Commercial premises - costs and considerations

[sallysqueak]

Hi all

I posted on here about a year ago about wanting to expand my dog daycare service by moving into premises.. back then I had half the amount of customers I do now. I'm now getting to the point where I'm having to say no to potential new customers (I've not even advertised for over a year, but still they come!)

So I'm now considering once again the possibility of getting some premises.

My question is what costs should I be taking into consideration? I assume renting is the cheapest way to go?

I need a warehouse ideally or undercover area (and hopefully a small outside area I can fence off for toileting, perhaps just in the car park or back yard).

I've never rented commercial premises at all. Is there anywhere I can find a full list of potential costs and hopefully some advice? The costs I can think of off the top of my head at the moment are;

Rent
Business rates (not sure what exactly this is yet, is it like council tax for businesses?)
Water/heating/lighting costs
Insurance
License to run dog daycare centre and vet fees to obtain license
Staff wages
Initial redecoration costs
Signage costs
Change of use costs

Is there anything I have forgotten? I literally want to get it all down in black and white to work out whether I can make this profitable.

Thanks!

 

[vvaannmmaann]

How many dogs do you think you will be dealing with?

 

[sallysqueak]

How many dogs do you think you will be dealing with?

At the moment I'm getting up to 6 some days, but I've turned a lot of new customers down lately. I think with a feature in the local paper and with actually beginning to advertise again I could hopefully get 20 a day in, this would be my hope initially to be comfortably ticking over. Anything else would be a bonus..

 

[sallysqueak]

I will also need a minimum of 1 staff member to be there so I am still able to make the school runs without leaving the premises unsupervised

 

[businessfunding]

Legal costs

VAT (dependent on your status)

 

[sallysqueak]

Thanks for the reminder

Will add it to my list...

 

[ethical PR]

marketing costs
Training
Holiday/sickness cover

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Noise would severly restrict the amount of units available unless well soundproofed yet still within the catchment area

Staff and Third party insurance would I expect to be high as the risk of attack or bites would be far more than normal, Talk to a insurance broker

 

[stender]

Dog food?
Kennels

I would suggest doing a business plan and set out estimated costs. You may find it's not financially viable. Hopefully it is though!

 

[smo]

Commercial waste service that will deal with biohazard waste!

 

[MorrisChesterfield]

Speak to SRCL for hazardous waste. This it was a chap called adam i dealt with in the Leeds office.

Not cheap tho, cant remember how much it cost.