New Enterprise Allowance scheme - My story

Andy2013

andyscott , that did make me laugh I was going to say the exact same thing :rotfl:

For me start up costs were mainly my stock and I had about £300 to invest and now I re-invest around 80% of my profit each month to grow quicker and buy cheaper so luckily for me I don't have a loan to pay off which I am happy about .

I guess for others start up could be much harder, say if you have to buy a vehicle but you can get finance deals on them ,which work out cheaper than terrible loan companies taking advantage of new businesses desperate for finance.

If possible try to get family help with a small cash "borrowing" that you can pay off cheaper than a loan and maybe at an easier time scale.

I know this wont help the "economy" but **** that, this is about us doing the best for ourselves.

andyscott, a real tough situation for you but don't be pushed around by these rotten ***** to them you are just a number.

Sorry for the *****'s but they wont let me post swear words the ***** ***** ****** !!

bellkat

My start up costs are quite low really, about £250. I partly funded mine doing car boot sales. I didn't apply for the NEA loan because I'm pretty certain I would have been declined, and also I didn't want to start off with debt if possible.

Sorry to hear things aren't going well with the JC Andy. When I started the NEA process I'd already decided that I was going ahead with my business anyway, but luckily it went ok for me and I'm now getting the allowance. Keep going with your ideas, maybe you could look at other funding options, Princes Trust etc.

Can anyone tell me if the NEA allowance is taxable, is it classed as business income? I did a Bookkeeping course but I don't remember them covering that.

This_Year

I've calculated my start up costs to be around £350 and I anticipate re-investing most of the profit to build up my business. I do keep wanting to run before I can walk though LOL am so keen to get going!

andyscott

After reading the last couple of posts, my start up costs seem a lot.

In my original business plan my start up costs were to be £1116.40

This breaks down as

Travel £50
Printing £428.4
Telephone £10
Virtual Office £50 deposit + £50 1st month
Web Hosting £8
Equipment £220
Design of marketing materials £50
Website £250

pinkypoopydoo

NEA is not a taxable benefit as far as I am aware.

Quote from an accountant via AAT forum:

"It is disregarded by HMRC for income tax, NI (but not Class 2 contributions) and tax credit purposes"

pinkypoopydoo

andyscott wrote: »

After reading the last couple of posts, my start up costs seem a lot.

In my original business plan my start up costs were to be £1116.40

This breaks down as

Travel £50
Printing £428.4
Telephone £10
Virtual Office £50 deposit + £50 1st month
Web Hosting £8
Equipment £220
Design of marketing materials £50
Website £250

Are all of these essential for the start up? My original start up costs were around the £1000, but once I realised that the NEA start up loan would not be available until after start up, I worked through them, and got them down to the £350. Can you cut down the printing costs to the bare minimum for the first couple of months? I dropped mine down to next to nothing, after I paid slightly more to the designer, so I could then print my own letterheads, invoices etc - saved a packet. Website costs seem high too - I used Yola to build my own, and I think I've done a pretty good job, and it's cost me something like £30 for the hosting, domain name and personalised email address. Can you purchase second hand equipment, or borrow equipment until you have money coming in?

Andy2013

For me I already had a computer and printer and I work from home so for the first couple of months I was using 2 well known websites ( wont name them as this site gets upset if you do self promo) and that meant lots of potential customers straight away.

Only after month 2 did I start a website which came out of profits and enabled me to keep costs low whilst money came in and I link my website to the 2 other accounts which bring in a lot of interest and the marketing is then fairly easy as the more links you can post on the net the more feeds you will get through search engines.

The start up is the hardest part financially but luckily its only done once .

andyscott I think yours sound pretty reasonable.

bellkat yes I believe NEA is taxable , at least i'm treating it as so.

andyscott

pinkypoopydoo wrote: »

Are all of these essential for the start up? My original start up costs were around the £1000, but once I realised that the NEA start up loan would not be available until after start up, I worked through them, and got them down to the £350. Can you cut down the printing costs to the bare minimum for the first couple of months? I dropped mine down to next to nothing, after I paid slightly more to the designer, so I could then print my own letterheads, invoices etc - saved a packet. Website costs seem high too - I used Yola to build my own, and I think I've done a pretty good job, and it's cost me something like £30 for the hosting, domain name and personalised email address. Can you purchase second hand equipment, or borrow equipment until you have money coming in?

Without knowing exactly what the business is then many people on here will class my start up costs as been too much.

I am going to try explaining a bit more about my business without giving too much away.

Its a business that will sell events to hotels.

In my local area there is only 1 competitor. They are run by a large nationwide company but are franchisees. The local franchise is doing well even though its not run well. Its only doing so good cause there is no competition.

You said my website was expensive at £250. The site I require is complex and other quotes that I had received from established web developing companies were in region of 10k - 13k just for the website. I was even told on 2 ocassions that my competitor would have paid in region of 25k for their website.

My business requires a lot of printing, my costs were not just a 1 flyer job. For the £428.40, I was getting

5000 a5 double sided flyers
5000 other a5 double sided flyers
2000 dl forms
500 a3 posters
1000 a4 tri fold flyers
1000 a4 half folded flyers
1000 business cards
1000 letterheads


For 200 of my posters I was giving a quote from vista print of £1096


The £100 for deposit and 1st virtual office. That does not get me a real office but I get a city centre address and a telephone number which is answered in my companys name by a receptionist. The image that this gives can be so valuable.

The equipment that I need can be bought cheaper 2nd hand but it can be hard to find the equipment on ebay etc

pinkypoopydoo

Vistaprint is the spawn of the devil!! So expensive, and not great quality.

Ok, your start-up costs actually sound pretty reasonable, in context. For a business such as the one you envision, some things cannot be scrimped on, so you obvioulsy need to find a way to fund it.

It may be worth looking into peer-to-peer loans, if you think you would be knocked back by the banks for a loan. If you have a strong sense of where the business will be going, and have a strong business plan, even with a poor credit score, you would do well on a P2P investment site. Take a look at Funding Circle - it may the answer (now I'm beginning to sound slightly like good old jean who spammed us yesterday!). In fact, I'm sure it was Martin Lewis who talked about these peer to peer lending sites in a positive way that got me looking at them.

This_Year

I don't think you can compare start up costs as every business is going to be slightly different.

I also have an OH who has previously had his own company and is constantly reminding me that it's easier to spend money on stuff than it is to make money so I've pared every potential expense to the bone.