Getting paid for freelance/consultancy work - ideas needed!

postdigital

Hi

I'm a teacher, with a part time post. In my spare time I do some supply teaching through an agency, but I'm looking at doing some consultancy work, visiting different schools and training teachers in an area of my subject that I'm very experienced in.

I've had some interest from schools, but I'm wondering how to go about getting paid for this work - obviously the schools will be invoiced, but I don't want all of the hassle and paperwork of sorting out income tax and national insurance myself. I've looked at PAYE umbrella companies, but these all seem to be geared towards contractors.

Does anybody know of an umbrella service, or any other solution, that could:

• One-off invoice individual schools for just one day's work, as and when I instruct them to
• Add mileage costs at a rate that I choose to this invoice to be paid by schools
• Deal with tax and national insurance, so that I'm not left with tax bill and lots of forms at the end of the year

Any ideas or help would be great!

Thanks guys

dejongj

Any accountant should be able to provide this service. Don't just look at the big internet sites....However as you identified yourself, if you don't want to do the paperwork, you will have to pay for it! Doing many smaller invoices, is more work than a monthly single big one, to reconcile.....Then again invoicing is the simple part, I would not outsource that myself...Just leave the book keeping and paying tax to an accountant and do the rest yourself...

Remember also that under the new tax rules, you have to be able to demonstrate that you are in control of your company. Otherwise HMRC might see it as an avoidance or worse evasion scheme....

tyllwyd

I'm self-employed, and to be honest if you are a teacher, you should be capable of keeping the records yourself, it isn't that difficult. Personally, I pay Class 2 NI, which is about £9 per month paid by direct debit, then I fill in a self-assessment tax form each year, and the HMRC calculate the income tax and Class 4 NI due. As the poster above said, as long as you keep your records then an accountant should be able to fill in the form for you. In fact, I'm sure you could fill in the form, but the accountant would know all the rules about what you could claim as expenses etc, so they might be able to save you a bit of tax which would help towards paying their fees! If you get a book on basic bookkeeping, that might help you feel a bit more confident on the records that you should be keeping.