FY2026/27 opening position

The year has opened quietly, and while that is not where we want to be, it is not entirely unexpected either. April and May are never the months that carry us, and this spring was light on the installations that lift them. The more important point is that the margins are strong and the cost base is in good order, so the engine of the business is sound, and we are actually busier than we were this time last year, not quieter, even if the work has been smaller in value.

The thing to be aware of is that the bar has moved. Our overheads are running around £9,000 higher than last year, so the turnover we need just to land where we landed last year has gone up with it, to somewhere between £17,000 and £20,750 a month depending on how well we hold our margin. We are below that for now. That is not unexpected this early in the year, but it is not a position to be comfortable in either, so the job is straightforward to describe even if it takes some doing. Push hard through the autumn and winter when the heavier work comes in, and protect our margin while we chase the volume, because giving margin away to win work simply raises the bar again. On the early evidence that is a realistic ask rather than a stretch.

Last year we turned over £215,576 at a 26.25% margin, covered our £52,800 of overhead and made around £3,800. This year our overheads are roughly £9,000 higher, and because last year’s profit was already wafer thin, we have to earn all of that back before we are any better off.

How much turnover that takes depends on the margin we hold. Keep margin at the 32% we are running now and we need £204,250 to match last year. Let it drift back to last year’s 26.25% and we need £248,750 for the same result. The truth is likely between the two and nearer the top, since 32% rarely lasts once the installation months land.

Both sit well above the £13,526 a month we are running now, and that gap is the year in a nutshell. It is also why volume and margin have to move together. If we win the extra work by discounting, we simply shift ourselves from the lower target to the higher one. We need more work, at the margin we already make.

The shape is worth understanding before we read too much into the drop. Our quiet spells are high summer and Christmas, our peaks are the heating season, with January and February each near £27,800. Last year’s April and May were unusually strong, which is why this year’s feel like a drop. The months that carry us are still ahead, and last year they cleared both target lines with room to spare.

The real encouragement is volume. We are doing more work than a year ago, not less, so the turnover is down but the activity is up, just on smaller jobs while the installs are quiet. That growing base, meeting the heavier breakdown and installation work the winter brings, is exactly what we need to climb above the target lines when it counts. No firm orders behind it yet, but it points the right way.

Both months ran at a loss. That is not ideal, but it is not entirely unexpected for our quietest stretch of the year. April came in at (£1,303) on lower turnover, and May at (£437). The point worth making on May is that the loss was entirely a single vehicle repair invoice of £737. Without it we would have been marginally in profit at around £300, so underneath the headline May essentially washed its face, which is a fairer reflection of where the business sits at this point in the year.

Where the turnover came from is the business in miniature, with Gas Care shown gross and the lettings agent work net of fees.

April was carried by three installations worth £6,239, May by none, with a strong run of fifty odd lettings agent jobs holding it up instead. Underneath both is a steady base of small ticket servicing at around £85 a visit. We do a lot of that, then rise or fall on whether an installation lands.

Installations are our biggest swing and the one thing we cannot forecast, so the more of our overhead the recurring book covers, the boiler servicing, the Gas Care plans and the lettings agent work, the less any month hangs on whether an install lands. The rising job count says that base is already growing, which is the right foundation.

So the year comes down to two things held together. Push turnover through the busy season to clear the £17,000 to £20,750 a month the higher overhead now demands, and protect our margin while we do it, because letting it slip puts nearly £45,000 back on the annual target. Volume without margin misses, and so does margin without volume. The early signs say we can hit both, as long as we start the push now.