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4 Things to Consider When Paying Yourself

By 10th November 2015March 31st, 2022No Comments

Watching your plants flourish as much as your horticultural centre has been a rewarding experience. You’ve helped people purchase the perfect plants to decorate their home and give a bouquet gift to loved ones. Yet what about helping yourself to the money that your business has brought in?

From the time you first opened your horticultural centre to now, you haven’t drawn a salary for yourself. Instead, you have followed the advice of business experts and ploughed the money back into marketing and branding the business. Yet the reason why you opened the centre, besides being your own boss, was to create a better life for yourself from the money you brought in.

When Should You Plan to Pay Yourself?

The truth is you should make something from your business idea, your hard work, and your time that you have placed into the horticulture centre. You should be getting some type of money that you can place into your personal bank account and future retirement savings.

Make plans to draw a salary from the moment you develop your business plan, as you should decide how much you will get and the pay schedule. Even if you wait a few months to take a salary as you get the startup on its feet, you have an objective that you can work toward and look forward to in the future.

How Much Should You Get?

This topic is up for debate. Some business professionals believe that you should only get whatever is left over after paying all debts, overheads, employee salaries and other expenses created by the horticultural centre. Other business professionals believe you should be paid what you are worth.

Getting paid what you are worth can be defined in several different ways. You may decide on a salary based on what you need to pay off basic daily expenses. Another route is to pay what you believe your position is worth. You would calculate what you would make in the position based on what other employees in the same position make as a salary. A second option is to calculate what your previous salary was while subtraction any overtime or bonuses. Then you need to multiply in the inflation percentage to that number figure to get the salary amount.

4 Things to Consider When Paying Yourself

  1. Pay attention to tax obligations and benefits when drawing a salary from the business
  2. Keep accurate accounting records so you can file the right business taxes
  3. Delay taking a salary if your horticultural centre has expenses, debts and employees to pay first
  4. Wait until your operations are in the black before paying yourself

Now is the time to really look into your cash flow and balance your business budget. You may be surprised to find certain processes in your horticultural centre where you can cut back on operational costs. This savings can translate into more efficient processes and give you enough money to pay yourself for all the hard work you are doing to make your business a success.

Marc O'Dwyer

Marc O'Dwyer

After completing a Graduate program in Marketing, Marc’s impressive sales career began at Allied Irish Banks, Pitney Bowes and Panasonic where he received numerous Irish and European sales performance awards and consistently exceeded targets and expectations. In 1992, Marc’s entrepreneurial spirit led him to set up his own business, Irish International Sales (IIS). Initially, this company was a reseller for Take 5 Accounts and Payroll software. Within four years, IIS became the largest reseller of Take 5 in Ireland, acquiring four other Take 5 resellers. He also found time to set up two mobile phone shops under the Cellular World brand and a web design company offering website design services for small businesses. In 2001, he bought the majority share in a small Irish software business, Big Red Book. At that time, the company was losing money. The company became profitable within two months, and Marc then acquired a payroll company to compliment Big Red Books Accounting products. In 2003, IIS were appointed as Channel Partners with SAP for their new SME product, SAP Business One. Marc sold his Take 5 business and concentrated on developing this new market for SAP As a result, by 2007, IIS was recognised as the largest Channel Partner for SAP in EMEA (Europe Middle East and Africa). In 2008, the IIS Sales Manager bought the Company from Marc in an MBO. He launched Big red cloud in June 2012, the online version of big red book, to date the company successfully converts 59% of trials into sales and the number of customers is growing rapidly. Marc continues to run both Big Red Book and Big Red Cloud which now support 75,000 businesses. He is a very keen sportsman, having played rugby for 20 years, represented Leinster at under 16 and under 20 levels, and league squash with Fitzwilliam Lawn Tennis Club for 10 years. Marc has competed in 11 Marathons, including the London and Boston Marathons, and has completed several Triathlons and Half Ironman races. He has also completed six Ironman Races in Austria(x2), Frankfurt (Germany), Nice (France) , Mallorca (Spain) and Copenhagen (Denmark)

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