Going Self Employed

michaelb5097

HI all,
I'm doing some research for my partner and I am hoping to find some advice.
She is currently a cleaner on minimum wage at a company who has a contract with an even bigger company and gets on well with the people who work in the offices.
These people are on pretty high wages and employ cleaners for their houses/flats. A lot of them have suggested that if she ventured into domestic cleaning, they would go with her as they know her, trust her, and see that she has an attention to detail and is quite the perfectionist. They have told her what they normally pay and that they would pay her it. The amount she would make is more than what we earn together. She suggested we could do it as a partnership as we have worked together in the past and enjoyed it.

The only problem is, we have no idea how we would go about doing it regarding becoming self employed, do we have to register a business? Is it better to have an accountant?

Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated thank you

Pennywise

Start with the gov.uk website.

https://www.gov.uk/log-in-file-self-assessment-tax-return/register-if-youre-self-employed

Re accountants, yes, if you really have no idea, then talking to an accountant before you do anything would be good as they can discuss pros and cons of a partnership and explore other options such as being a sole trader or limited company. Easier to get it right in the first place rather than muddling along making mistakes and then have to correct later.

Mistral001

No you do not have to register the business. You only have to do that if you decide to form a Ltd company.

Note if your partner is employed at the minute the employer will be paying for her Employer's National Insurance, holidays, public liability insurance and no doubt other things such as cleaning materials etc.. So it costs the employer a lot more per hour she works than the minimum wage before they get their profit.