Extra Income, starting a PC repair business (evening and weekends)

ajfy2k

Hi,

Anyone had any experience with this? (sorry if this is in the wrong place)

I'm looking into starting a small PC repair business, just about to order a few books on this but would love some real world experiences,

I work full time (in ICT) and this would only be part time evening and weekends fixing home pc's to try and get a few extra quid in, not expecting to earn much but every 10 quid earned will help,

Main questions are

1. Advertising, where do you get the most leads from? i.e adverts in the chippy? website?

2. Tax, i'm currently salaried (low 20's), how will this effect me? What do I have to do?

3. How much do you charge? guessing an hourly rate with Min 1 hours but would not know where to start with price? Cant find anything local to compare with (suppose that a good thing thou )

Thanks

Ash

cirrusmp

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ajfy2k

thanks MP,

I'm currently a Software Developer (.net SQL) but have plenty of past experience with hardware and software tech support,

What ratio of hardware/software issues would you say you experienced?

Thanks

Ash

cirrusmp

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ajfy2k

thanks MP,

Thats the sort of stuff I end up doing for friend and family anyway, clearing junk / p**n off their systems and fixing their wireless,

Looked at the advertising post you did and its given me a few ideas

thanks

ash

DarkConvict

Im also a Software Engineer (3rd year student), I fix pcs for friends and family. I agree many issues are simple, several years ago i removed more than 1200 entries of spyware... No wonder it was slow. Formatting is always an option, getting the family to backup is generally easier so the reason that if you do it you might miss something, and if the pc is slow can take a while, out of 12 hours to backup, format, reinstall, 10 hours was spent backing up.
Network connections are possible issues too, generally a basic understanding of IP address, what a router/hub/switch is and you should be okay.

As to tax, i am also unsure about it, i assume you will pay 20% on everything BR tax code, then if you were to earn over the 40% threshold then you sort that out in April.

Advertising - Local paper is going to be the cheapest thing especially for just weekend work.

Price, not a clue i've never done it. But as above, you need to drive to the destination, either charge more to cover it, or charge less and have a call out fee to make up for it. This allows over the phone support instead of having to go out.

But remember there are some issues you just cant seem to fix, i've had some very odd errors on my main pc, where i have tested/replaced everything bar the motherbaord and still get issues. :P

Tixy

Hi

If you were to do this you would need to register with HMRC that you are going to be self-employed.

You would then need to save some of your profits to pay tax. (Self-employment tax is paid in July and January).
If you are already employed then you would have to pay 20% tax on any profits you make up to a total of around £43k (thats your salary and self employment profits combined). Anything you earn above that would be taxed at 40%.

You will need to keep a record of all sales/income you receive and a record of any relevant costs/expenses (eg buying parts or travelling to someones house to fix the computer). A spreadsheet and the receipts is usually sufficent for this.

Each year you would then need to complete a self-assesment tax return and submit this to HMRC online by 31 January each year - it looks like a long form but you would only have a few boxes to complete.

This is just a guideline but really the accounting/tax side of thing is not too difficult (providing you have the money saved to pay your tax).
Hope this helps.

MoneyBags

If you're a .net developer surely you can get a few freelance gigs? I'm a front end developer and managed to make £6k last year (with no advertising) on the side.

ajfy2k

thanks for all your help guys,

just to let you know I have setup a website yesterday and have already had my first job come through on it,

thanks again

cirrusmp

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Horace

ajfy2k wrote: »

thanks for all your help guys,

just to let you know I have setup a website yesterday and have already had my first job come through on it,

thanks again

Remember you need to register as self employed with the HMRC pronto - they have done away with the 3 month registration period, you will also need to sort out via the HMRC your National Insurance situation because you will pay Class 4 for your paid job and will have to pay Class2 for your self employment.