Unit 4 Assignment 3: Plan to Start Trading

Unit 4 Assignment 3

In this assignment, within a proposed timeline of two weeks, I will complete all necessary documentation and plan all activities required to start trading my business. This will include devising a set of deliverable activities to bring my business to market, undertaking financial business start-up activities and obtain required licences, registrations and legal permission. I shall also undertake marketing and promotional activities from the business plan and then I shall review the achievement of the business start-up activities.

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Activity list

Gant Chart (See moodle for Gant Chart activity)

Screenshots of:

HMRC registration; don’t submit.

Bank Application

Review of all activities.

Review whether or not I completed all activities within the time frame of the Gant chart and what I could have done differently to improve the optimisation of undertaking the activities.

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Activity Number	Activity Name	Description	Time Needed	Dependencies
1	Start up purchasing	Procurement of start-up goods. Purchase + Shipping	1 Week	Financing
2	Business Registration + Business bank account opening	Register as limited company + Review different business bank accounts and open a business bank account.	5 day	SIC = Code – defines what my business does. (SIC-73110 – Advertising agency) Companies House Registration – For RBS .
3	HMRC registration as Ltd company and self-employed (working for the company)	Register with HMRC for tax purposes	1 Day	Business Registration. .
4	New customer sourcing	Approaching new customers (businesses) to provide special offers to quickly secure orders.	1 Week	.
5	Begin fulfilling orders and sourcing new customers and taking on orders.	Undertake work secured and continue sourcing new customers.	Ongoing.	All of the above.

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Gant Chart Plan time: 2 days.			Week 1							Week 2
Gant Chart Plan time: 2 days.			Days
Task	Activity	Time (Days)	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14
1	Start Up Purchasing	7	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
2	Business Registration	5	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
3	HMRC Registration	1	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
4	First Customer Sourcing (Marketing/Advertising)	7	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
5	Order Fulfilment + Customer Sourcing (Marketing/Advertising)	Ongoing	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
Note: There is no colour coding in the above chart, the use of different colour is to easier define time allocations.

    The above Gantt Chart allows us to easily allocate, plan and therefore manage our time effectively to meet our business needs within a proposed time frame. My Gantt Chart allocates the largest amount of time to start up purchasing (task one), besides the ongoing final task which we aren’t counting as there isn’t an end time for that specific task as the final task allows us to progress onto other projects with fluidity. Of course, most of the time, Gantt Charts end on the final day of the planned time but I’ve opted for this method because it will allow me to extend the chart if necessary or even convert it into a business timeline. Anyway, going back to the point, start up purchasing will take the most amount of time because of shipping times. The time period of task one may be extended and if this is the case, task 5 will be delayed as the beginning of task 5 is relative to the end of task one.

    It is important to ensure all business registrations are complete, these include companies house registration and business bank account registration (more on this later). Some would say the third task should be incorporated into business registration, however, I have opted to exclude this from that taskset because HMRC registration is a legal requirement whereas companies house registration and business bank accounts are not a legal requirement. The business registration should only take three days but because of application processing times by RBS, my chosen business bank account, this has been extended by a further two days, the HMRC registration requires the least amount of time as it is just a form.

    From the second day, we will be sourcing new customers as this allows them time to source their free printed materials or other materials for us to distribute via whatever advertising medium they choose (distribution or travelling billboard advertising) and will allow me plenty of time to approach multiple businesses (who will make up my customer base) before we begin to fulfil customer orders.

    The final task, customer fulfilment, is ongoing because by the time we finish one order, we expect to immediately start on the next.

    So, now that we have formed our plan, we can begin to secure the documentation we need before we can start up our business. This is going to include comparisons and the opening of a bank account (I’ve chosen RBS as my business bank account provider and we will see why shortly), signing up to Companies House and the HMRC.

    I’ve already ruined the surprised but the accounts I decided to compare were Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC. Below is a summary of the benefits (and disadvantages) of the accounts I considered:

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS)

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HSBC

Chosen business bank: RBS

Screenshot of application for RBS confirmation – Quick review of application process – it took 20min

Screenshot of Companies House registration summary – half an hour, quick review of application process

Screenshot of HMRC application – Review application process, how long did it take? Was it complicated?

Create services sheet to show customers as an aid to explain what services you offer and estimated prices.

Review Activities – did I do them in time? Yes. Was I successful? Yes. What was difficult? What could have gone better? What would you do differently?

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Undertake activities: Photo at Chilliflakes talking to owner with printed aid, photo of leaflets from different customers. Photo of bank account.

Review start up: Did you stick to budgets? Yes. How did you deviate? Didn’t buy trackers in the end as I was the only employee and we can purchase them as and when needed.

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P5	Devise a set of deliverable activities to bring a product to market	1
P6	Undertake financial business start-up activities	3
P7	Obtain required licences, registrations and legal permissions	4
P8	undertake marketing and promotions activities from the business plan	5
P9	Review achievement of business start-up activities .	6
M4	Undertake business start-up activities within a proposed timeframe	2

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Candidate’s declaration:
I hereby certify that the work I have submitted for this assignment is entirely my own.
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Candidate’s name:	.	.
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Candidate’s signature:	.	IVed by S Heaton 27 March 17
.		IVed by S Heaton 27 March 17
Declaration date:	.	IVed by S Heaton 27 March 17

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