Employed, self-employed and partnership questions

MrNotty

Hello - I hope some of you can help me.

I am employed part-time in a small local (UK) charity but may well be out of work soon.

I may be able to pick up contracts or other work so I am thinking of the self-employed route (sole trader). I may run the two things together.

In addition I have been discussing a business idea with an established sole trader.

My question is: can two sole traders come together to run a particular venture (in addition to other self-employed or PAYE work) or do they have to form a partnership?

Also who do you recommend for free business-startup courses/support (NW)

Thanks in advance

Pennywise

MrNotty wrote: »

My question is: can two sole traders come together to run a particular venture (in addition to other self-employed or PAYE work) or do they have to form a partnership?

Who will raise the customer invoices and pay the supplier invoices.

If it's just one of you who has "control" of the projects, then one of you needs to invoice the other for their time. So in one set of books, you have all the ins and outs and a bill for the other, and in the second, there's nothing except the invoice for the profit share. If you do it that way, it's two separate sole traders.

Also, what about trading names or websites etc - if you create a new trading name, joint website, etc., then you're probably a partnership and need separate accounts etc.

paddyrg

Unless it is a one-off, it may be worth forming a separate company (either a partnership or ltd co). As a pair of sole traders, apart from the excellent points above, how or who retains assets for depreciating company assets (laptop, maybe?), or works out who pays what for insurances? A separate body corporate makes all that about 100 times easier.

Or YOU do the deals, manage all the money, etc and subcontract the other party - you should factor in your (healthy) profit margin also this way, or you will do all the dull bits of the job for no reward, which gets boring after the first 20 minutes or so. Never make less than yyour employees (actually there are plenty of exceptions to this, but only for rare/premium skills!)

Savvy_Sue

Courses: look at Businesslink and HMRC.