On Sunday 14 March, my family and I were glued to the TV, watching the press conference announcing that schools and the hospitality sector would close to prevent further spread of the coronavirus. It didn't exactly come as a bolt from the blue: for weeks I had been following, in the Italian newspapers, the drama unfolding there. And although everyone here remained optimistic, I knew it was inevitable that we would be affected as well.

The closure of the hospitality sector had an immediate impact on my business operations: I immediately emailed the students of the fully booked Property Presentation Course, which was due to start on the 26th, to tell them that unfortunately I had to postpone it until at least 6 April.

On Monday 15 March, the emails and phone calls started coming in: almost all of Guillaume's, my husband's, planned photo shoots and many of mine were cancelled. That's when I really began to panic. What if it lasted longer than three weeks? How long would we be able to hold out without a single job in the calendar? Would we still be able to pay our fixed expenses in a month's time, or two?

6 april kwam en ging, zoals verwacht, voorbij met een verlenging van de maatregelen en nog steeds een vrijwel lege agenda. ‘s Ochtends stond manlief met een schop in de tuin. Als er dan toch niks meer te doen was, dan maar rond het huis aan de slag.

On 11 April, four weeks after it was introduced, we applied for the temporary support scheme for self‑employed entrepreneurs (TOZO) and requested a deferment of our VAT payment. We didn't actually need it at first, but with no outlook on what was coming… well, what else can you do?

Profit First: a different way of looking at bookkeeping

Controlefreak en geen inkomen, dat is echt een slechte combinatie. Met tijd over ben ik, als we niet in de tuin stonden of in de rij voor het grofvuil, het boek Profit First van Mike Michalowicz gaan gelezen en implementeren, eigenwijs als ik ben, wel op mijn manier.

To get a clear picture of our financial situation, I put all our expenses, both personal and business, into a spreadsheet. Not just the total amounts, but also which month each payment would be deducted. Then we looked at what was truly necessary and where we could easily cut back. We cancelled subscriptions, changed insurance policies, and took a critical look at all the recurring costs of plugins for our websites. It wasn't a huge amount, but in the end we still managed to save almost €200 a month.

Living expenses and keeping the business running

We now know exactly how much we need each month to live on and to keep the business running, down to the last cent, taking into account the larger amounts that are paid once a year, such as the rent for our office, school fees for the children (bilingual education is expensive!) and health insurance premiums. We pay the rent and health insurance in one go in January, so we don't have to worry about them every single month.

Ik heb vervolgens 4 spaarrekeningen aangemaakt volgens Profit First op onze zakelijke bankrekening. Dat kan kosteloos bij Knab . Van iedere betaalde factuur stort ik een percentage naar de:

• VAT account – 21%. When the next VAT return is due, I no longer have to worry whether that amount is actually in the account.
• Investeringsrekening – 10% voor de aanschaf van nieuwe computers en camera-apparatuur. Als een van de laptops of camera’s er mee ophoudt dan kunnen we het direct vervangen
• Profit account – 3%. That percentage needs to grow to at least 5% over the course of this year and to 10% next year.
• Reserve account – every time there is more than €1,000 in the current account, anything above that €1,000 is transferred here.

Salaris betalen doen we nog niet volgens Profit First. In plaats van één keer in de maand een vast bedrag over te maken naar onze privérekeningen vanuit een salarisrekening, wordt er nu iedere werkdag een bedrag overgemaakt. Dat lijkt omslachtig, maar omdat we allebei direct na een fotoshoot een factuur sturen, krijgen we versnipperd over de maand steeds kleine bedragen binnen. Om te voorkomen dat een groot bedrag niet automatisch overgeschreven kan worden omdat er misschien net te weinig op de rekening staat om naar privé over te boeken, hebben we hiervoor gekozen. Missen we dan een keer een automatische overboeking, dan is er geen man over boord. Het is wel de bedoeling om uiteindelijk iedere maand een vast bedrag in één keer over te maken.

Why have a profit account if you're already paying yourself a salary?

Die winstrekening is echt nieuw voor me. Als ondernemer neem je risico’s en ieder groot bedrijf heeft een winstuitkering voor zijn aandeelhouders, dus waarom kleine ondernemers niet? Ieder kwartaal nemen we 50% op en de overige 50% gaat naar een zakelijke spaarrekening bij een andere bank voor ons pensioen of om een paar maanden te kunnen overbruggen. De eerste 50% is echt om iets leuks van te doen. Het eerste kwartaal zal het echt geen wereldbedrag zijn. Ik ben vorige maand begonnen met 1%, maar eind juni staat er wel voldoende op om lekker van uit eten te gaan! Het is dus de bedoeling dat je de winst maar 1 keer per kwartaal uitkeert, zodat je er echt iets speciaals mee kunt doen en het niet opgaat aan de boodschappen.

What about income tax in my setup?

From the VAT you transfer to the tax authorities each quarter, you first deduct the input tax. But because 21% of every invoice goes into the VAT account, that pot keeps growing. Looking at the figures from the past five years, we've never paid more income tax than we've deducted in input tax, so anything left over at the end of the quarter goes into a separate savings account at another bank. That way, next year we'll be able to pay the income tax for 2020 without breaking a sweat.

The best month ever for interior photography

18 April – it took a pandemic, but after 20 years and 15 trips to the recycling centre – without a tow bar, mind you – our garden was finally exactly the way I wanted it.

And just as the garden was finished, out of the blue, the phone started ringing again! Could you shoot in Blaricum? In Enkhuizen? In Oosterhout? March hadn't been great and April was downright terrible – the worst month in 13 years. May, on the other hand, has been the best month I've ever had, and Guillaume is slowly starting to get portrait requests again now that everyone can go back to the hairdresser.

Peace of mind about my finances

Financially, we still have some catching up to do compared to other years. After all, my husband hasn't had any revenue for more than two months, but because we now handle our money differently, much more consciously, I feel far more at ease than I did before mid‑March. And if everything unexpectedly shuts down again during a second wave, we'll be able to cope thanks to Profit First!

In June, I can start teaching the Property Presentation Course again; all the students from March have chosen a new date instead of the one now scheduled. And I'm so happy that I can now say from experience that property styling combined with interior photography is truly a sustainable line of business, one that can even survive a coronavirus crisis.

And what about that TOZO support? The municipality of Hoorn has remained completely silent up to now (27 May), but fortunately we haven't needed it, and the deferred VAT has already been transferred to the tax authorities' account.