Can I afford to hire someone?
What the true cost is once employer NI, pension and the unproductive first eight weeks are in, and what the business has to bill to carry it.
Ask us
Ad-hoc advice from the people who already have your numbers, included with the accounting rather than billed by the six minutes. Hire, price, buy, borrow, incorporate, sell — those are the six we get asked about most.
What you get
- Answered within one working day
- Included in the monthly fee
- From people who have your numbers
- Hire, price, buy, borrow, incorporate, sell
- An honest "that needs modelling" when it does
A question answered by someone who has your numbers
Not everything needs a project. Most of what an owner actually wants is a straight answer to one question, from someone who already knows what the business looks like and does not need three weeks and a scoping call to find out.
Buzz clients get this included: ring, message or drop it in the portal, and you get an answer rather than an invoice for six minutes.
None of them are unusual
Should I put my prices up?
What your actual margin is by job or product, what a 5% rise does to profit, and how much volume you could lose and still be better off.
Should I buy or lease it?
The cash, the tax and the balance-sheet effect of each, which usually point in different directions.
Should I incorporate?
The threshold where a limited company beats sole trader, the admin it adds, and the reasons it can be the wrong move even when the tax says otherwise.
Where is my cash going?
Profitable businesses run out of money because of stock, debtors and capital spend. The answer is usually one of those three.
What is my business worth?
A realistic range rather than a multiple off the internet, and the things that would move it if you had two years.
Three ways, none of them formal
- 1Message it
Through the portal or the app, which keeps it with the rest of your record. Answered within one working day.
- 2Ring or WhatsApp
For the ones that are quicker said than typed.
- 3Bring it to the review
If it needs the numbers on the table, it goes on the agenda for your next Business Pulse meeting and gets a proper hour instead of a paragraph.
Can I afford to hire someone?
A £32,000 hire, costed properly
A business that already employs people, so the employment allowance is used up against the existing payroll. What it costs, and what the business has to sell to carry it.
- Gross salary
- £32,000
- Employer’s National Insurance — 15% above the £5,000 threshold
- £4,050
- Employer pension contribution, minimum on qualifying earnings
- ~£750
- Laptop, phone, software, a desk
- ~£1,500
- First-year cash cost, before recruitment
- £38,300
- Sales needed to carry it at a 45% gross margin
- £85,111
- What the business has to sell
- £85,111
Which is a different question from “can I afford £32,000”, and it is the one worth answering before you advertise. If the pipeline does not have £85,000 in it, the answer is not no — it is that the hire has to come after the work rather than before it, or be part-time to start.
Worked through at 2026/27 rates from our own calculators, which follow gov.uk guidance checked in July 2026. An example. Your figures will differ.
Four habits that cost money
- Asking after the decision
- The call that starts “I have just signed…” is the expensive one. Almost everything an accountant can do about a lease, a purchase, a hire or a company structure has to happen before it is done.
- Not asking because of the clock
- Where questions are billed by the six minutes, owners ration them, and the ones they ration away are the ones that would have saved the most. That is the whole reason this is included rather than metered.
- Asking for a number when the problem is a decision
- “What is my margin” is usually a proxy for “should I put my prices up”. Say the second one and you get an answer you can act on rather than a figure you then have to interpret.
- Asking the wrong person, politely
- A bookkeeper, a supplier, a friend in a different industry and a forum will all answer. None of them has your numbers in front of them, and free advice that is wrong is the most expensive kind.
Where it goes next
Some answers need modelling rather than experience: a full budget, a three-way forecast, a funding application. That is cashflow and budgeting or business planning, and we will say so rather than giving you a worse answer for free.
Some are not accountancy at all. A contract, a dismissal or an unpaid invoice goes to Buzz Legal; whether the money works for you personally is Buzz Money; and if the issue is that you know what to do and are not doing it, that is coaching.
What people ask about business advice
Is this charged by the hour?
No. For clients on a monthly fee it is included, which is deliberate: an owner who is counting the cost of the call does not make the call, and the questions that do not get asked are the expensive ones.
How quickly do I get an answer?
Within one working day for anything asked through the portal, and usually the same day. Where something needs half a day on the numbers, we say so and agree it first.
Can you help with something outside accounting?
Often, through the rest of the group — legal, financial planning, coaching, recruitment of a finance person. Where none of us is the right answer we will tell you that instead of having a go.
Do I have to be a client?
For ad-hoc advice, yes — it is part of the monthly service rather than something sold separately. If you are not a client yet, ask an accountant is the free front door and gets you a real answer to one question.
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