I don't like the sound of for many of the reasons posted above, but another one to consider is that businesses fail, or move, all of the time. A cake is made and consumed in very short order.
What happens if you agree to take $200 in gift cards and before you can use them, their business goes belly up, they sell it, or move?? You'll never collect 
I don't like the idea of them trying to mix business & personal funds to cut their costs. If the cake was for the business, it might be an option.........
Rae
The real issue that I didn't see brought up is this (and it applies to both sides really) comes from an accounting perspective. it seems odd they are giving out "business" money for personal things like cakes, haircuts, etc. I realize it's their own business, but that still gets kind of messy. I've always believed that even if you own the business yourself, your business money should be for business things only.
.
EXACTLY. business is business and personal is personal. Accounting is very black and red.
Bartering doesn't pay your expenses, not to mention the accounting nightmare this will create if word gets out that you will barter. No...keep it to cash in hand...be a professional. It's not like you are doing these cakes as a fly by night decorator. If you want to be percieved as a professional, conduct your business in a professional manor.
I did a little bartering with a photographer friend a couple times. It ended badly.. never again. In the end you will feel used especially after doing a cake this large.
I absolutely agree with several posts above... My two cents - Tell them mixing biz and personal monies are not feasible, per your accountant. Then go ahead and offer them as deep of a discount you can handle, and still make some profit, in exchange for adverstising your business in all of their stores for a specified amount of time. It won't cost them a dime, and would give you even more exposure. And lastly, didn't you say they were well to do? Just sayin'...
You can trade legally through a trade exchange. The good thing about a trade exchange is that you would not have to use the car wash. You can use your earned trade dollars at any other member business. You may even find that some of your supplies are members. A former employer of mine participated in a trade exchange. A lot of his customers would pay with trade dollars, which he would then use to pay his dentist, go to dinner, and get other services.
Here is one for Arkansas. If it is not the right one for your area, maybe contact them and see if they know of one.
http://www.localtradepartners.com/index.aspx
Perhaps tell the car wash people that you will only do a trade through the trade exchange.
Good luck!
Joanieb: I am with the ones that say, you tell them that because you are just getting started in the wedding cake part of business that you need to build your supplies and equipment up and you can not do that with gift cards for a carwash/ oil change/? and you also do not want to intermingle your expenses as a business with household expenses. As business people, even if they do it differently, they have got to respect your business sense. This gets you out of a pickle.
If you do want to figure out say a very small percentage that you could give them off(because you will get exposure) then do so, but tell them that while it would be nice to have a few gift cards to keep your car really nice and clean that you can not do that at this time. One thought here would be if they really like the cake and all then they could "tip" you with some gift cards for the services you would use-the car wash.
Just tell them that there are certain standards of busness that you and your husband have agreed upon and you are not going to make any changes at this early stage in your business. They have already decided that they wanted you to do the cake. If they decide that they don't want you to do it solely based on the fact that you won't take the gift cards then you will know that they were just counting on getting the cake cheaper because they were going through you. They probably did decide that you were the most price friendly on the cake they wanted then anyone else was, but if they could further reduce the price why not save a few more pennies by giving you the gift cards instead? I am not saying this is the way they were thinking, just that is is a possibility.
I agree with the poster that brought up the fact that there is a substantial markup on car washes and oil changes. I happen to know someone in the same business and each wash costs them less than $1 for the Super Duper wash!!
Not to mention the fact that if you accept their gift cards it could take MONTHS, if not YEARS to use them up.
Further, if YOUR suppliers won't take these gift cards to pay for the supplies that you need to make this monstrosity, then HOW, pray tell, do you intend on purchasing ingredients and supplies??
And, finally, I will give you an example of how bartering turned out for us...My bf had an old school friend of his opening a yogurt shop waaaayy across town from us (like a 30 min drive!!) and asked us to come in and hang a TV for him in exchange for free yogurt whenever we could make it to that side of town....HA!!!! So, we took ourselves and 5 of our 7 kids there on the opening weekend and the "friend" had given us some of the "free yogurt" coupons that they had passed out to the community for the opening weekend promo. Well, all of us started loading up on yogurt and toppings and then checking out. We each had one of these coupons but did not see the fine print limiting the purchase to $5 each. Well, our 17 y.o. 6'3" 300lb growing boy had filled his cup with close to $10 in product, so the girl checking us out told him that he owed $5 for the extra yogurt. Well, the "friend"/owner of the place who had promised unlimited free yogurt to us, actually stood there saying NOTHING to his cashier while I fished around for enough spare change to cover the overage!!
This is a guy that my bf had known his entire life that in the end got about $4000. worth of FREE work!! He literally waited until we got there to do the $300 TV install and then suckered us in to installing extra equipment that he had bought to "install himself" but claimed ignorance when it came to actually dong it, so he asked Thom to help him out (read: do it for him), on top of that he actually fired his security camera guy because he knew he could get Thom to do that too while we were "there already". And, all of that work was 3 late evenings and two weekend days. And, there is still more things to be tweaked that Thom is supposed to go do this Sunday!! And, this selfish SOB has yet to even OFFER to pay his "good friend" a penny for the work!!
All of that is to say that when someone offers to "barter" with you, it is usually because it is to THEIR ADVANTAGE to do so. And, I can guarantee that you are already going to be hating yourself for taking on a 450 serving cake by yourself as it is,PLEASE DON'T start it off by feeling resentful and USED while you are working on it.
The real issue that I didn't see brought up is this (and it applies to both sides really) comes from an accounting perspective. it seems odd they are giving out "business" money for personal things like cakes, haircuts, etc. I realize it's their own business, but that still gets kind of messy. I've always believed that even if you own the business yourself, your business money should be for business things only.
This is a critical requirement for LLC owners, if you mix personal and business finances you can lose the LLC's limited liability protection.
Also, bartering is sometimes used as a way to evade income taxes. If you accepted a barter item instead of cash for an order you would still owe income tax on the net profit from that order (market value of the barter item - your expenses).
I was thinking this, too...I'll be willing to bet that the gift cards are never counted when these people do their taxes.
I'd just tell them that you want to keep everything in cash because bartering for services gets tricky with your income taxes. If she has a response about how it doesn't matter, then you'll have your answer about whether they're being shady with their own taxes right there.
Thanks for all the advice guys. I really hate when people put me in these awkward situations. Honestly, I would be embarrassed to ask for a trade. Y'all had some serious stories about how the bartering can go wrong. That's what scares me, I know this is to their advantage and I'm just trying to see the positive side of things (exposure/connections). Blakescakes, I don't have to worry about them going belly up, they live across the street and their family and their business are a "staple" in the community if you will. I will keep you posted on what happens, we're supposed to meet this week.
When are you supposed to make this cake for? Either callt them today or when you meet with them I would just hand the gift cards back and tell them that you cannot use them to buy the ingredients and supplies for the cake and that you need CASH. If they don't want to do that tell them then sorry, but they will need to make other arrangements for the cake.
Is the reason they waited to get back with you because they couldnt get anyone else to take their offer??
Oh really? This site is acting a little strange this weekend...a ton of multiple posts.
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%