Having run a Serviced Accommodation business for over 3 years now, I know first-hand how hard it can get at Winter time when bookings slow down, cash flow is tight and you’re doing everything you can think of to profit.
 
So, apart from the obvious of making more sales (which a lot of people are posting about), as part of the Business Health Check I do for clients, we look into expenses and aim to trim them where possible ensuring no effect on business performance (as money saved is straight into your profits, whereas increased sales come with more costs).
 
As I have recently done this for a SA business I thought I would share some of my top tips to reduce spend over the Winter (& longer term):
 
Below are tips on how to reduce the Cost of Sales expenses for running a SA business:
 

1. Rent – may not be the easiest to make savings on, but have you considered renegotiating rents or speaking to the landlord about managing their property as a SA rather than renting it (letting them know all the benefits that could get from that)?
2. Repairs & Maintenance – Winter can bring on a lot of larger property repair costs, which if you are a R2R SA business, largely fall to the landlord. However, this can have a massive impact on your business if you are waiting around for a landlord to fix it and your SA is closed. A top tip we employ is having 4-6 weekly maintenance checks to be pro-active and stop larger repairs being needed.
3. Furnishings & Consumables – you may already be tied in to some furniture finance so it would be hard to reduce this cost. However, shopping around can help reduce the cost of the other furnishings and consumables, along with bulk buying.
4. Utilities – again you may be tied in to a contract but that should not stop you looking to change. For example we used a company that will pay any exit fees you have and quoted us cheaper rates then we were previously on (let me know if you want their details). Additionally, monitor SA utility usage and compare units against each other to see if there are any problems or improvements that can be made to reduce usage and cost. A 10% saving here could be a £500 per month saving across 20 SAs.
5. Cleaning – changing cleaners is not something you want to do often, especially if you are happy with their service as a good housekeeping team is vital to a SA business. However, there are savings that can be made, and this should not be ignored. The difference between a VAT registered cleaning company and non VAT registered is a 20% cost to your business, which for a SA business of 20+ properties is over a £1K per month saving. 
6. Laundry – linen hire seems to be the cheapest way to go. Even when comparing a linen hire company who is VAT registered against a non-VAT registered launderette. Re-negotiating laundry rates have saved us thousands and moving to a linen hire supplier could save you even more. Just make sure you factor in the additional time and cost that may come about from your cleaners to manage the laundry from the usual one location/one drop-off service that linen hire companies provide. 

 
Those are just some of the tips for savings in a SA business and all the above relate to the Direct Costs of SA income.
 
If people are interested, I can share further tips on the savings to be made from the operating expenses of a SA business? Just let me know.


Stephen Turner,
Turner Invest
Empowering People to Live the Life of Their Dreams

On the back of our recent Serviced Accommodation (SA) business milestones, we had a lot of interest for our set of automated guest messages.

In summary, the timing of our messages are as follows:

• 28 Days before check-in or Immediately if within 28 Days (to all)
• 27 Days before check-in or immediately if within 27 days (to all excluding agency emails) – With Availability of Booking Extension
• 27 Days before check-in or immediately if within 27 days (to all excluding agency emails) – Without Availability of Booking Extension
• 2 Days Prior to Check-in (Only if Contract is not Signed)
• 1 Day Prior to Check-in (Only if Contract is not Signed)
• On Confirmation of Booking (Payment confirmed and Contract Signed)
• 1 Day after check-in (automatically sent)
• 2 Days after check-in (automatically sent)
• 2 Days before check-out (automatically sent)
• 1 Day after check-out (automatically sent)​

To download all of these templates, click here  (no email address required - instant download)

I hope you find this useful for your business.

If you need SA management services in Essex and the surrounding areas, get in touch.

And if you would like to receive our free report series, subscribe to our mailing list below.

All the best in your business success,

​Stephen

In our Serviced Accommodation (SA) Business we recently hit a big milestone and thought we would share some of our "SA highs & lows":

Last week we hit a big milestone in our SA business: our 1,000th booking.

Having operated for over 3 years and now managing over 20 properties (a mix of owned, R2R and managed across Essex and surrounding areas) we have had our ups and downs but are extremely happy with our success. So to celebrate our 1,000th booking, I thought I would share some stats, milestones & lessons learnt:

• ✅Average booking length = 9 nights
• ✅Average number of guests = 3
• ✅Average nightly rate = £112
• ✅Average booking value = £984
• ➕Milestone hit = over £250K turnover in a 6 month period
• ➕Milestone hit = over £50K turnover in a month (several times)
• ➕Milestone hit = our VAs finding and taking direct enquiries through to confirmed bookings
• ➕Milestone hit = business can run without any of my input

It didn't start like this, it started with 1 as a test & Catherine dealing with everything from uploading properties on to the OTAs, to checking in guests, to replying to enquiries & managing cleaners & contractors, whilst I was still in my day job. 

• ✔️We've been through 3 cleaning companies. 
• ✔️We've given a number of properties back where the SA model just wasn't profitable. 
• ✔️We've had our fair share of 'dodgy' guests 
• ✔️We've dealt with fraud

But every time something new happens, we add it to our process list & ops manual & it's no longer the big issue it would have been when we started. 

Now, with our team of VAs managing all customer service, listings, bookkeeping and admin, and an excellent Property Manager managing things on the ground (including expansion) we have truly built a business where we are the Owners and not the day to day managers.

​So for all of you just starting out, keep going, it is achievable, you just need to keep systemising, outsourcing and scaling and you can create a SA business that you can enjoy.

As it has been a while since we released the last set of Tuesday Tips, this weeks is a bit more special and detailed. 

We are giving away 3 free reports that are our Top Tips to leverage your business and lifestyle, and all you need to do is subscribe to our newsletter and all 3 will be sent to you over the next few days.

So, what are the Top Tips?

Tip 1:   How to Find & Hire the Right Virtual Assistant for Your Business
The simple 5 steps to finding and hiring the right Virtual Assistant (VA) for your business, whether that is to:

• Outsource your bookkeeping
• Have your social media managed
• Delegate all of your tasks
• Or simply save on staff costs

This report takes you through exactly how to prepare for, find and hire the right VA for your business so you can start outsourcing more of your tasks and focus on higher value tasks or simply enjoy more free time.

Tip 2:   The 20 Questions You Need to be Asking Yourself to Get a Leveraged Lifestyle

• No idea where to start leveraging?
• Want to know what to leverage next?
• Or need to reconnect with why you started in business in the first place and get back on track?

Then this free report/workbook asks you all the questions you should be asking yourself to run a successful business that does not take up all of your time, can scale without you and gives you the freedom to do what you want in life.

Prioritise reading this report and answering the questions to get your redefined to-do-list, your refocused business vision and your reinvigorated motivation to get your business to where you want it to be.

Tip 3:   The Top 30 Life Leverage Apps to Save You Time, Money and Your Sanity!
This report details our top 30 apps to use in your day to day life to save you money and time so you can focus on the more important things.

Make life easier by downloading these tried and tested apps and start leveraging technology to live smarter.

​That's this weeks Top Tips on how to leverage more, and get more of your own time back - subscribe below to get all 3 free reports emailed to you.

Thanks, 
Turner Invest
Empowering People to Live the Life of Their Dreams

We get asked a lot about what Virtual Assistants (VAs) can do and how to manage them, especially when it comes to hiring a VA for bookkeeping and making payments. 

Outsourcing your bookkeeping is like any other outsourcing you do in your business, but it seems more risky as it is to do with money and making payments. However, it doesn't need to be.

Firstly, let's look at the Outsourcing Definition:

According to investopedia.com:
​
Outsourcing is the business practice of hiring a party outside a company to perform services and create goods that traditionally were performed in-house by the company's own employees and staff. Usually done as a cost-cutting measure, it can affect jobs ranging from customer support to manufacturing to the back office.

Although investopedia states that outsourcing can affect certain jobs, it can also create them. For small to medium sized businesses, physical staff may not even be an option due to the cost, so the best way to begin for them is to hire a virtual assistant in the Philippines or from any country where a full time decent wage for a Virtual Assistant is not as huge a hit to the costs to the business as hiring from the UK or US.

Back to outsourcing your bookkeeping...

Here are our Top 3 Tips when it comes to Outsourcing Bookkeeping:

1. Trust & Time – as with any new member of your team, there needs to be some time to build trust within the business and time to train your VA for them to understand your business processes and systems before full rights and access is given to anything, especially financial. Therefore, start with less rights and responsibility and build it up over time.

2. Choose & Create – You need to choose your online banking & payment provider to ensure it can be outsourced & create the right user permissions. Generally, all business banks have the ability to add and manage users, however some can be cumbersome to set up (for example Lloyds lost paperwork that I had sent over from the Philippines not once but twice which caused huge delays!), so make sure you speak to people who have experience with the particular bank you want to set-up with. 

Also, some may not have the level of permissions you want to implement. For example PayPal’s User Permissions (which can each be turned on or off) are as follows:

• i. Send money
• ii. Add money to account 
• iii. Process refunds
• iv. Withdraw money
• v. Cancel payments
• vi. Send mass payments
• vii. Set up direct debit payments
• viii. Virtual Terminal
• ix. Manual reference transaction
• x. Request money and send invoices
• xi. View transaction charts and graphs
• xii. Manage authorisations & settlements
• xiii. Along with other view only and admin type permissions

Whereas Business Bank Accounts would have extra hurdles in place for other activities such as:

• xiv. Adding a new payee – this way you can control who are valid payees from your business account and no new payees can be created without your approval (I have experienced this with Lloyds).
• xv. Payment approval – so your team can set-up all of the payments for your final approval (I have experienced this with Barclays)

So, know what permission levels you want to give your team, and go to the bank that can give you what you need.

3. Review & Reward – Periodically review your systems and your teams progress, accuracy and achievements and reward them with extra responsibility. By staging the increase in permissions your team will feel they are getting recognised for their work, and in turn it will take more off of your plate. Win – Win. 
And by reviewing your systems and automating as much as you can, you can reduce the risk of error and ensure you and your team are working effectively and efficiently.

Hope that helps.

​Stephen Turner 

​p.s. Who out there, like me years ago, has used one of these calculators when doing bookkeeping!