Brexit | is your salon or barbershop ready?

Here’s Salonfog’s quick-start guide to getting ready for a no-deal Brexit; outlining a variety of areas that could impact your salon or barbershop, and so help you start preparing.

While there is still no certainty around what Brexit will mean, salon and barbershop owners need to have contingency plans in place that are sufficiently flexible to cope with a variety of possible outcomes. These considerations reflect “no deal” being reached, but may also be relevant in other scenarios.

Here’s our top 5 considerations:

1. GDPR

If there is a “no deal” Brexit the EU GDPR will no longer be law in the UK. However, as the UK government intends to write the GDPR into UK law, from all practical perspectives, GDPR will continue to apply.

2. Buying product from the EU

If you purchase product (either to use in the salon or sell as retail) from an EU country (which you may well do over the internet), you could see that stocks are harder to get hold of, or indeed the price may increase.

Tariffs, or customs duties as they are known in the UK, are a tax levied on imports. There are no tariffs on trade wholly within the EU customs union, but if the UK leaves the EU without a deal they will apply to UK-EU trade. Currently the UK’s trade with the rest of the world is subject to EU tariff rates. After the UK leaves the EU, tariffs will depend on trade agreements the UK has negotiated, which may well differ from country to country.

3. VAT

If the UK leaves the EU without reaching any agreement, the UK Government has indicated that there will be a number of changes to the VAT rules.

It has confirmed though that in the short term, it will continue to apply the existing VAT law as close as possible to that already in place. We know that it has been waiting to leave the EU before it undertakes a full overhaul of the VAT  legislation, but at least in the short term, VAT life continues as-is within the UK; with any changes only relating to transactions between the UK and EU member states.

4. Are you (or any of your staff) EU,EEA, or Swiss-nationals?

If so, you (or they) will need to register for the settlement scheme.

Ensure any relevant employees are aware of the settlement scheme and the need to register. They will need to be living in the UK before it leaves the EU to apply and can see more details here:

https://www.gov.uk/settled-status-eu-citizens-families

If there is no deal, the deadline for applying will be 31 December 2020.

5. Cash

The consequences of a no deal Brexit are unclear. Nevertheless, it is always prudent for salon and barbershop owners to plan ahead and think about how they would deal with economic uncertainty, which inevitably occurs from time to time anyway. Economic uncertainty might affect your sales income (if Clients decide to reduce their personal spending), and your stock levels may reduce (if importing them becomes harder or more expensive).

Owners may need more cash on hand so they can make sure they continue to make payments on time (and have enough to live on of course). So would be worth having a cash provision at the ready, or at least know you have credit facility with your bank just in case.

Here’s hoping…

This doom and gloom scenario may or may not eventually transpire, but it’s worth considering it and ensuring you’re ready if it does.