off.

At the very least, you get an inbound link that may be a tiny bit of help for your search engine optimisation. Plus, in 10 years, maybe you’ll have a member of staff who is desperate to do videos on TikTok – you can give them free rein with the account you set up today. These channels are not regulated like company names or trademarks, so you can find that someone else has nabbed your brand there and find that you can’t do anything about it.

And yes, I failed on this – that is definitely not me on the Joy of Business YouTube channel. Whoops.

Contracts and paperwork

I’m sure you didn’t start a business to fill out forms or sign contracts. But we need these to make sure that your company is protected.

You might need:

• A shareholders’ agreement if you have more than one shareholder in the business. Including if the second shareholder is your spouse/partner
• Terms and Conditions for client work – remember to get clients to agree to the Terms and Conditions to make this more bulletproof legally
• A specific contract for your work
• Website terms and conditions for people who just read your content (especially important if your site contains any advice). Here’s what I use.
• Privacy policy for the website
• Ethical statement
• Registration with the Information Commissioner (mandatory for UK companies if you keep any kind of list of customers)
• Licenses and leases for premises and machinery
• Separate Terms and Conditions if you’re selling anything directly from the website
• Employee contracts and employee handbook (for anyone directly employed)
• Freelancer/subcontractor agreement (for anyone who does any work for you, even if it’s just for a day.)
• Health and Safety policy

What insurance do you need for a business?

I highly recommend Key Person Insurance. If you get seriously ill or die, the insurance pays out to your company to cover what you would have brought to the business. I’ve known several businesses where this happened, which can be devastating. When the business has Key Person Insurance, these payments can keep the business running while the person recovers. Or if the worst happens and someone dies, there’s a substantial payment to the business. This usually means that the person’s family is financially protected, or at least the business can afford to continue paying the employee’s salary for a while.

Insurance you might want to consider for your business

• Key Person
• Professional Indemnity (often required for public sector work) protects you anyway if you provide advice
• Product Liability- if you design, sell or make physical products
• Cyber Security – covers you if you are hacked
• Public Liability – only if clients come into your premises to protect you if they trip over and hurt themselves. Usually only needed by shops and larger offices

Finance and VAT

As soon as your turnover goes over the VAT threshold (currently 90k), you have to register for VAT. If you’re selling to VAT registered businesses, you probably should register way before then, as you can reclaim the VAT on your expenses. If you’re selling to consumers, talk to your accountant about when you should register and even if it’s worth delaying registration by taking on less work so you don’t reach that 90k threshold.

A healthy financial mindset for your business

Successful business owners have a healthy financial mindset. And healthy financial habits. Two financial habits I encourage you to take up are:

• Have a second business bank account for spare money

Yes, I know that can sometimes feel like it’s a ridiculous idea when you’re balancing cash flow. Being in the habit of putting money into your second account means that when you do have a cash flow challenge, you’ll have some extra wiggle room. Use this account to pay in 20-30% of turnover as clients pay you. You can withdraw this money when the VAT and Corporation Tax are due.

And

• Pay yourself first and regularly

I see a lot of companies where the directors only pay themselves the minimum salary that your accountant recommends, usually around 1k a month. This is fine when you’re just starting out, or if there’s a cash flow challenge, but if it goes on for too long, you create a problem. You set up this business to make money for you, and if you do not take out a reasonable amount, you have built a business that is not set up to pay you.

Discuss with your accountant how much you can take out each month and how much should go into your personal account at the end of the financial year. Some accountants seem to disapprove of the owners taking any money out of the business, so you may have to be assertive here!

• When my accountant gives me my profit and loss account for the year, can you read it and ask the right questions? This applies to regularly looking at your P&L in Xero or other online accountancy software.

Top tip if this isn’t you

I’d say 98% of founders can’t do this. It might sound boring, but pay a bookkeeper to spend an hour with you showing you how to read a profit and loss account and what you should be looking for in yours. I know it sounds dull, but having lots of money you can pay yourself in dividends is the opposite of boring.

The habits of successful business owners

Sort out those pensions

• Do you ask employees if they want to be part of a pension scheme at the end of their probationary period?

You’re required by law to do this, but it doesn’t have to be a hassle. The easiest way to comply with UK pension regulations is to set up a Nest pension. Nest is very simple, and your employees can take it with them if they get another job later.

Don’t forget your own directors pension

Most self employed people “forget” to set up a director’s pension for themselves. Partly this is because setting up the pension is boring, but mostly it’s because we worry that there won’t be enough cash to pay into a pension. The way round this is to set up a directors’ pension with flexible contributions. In the years when profits are lower, you can pay in less. And when there’s a bit more money around, and you’ve already paid yourself enough to live a good life, you can whack in the maximum amount to your pension.

Having children when you’re self employed

Small print – these are UK-specific tips on how to protect yourself financially when you have children. Dads need to read this as well as Mums. Discuss the specifics of these points and how they affect you with your accountant and get them to do the sums. They love doing sums, so this will make them happy.

• If you’re thinking about having kids, make sure that you pay yourself enough director’s salary in advance to get full Maternity Pay.
• You have to apply to get Child Benefit; it’s not automatic. Put a date in your diary or delegate the form filling, because you should apply immediately after having a baby…when you might be a bit busy!
• Tax Free Childcare – you can get up to 2k of childcare free from HMRC (per kid) as long as you fill out a boring online form every 3 months. Makes a big difference in years 0-5.
• If you pay yourself more than 50k, check that you don’t lose out on free money like Child Benefit or Tax-Free Childcare.
• Avoid putting your kids on payroll as a tax avoidance scheme.
• If your partner is the primary child wrangler in the family and isn’t in paid employment, consider making them a shareholder and/or director in the company so you can make the most of their tax allowance.

Read about giving shares to your partner/wife/husband

Operations and delegation checklist

Maybe your business already has a team of employees working hard and making money. Or it’s just you and the cat. Whichever growth strategy you’ve gone for so far, the important part is to replicate your earning power by having people you can delegate to.

If you don’t already have people working with you, my usual recommendation is that you get a bookkeeper first and then a Virtual Assistant. These two will save you tons of time for a small amount of money. By definition, these will be freelancers operating their own business, and you should expect them to have insurance and a contract to sign when they start working for you. But what about that muddy ground many business owners get into when they want to delegate, but they don’t want to directly employ staff?

• Are you compliant with employment law, for freelancers and employees?

Avoiding IR35 complications

I regularly talk to small business owners who have taken on someone as a freelancer, and the role has grown over time. But they’re still working as a freelancer or contractor. Be careful here because this is probably illegal, and HMRC is cracking down on this. If someone works for you most of the time, doesn’t have other clients, and you give them detailed instructions on what to do, they should probably be a full employee. Don’t worry. This is not as scary as you think. Tell them that they’ve done well and as the company is growing, you’re going to put them on payroll. Then check you’ve ticked all the boxes in the contracts section above.

A final note – please spread the word

Too many business owners don’t know this stuff. I certainly didn’t when I started all those years ago, and I’m still learning all the time. I spend a lot of time telling my clients these exact points, which is how I knew what to include. If you can take a couple of minutes to spread the word about the Boring Business Checklist, that means more founders are protected from what they don’t know.