A business owner has to account for both fixed and tertiary costs along with the cost per each engagement. With cash flow being the life blood of a business, too often the fixed and tertiary costs are ignored which leads to hemorrhaging cash and eventual cash starvation of the business.
Keep in mind you can only deduct actual vehicle costs [insurance, maintenance, fuel, depreciation] as a percentage of total combined cost for personal and business or use the IRS standard mileage deduction. You canât use both.
Respectfully sir, I have been in business for 6 months taking orders, making profit, in numerous fields GNW., loan signings, hospital, SPW (if youâd like to call it that) and some other ventures I have going on.
Mentorship doesnât really help outside of marketing in my experience. Marketing Iâll admit I can use some help in but for the actual job of being a notary or LSA I got that covered. @RiverpointeTax
@abbottirene
I offer superior service myself, very little errors on my end, I work very hard at making sure the docs are correct and folks like me. I am just willing to charge a lower rate. Regarding getting by, I am actually doing pretty well building up very quickly
Well licenses insurance is a yearly expense if your using NNA. For the training, most people spend endless money on trainers. I donât I did my training with nna and state and thatâs it. I also did another one when I got started but it realized I understood how to do the job so I ended the subscription. I still âongoing learnâ per se but generally through the NNA or my own state law thereâs no reason to continuously pay these trainers
My personal opinion it is not the signing companies job to pay for our training unless they require a specific one (which is very strange as we are IC but itâs okay). The training you take outside of NNA is optional and not required. As a result, that burden falls on the individual
I have been seeing more $50 - $60 assignments with scanbacks than before. They used to be $75 minimum. You were not wrong, thatâs an insult to your profession. I have better things to do with my time and vehicle. 2 thumbs up to you.
The NNA is quite expensive. Do you add that in or is it something you just chalk up to having your own business? I donât pay for training. I do take the time to keep up with various things. It seems to me that you donât pay yourself much and thatâs ok. For others, which we can see in these replies, the work we put in is worth more than a $7 hour paycheck.
I only paid for the NNA courses as a startup cost. I took New York notary exam prep, notary essentials and the loan signing course before exam. Now I donât pay any training as I already know job. Regarding the training for nna I already paid myself back for it. Compared to a lot of notaries who purchased LSS or offshoot trainers I saved alot of money my startup costs were quite cheap. As a result, I donât factor in NNA training in my finances. The only one I will is the nna background check and loan signing test every year but I usually have that paid in less than a month
Itâs not consistently 7$ a hour. I generally donât like to calculate because I donât see myself as a hourly employee. Why I love this business is that it can be 7$ or 50$. Depending on what youâre doing. GNW I also do quite a bit and folks in my area charge a large amount for GNW clearing the path for me it has been quite good. I also have other important revenue streams
In my opinion you should have never taken $70 to drive an hour, especially if you are new stick closer to home. If you had to return for any reason then you are at a loss. By taking it you sent the wrong message.
mrj great comment! Exactly know your worth! No one is building relationships accepting lowball offers. The lowball notary contractors could care less about you. I have developed relationships with my clients over the years but charge a reasonable fee ~ no too low and not too high ~ I know my profit margins. If there are extenuating circumstances, they will let me adjust fee.
Standard mileage rate is 67 cents a mile or $80.40 for 120 miles. There is no profit in this assignment for $70 as you will also have 2.5 to 3 hours into. Actually, this assignment is a loss.
For SE Tax Exemption only - what any notary charges for time, travel and mileage is up to each individual notary provided there is nothing in their specific state laws limiting what they can charge (NC and AZ come to mind right off the bat) - Iâve seen notaries post they charge $0.75 - $1.00/mile
How? standard mileage is $80.40 alone. You may want to rethink how you calculate profit. I am a retired CPA and this is a total loss assignment. But go for it if you think you can make money off these types of assignments.
Grateful 