Just gone Self Employed - Advice please

agmoore

greatbridge wrote:

you cannot claim for course fees as job/business expenses unfortunatly,

Yes you can, you claim it under training.
I agree on not getting too hung up on the £100 fine either, that doesn't mean to say totally forget about it, but you can dispute them in writing and usually they waive them if your business is running at a loss, which for most it will especially as you'll have a load of stuff to offset against your business.

mattt44

I should have said, I agree with agmore, it sounds like you should be able to claim the training money back, but what I was trying to say was, its easy to give advice on here without generally knowing all the details, thats why I recommend an accountant.

agmoore

mattt44 wrote:

thats why I recommend an accountant.

This is true, we don't actually know your full circumstances OP and i'm by no means qualified in this field, however this what I have been doing for own biz.

littlemissroadrage

Thanks everyone, I'm not stressing about the £100 fine at all, I'd rather get the fine if it will save me money in the long run by claiming the course (only if I couldn't claim it before the SE started).
I have an accountant now, recommended by family (expensive but they are very good!)
I just needed to point out another thing, I don't have many things to offset against the business, no office or equipment etc, just travel expences, suits and a new laptop soon I'm sure other things will pop up in the long run though that I can find to offset
Just been over panicing, however just on my last night shifts for 7 days so now I will just have to get all my filing sorted, send off my SE reg forms THEN I can relax and know I'm sorted.

Sofa_Sogood

littlemissroadrage wrote:

Thanks everyone, I'm not stressing about the £100 fine at all, I'd rather get the fine if it will save me money in the long run by claiming the course (only if I couldn't claim it before the SE started).
I have an accountant now, recommended by family (expensive but they are very good!)
I just needed to point out another thing, I don't have many things to offset against the business, no office or equipment etc, just travel expences, suits and a new laptop soon I'm sure other things will pop up in the long run though that I can find to offset
Just been over panicing, however just on my last night shifts for 7 days so now I will just have to get all my filing sorted, send off my SE reg forms THEN I can relax and know I'm sorted.

I've stressed this in the past, but a good accountant will help you, for your benefit, and theirs, and a recommended one's usually the best. (If not, beat up whoever recommended them

Don't forget the trivial things like phone calls from public phone boxes, taxis, stamps, all can be non-existant, but it's not often that those type of self-written petty cash vouchers are looked at ... mainly because £40 a month can be spent that way, but can't always be accounted for.

I should add that this isn't a way to avoid paying tax or VAT, but you'll soon realise how much you take out of your own pocket for phone calls, the odd bit of stationery etc - especially when you're away from the place of work.

Good luck.

buglawton

Went my wife went SE we went together on 1/2 day the free self-employed Tax Course offered by all Inland Revenue offices. Got enough info & confidence to do own tax return no problem, as Sole Trader status means it's about as complicated as a passport application if you keep all receipts & invoices. And you local Tax Office can answer any tricky questions.

Using an accountant makes sense of you have higher turnover as he might save you what s/he costs.

Don't forget to keep a scrupulous diary of any business motoring as you can claim 40p per mile expenses.

Bermuda_John

Good advice buglawton re the mileage allowance.

If your good accountant does not include accounting entries to reduce profits eg, "Use of home as office", using the fixed profit car scheme, as mentioned by Buglawton, in your P&L imho they are not good accountants.

The problem with an accountant is you need to provide them with decent books and records from which they prepare your financial statements and tax return. If the records are poor the fees may rise to a hefty amount especially if you just hand them a bag of receipts.

Prepare the information for them and it should cost no more than $500 for acounts and tax return.

You need to provide.....

Bank reconciliations
Debtors and Creditors reconcilitions
Stock figure (if appropriate)
Prepayments and accruals
and if you can provide a trial balance you will be quids in.

To do this you need to get an analysis book ( red cathedral analysis books are the best not the SIMPLEX D they are an accountants nightmare!!!!!!!!) or create one on excel.

I have one if you would like to look at it. PM and i'll send you it, it will allow you to actually prepare some meaningful figures for your accountant.

This just leaves your accountant to play the role of a tax planner rather than a number cruncher.

buglawton

For a sole trader are the above items too onerous? In direct discussion with IR tax advisors on the course I went on. it was not made so onerous.

What WAS emphasised was proper receipts for all expenses and capital items, proper invoice records of all income items and records of banking costs. And following the advice on that course my 1st tax return was accepted just fine.

Bermuda John - are you referring to what a Limited Co that is VAT registered needs to do perhaps? Let's not frighten people off starting a business!

mattt44

buglawton wrote:

For a sole trader are the above items too onerous? In direct discussion with IR tax advisors on the course I went on. it was not made so onerous.

I agree, when I started I was given a accountancy package by Lloyds called DOSH, for free when I opened a bank acc with them.
I closed the acc when the free period ran out (and now bank with Abbey), but I still use the same software.

You only need a very simple software program and you should be able to give the results to your accountant at the end of the year, plus, it enables you to keep a good eye on how much you are actually earning, not how much you are just turning over.

KISS, Keep it simple stupid.

Bermuda_John

Ok i may have been a bit over the top, but those are what an accountant, or at least me, would like to see in an ideal world.

If you dont know your current debtors or creditors or cash position how on earth can you run a business????

I would suggest a very simple excel spreadsheet similar to those which your accountant will actually use.

Send them the info and they will bash it into their package and calculate all the tax etc.

No need for something like Sage or whatever, just a simple analysis which will allow for the bank to be reconciled and an analysis of expenses and income, debtors and creditors.