When to do what next?

mummytwinton

I've set up my own Cupcake company from home. I've been up & running since April. things are starting to take off but I've not cleared the money I've spent setting up.
At the moment I work part time but can take redundancy of 18 months pay.(I can't make my mind up but I have only 1 month to take it).

When do I need to be classed as self emplyoyed?
If I take the VR will that stop be being able to claim JSA if the cakes haven't taken off enough to class as a wage?
Do i need an accountant or can I do it myself?

WLM21

If you haven't already done so, visit this site and find your nearest Business Link centre. They can give advice for all new business owners. Basic accountancy isn't too difficult and accountants are expensive. You'll have to be baking quite a number of cakes to reach a level where a professional accountant is needed.

Business Link will give all the advice you could need.

Happy baking !

http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/home

PS have you got a website, even a simple one showing your range of cakes.

steve1980

You need to register with HMRC as soon as you start trading so I wouldn't state that you started in April as you'll more than likely get a fine.

You will be checked for JSA, obviously as you will have redundancy money that will probably put a stop to it instantly. Do you live with anyone? Are they working? Do you have savings?

I do my own accounts using Excel.

pitkin2020

mummytwinton wrote: »

I've set up my own Cupcake company from home. I've been up & running since April. things are starting to take off but I've not cleared the money I've spent setting up.
At the moment I work part time but can take redundancy of 18 months pay.(I can't make my mind up but I have only 1 month to take it).

When do I need to be classed as self emplyoyed?
If I take the VR will that stop be being able to claim JSA if the cakes haven't taken off enough to class as a wage?
Do i need an accountant or can I do it myself?

You should have declared yourself from april when you started. As another poster has mentioned I would be flexable with your starting date when you do register!!

That advice is what I would do not what you SHOULD do so please make that decision for yourself!!

mummytwinton

I've only just started making paid orders in the last few weeks, up till then it was free to friends just to get use to making big orders.
I have had a look on HRMC & it seems hard to find what i need to do so i think i will phone them x

pitkin2020

mummytwinton wrote: »

I've only just started making paid orders in the last few weeks, up till then it was free to friends just to get use to making big orders.
I have had a look on HRMC & it seems hard to find what i need to do so i think i will phone them x

Its irrelevant to be honest, if you say you started in april they will want to know why you haven't registered until now.

As for registering all you have to do is give them a call and they will go through everything with you.

Good luck with your venture sounds like your working hard to make it a success!!! :beer:

paulwf

The first thing I would do is work out how many cakes you would have to sell to make it remotely worthwhile. From this you then have some basis as to whether or not it will be viable. You will also need to factor timings into this as you will need to look at the rough hourly profit.

Lets say you make a profit of 50p per cake. That means you need to make a batch of a dozen every hour to pay min wage...and that time has to include shopping for ingredients, packaging and delivering them. Next work out how much money you'll need...if you want £100 a week that means you need to sell 200 a week, can you sell this many and will your setup scale up to this volume?

If you think the figures will work then you need to get strict with your portion control and costings to keep your gross profit levels consistent. It will be very easy to lose profit by not keeping an eye on the cost of ingredients.

I think the main problem will be consistently selling a couple of hundred cakes a week...actually making them will be the easy part

tinktay84

HMRC say you have to register within 3 months but recommend doing it immediately as you end up getting to 3 months and forgetting. I also use excel for accounts and as previously mentioned go on businesslink and there are quite often free downloads for excel that you literally type in your incoming and outgoing and it works it out for you.

When I first went SE I claimed tax credits and told them my earnings would be 0 but would be working in excess of 40 hrs (This is only because this was realistically what I would be doing) and I got a fair bit in Tax credits. I would recommend making sure you are optomistic on numbers when claiming tax credits so at the end of the year you dont end up owing them. This year I expect to earn around 5k but have put tax credits at £10k as I would rather not owe them come april.

Speak to as many free advisors as you can, job centre, business link., local help centres..theres laods about but you have to find them. I found (to my own detriment in many cases) that no one will tell you about all the stuff you can get as help, you have to hunt it out

pitkin2020

tinktay84 wrote: »

HMRC say you have to register within 3 months but recommend doing it immediately as you end up getting to 3 months and forgetting. I also use excel for accounts and as previously mentioned go on businesslink and there are quite often free downloads for excel that you literally type in your incoming and outgoing and it works it out for you.

When I first went SE I claimed tax credits and told them my earnings would be 0 but would be working in excess of 40 hrs (This is only because this was realistically what I would be doing) and I got a fair bit in Tax credits. I would recommend making sure you are optomistic on numbers when claiming tax credits so at the end of the year you dont end up owing them. This year I expect to earn around 5k but have put tax credits at £10k as I would rather not owe them come april.

Speak to as many free advisors as you can, job centre, business link., local help centres..theres laods about but you have to find them. I found (to my own detriment in many cases) that no one will tell you about all the stuff you can get as help, you have to hunt it out

I believe they dropped the "within 3 months" line quite a while ago.

steve1980

All here.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/selfemployed/register-selfemp.htm

mummytwinton

I've registered with HMRC thanks for the advice.
one more question, if I take my VR package to give me the time to make a go of my business would i be able to claim JSA while I try to make some money from my business?