3-year business plan and financial forecast for a lean, owner-operated after-hours removalist business run by Kaitlin & Kevin alongside their existing 40–45 hour/week day jobs. Figures are planning estimates in AUD, July 2026 — confirm current rates with an accountant before acting on any of it.
The one number that matters: at $35/hour self-pay, this business is roughly break-even-to-loss-making in Year 1–2 under realistic hour limits, turning a small profit in Year 3. That's not a flaw in the plan — it's the honest arithmetic of a two-person, hours-capped side business. The levers that fix it are pricing (this brand is positioned as premium — use that), not volume, because volume is capped by two day jobs.
1. Operating model & capacity
K&K is not a full-time removalist company. Kaitlin and Kevin each work ~40–45 hours/week in their day jobs. The business runs strictly nights and weekends, with each founder contributing an average of 4–8 hours/week to K&K — the plan uses the midpoint of that range and grows it slowly, protecting their time for life outside work.
Assumption
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Combined crew hours available/week (both present per job)
6
7
8
Admin/marketing/quoting hours, each, per week
2.0
2.25
2.5
Average job length (blended apartment/house/single-item)
3.25 hrs
3.25 hrs
3.25 hrs
Jobs completed per month
~8.0
~9.3
~10.7
Average revenue per job (mix shifts toward house moves + price rise)
$310
$330
$355
Van and fuel are supplied at no cost to the business (existing personal vehicle), so there is no vehicle depreciation or fuel line in this model — a real and significant advantage most removalist startups don't have. If that arrangement ever changes, this plan needs re-costing immediately: a Sprinter-class van + fuel typically adds $8,000–14,000/year.
2. Revenue & wage forecast
Both founders are paid $35/hour for every hour worked in the business — job hours (both present, since jobs run as a 2-person crew) plus their admin/marketing hours. This is the business's only labour cost; there are no other employees.
Year
Jobs/yr
Revenue
Combined wages @ $35/hr
Gross margin before opex
Year 1
~96
$29,800
$29,100
$700
Year 2
~112
$36,800
$33,600
$3,200
Year 3
~128
$45,600
$38,300
$7,300
Wages alone consume 95–98% of revenue in Years 1–2. Everything below this line — insurance, accounting, marketing, software — has to come out of a very thin remaining margin, which is why the plan runs at a loss before Year 3 once those costs are added (Section 4).
3. Insurance — the non-negotiable cost line
This is the most important cost in the plan, not the smallest. Three separate exposures need separate cover; a single "public liability" policy does not cover all of them:
Cover
Protects
Est. annual premium
Public liability ($10–20M)
Third-party injury or property damage at a customer's home (dropped item breaks their floor, driveway, etc.)
$600–900
Goods-in-transit / transit insurance
Customers' belongings while loaded, in transit or being carried — the actual "fully insured" promise on the website
$500–800
Personal accident & injury cover
Kaitlin & Kevin themselves — as owner-operators (not employees), they are not covered by WorkCover if they're hurt on a job. This is the gap most side-hustle removalists miss.
$700–1,000 combined
Commercial-use extension on the van
Using a personally-owned/borrowed van for paid work. Most personal motor policies exclude "carriage of goods for hire or reward" — driving paying jobs on a personal policy can void the cover entirely.
$300–600, or may require a different policy altogether
Planning total
~$2,400/yr (Year 1), rising ~4%/yr
Action before the first paid job: confirm with the van's insurer (or owner, if it's not Kaitlin/Kevin's own vehicle) whether the existing policy allows commercial/paid use. If not, this is a hard blocker, not a line item to defer — an uninsured accident while carrying a paying customer's goods could mean total personal financial exposure with no cover at all.
4. Lean overheads: accounting, marketing, IT
Kept deliberately minimal — no office, no paid staff, mostly free-tier or entry-tier tools.
Line
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Notes
Insurance (Section 3)
$2,400
$2,500
$2,600
Non-negotiable
Accounting / bookkeeping
$700
$750
$800
Sole trader/partnership rates — see Section 6 for Pty Ltd delta
Software / IT (invoicing, scheduling, hosting, domain)
$500
$550
$600
Xero-lite/Wave, Vercel hosting, domain
Marketing & print (stationery amortised + local ads)
$900
$700
$700
Full stationery suite ≈ $1,620 one-off, spread across Year 1–3
Card/payment processing fees (~1.8% on ~60% of revenue)
This is a genuine finding, not a modelling error: at this hour-capped scale, with proper insurance and a $35/hr self-wage, the business doesn't clear a profit until Year 3. Three realistic levers, usable independently or together:
Raise prices sooner. The brand is positioned as "prestige" / after-hours specialist — a 10–15% price rise once the first 20–30 jobs build reputation and reviews (which the site already leans on heavily) has more leverage than adding hours neither founder has to spare.
Accept a lower Year 1 self-wage (e.g. $25–28/hr) while the business is establishing itself, stepping up to $35/hr once volume/reputation lands — common practice for founder-operators in Year 1.
Treat Year 1–2 losses as an acceptable cost of building the asset (reviews, referral base, systems) rather than something to fix immediately — especially since, as a sole trader/partnership, these losses can offset their personal day-job income at tax time (Section 6), which materially softens the real cash impact.
6. Business structure: sole trader/partnership vs. Pty Ltd
This is the single biggest structural decision in this plan, and it has a real cost either way. Two paths:
Option A — Sole trader / partnership Recommended at this scale
Each of Kaitlin & Kevin gets an ABN (or they register a 50/50 partnership) — no company registration, no ASIC fees.
Profit (or loss) is added directly to each person's individual tax return, on top of their day-job salary — taxed at their marginal rate, whatever that already is (likely 30–37%+ once day-job income is included).
Losses in Year 1–2 can generally offset other personal income (reducing tax payable on their day-job salary), subject to the ATO's non-commercial business loss rules — broadly fine at their income level, but worth 10 minutes with an accountant to confirm the "four tests" are met.
No compulsory superannuation on their own labour (sole traders/partners aren't employees of themselves) — though voluntary personal super contributions are worth considering for the tax deduction.
Real downside — unlimited personal liability. If an insurance claim is denied, exceeds its limit, or a dispute isn't covered, personal assets (savings, cars, home equity) are exposed. In a partnership, each partner can also be liable for the other's business decisions ("joint and several liability").
Option B — Pty Ltd company
Company profit taxed at the flat 25% base-rate-entity company tax rate, separate from personal income — but drawing money out (as wages or dividends) still triggers personal tax, so this mainly matters once profits are large enough to retain in the company.
Adds real, compounding costs at this revenue scale: ASIC annual review fee (~$321/yr), incorporation (~$597 one-off), and a materially more complex tax return (~$1,300–1,800/yr more than sole trader accounting).
If Kaitlin/Kevin pay themselves as director-employees (wages, not dividends), Superannuation Guarantee (12% from 1 July 2025) becomes compulsory on those wages — roughly $3,500–4,600/yr extra on the wage figures in this plan. Paying dividends instead avoids SG but requires the company to have franking credits/profit to distribute — awkward given the thin margins here.
Company losses cannot offset the founders' personal day-job income — they carry forward inside the company only, which is a real disadvantage given this plan shows losses in Year 1–2.
Upside: generally shields personal assets from business liabilities (subject to directors' duties — insolvent trading, personal guarantees, and fraud/negligence exceptions still apply; the "corporate veil" is not absolute).
Recommendation: start as a sole trader or 50/50 partnership. At $30–45k/yr revenue with Year 1–2 losses, a Pty Ltd's extra $2,000–5,000/yr in ASIC fees, accounting complexity and (if paid as wages) compulsory super would make an already loss-making Year 1–2 significantly worse — and company losses can't offset their day-job tax the way sole-trader losses can. The liability exposure that Pty Ltd protects against is better and more cheaply managed here through adequate insurance (Section 3) than through a company structure. Revisit incorporation once revenue is consistently well above the $75k GST threshold, they take on employees, or they start handling materially higher-value jobs/goods.
7. GST
GST registration is only mandatory once turnover reaches or is expected to reach $75,000/year. This plan's Year 3 forecast ($45,600) stays under that threshold throughout, so registration is not required in this 3-year window.
Voluntary registration would let them claim GST credits on the ~$5,000–5,600/yr of business expenses (worth roughly $450–560/yr back) — but adds quarterly or annual BAS lodgement, and effectively means adding 10% to every customer quote (or absorbing it), which is a real competitive risk at this stage. Not recommended until revenue is closer to $75k.
Re-run this check whenever pricing or job volume moves — if a strong Year 3 (or an earlier price rise per Section 5) pushes turnover past ~$70k, register for GST before hitting $75k; registering late attracts ATO penalties and backdated liability.
8. Key risks & what to fix before taking the first paying job
Van commercial-use insurance gap (Section 3) — confirm before any paid job runs; this is the single biggest uninsured risk in the plan.
Founder burnout / life balance — the 4–8hr/week cap exists specifically to protect Kaitlin & Kevin's life outside two jobs; resist the temptation to "just squeeze in one more job" once demand exceeds the modelled capacity — that's the point at which hiring, not overworking, becomes the right answer.
Year 1–2 cash flow — the plan shows a cash-flow loss before personal tax offsets are applied; keep a buffer (savings or reduced Year 1 self-wage, Section 5) rather than assuming the business self-funds from day one.
Underinsurance on high-value items — confirm the goods-in-transit policy's per-item and per-job limits match what's realistic for a "prestige" positioning (customers with premium furniture, pianos, etc. per the site's own service list).