The Great 'Working for Yourself' Hunt

Fran

Hi SPINKO,

You might want to post the question you deleted on the Employment & Jobseeking board, I'm sure someone there will be able to help.

Edit - I see you have posted, you might also get help on the above board.

skintbutsmiling01

If you're thinking of setting up, doing your cash forecasts etc, always consider budgetting for no turnover for a while. We forecast 3 months with no sales, when in actual fact it was closer to 6 months. This led to us playing catch up for nearly a year.

richie_greenuk

A positive approach to business and life in general is a must....as well as the ability to switch off for family time.

lawrie28

If you find that your banks makes a charge per chq you send out, or per payment, (this was mentioned earlier) then ask for a company credit card (I know, sounds bad). As long as you pay it off in full, then there won't be any interest charges, but it means that as long as the company your dealing with takes cards, pay on that, and then only pay one charge to the bank per month for writing a cheque to pay off the credit card. And you are keeping the cash in your current account for longer, so essentially getting some free credit, and I beleive the odd bus bank account will pay some rate of interest.......

The_Guv

1. We get Business cards from Vista Print too and it actually works out cheaper to buy just 250 per time £3.62 including VAT & delivery, these just have a small vista print ad on the back. http://www.vistaprint.com

2. Website, try freeola.com, http://www.freeola.com cheap domain names, no monthly fees if you take their broadband (otherwise £3 per month) and best of all unlimited webspace. No premium rate helpine just national rate and they answer problems by email giving you a ticket job number for reference. They also have free webmail if you host a site through them.

3. Bank Account, when your free banking comes to an end, if your business requires a lot of small purchases, such as ours, a B&B for example, transfer a sum of money each month from your business account to your personal current account, then use this for all your debit card purchases. Whatever the amount if you always try to pay by card reconcilliation of your monthly expenses will be easier as they'll all be showing, and you'll be saving 45p or so a time. Then just copy all of the entries into your account book, all for the cost of one withdrawal by whatever means from your business account.

It may sound a bit complex but after the first month it is easy. Compare your charges you'll save quie a bit. All we are charged on our business a/c is for direct debits and card credits.

4. Online shop try Actinic, not necessarily the cheapest but you need reliability.

If I think of anything else I'll post it here.

Steve

alice_kelly

:j Thanks for advice we will try to sort out our business and get as much help as we can thanks again Alice Kelly.

im4_it wrote: »

I was business bank manager with a large bank and took my own advice and started up on my own which is the best thing i ever did!!! I have got loads of hints and tips, but i will put the best ones i can think of on here:

1. Do your own books: Get a computerised set of books like quickbooks, or sage or down load microsoft accounts express for nothing on their site. This will save a packet on accountants fees especally if you run a simple busines. i.e money in/money out.

2. Got to business link/Welsh assembly government or Business eye(Wales). They run free business start up courses for everyone, which can be very helpful and they cost NOWT! NIL! ZIP! NADA! Nothing!

3. Your banks has loads of free resources but they don't tell you about them, unless you ask. Natwest/RBS Great free software, Barclays Information and Opportunity Proifles and business tools on disc about every kind of self employed work going!

4. Get a no fee bank account like Abbey or Alliance & Leicester. So long as you don't need a Business manager's support then go with these or you will pay for the service some way or another with the big banks.

5. Take independent advice for borrowing to start up. they will get you the most suitable deal for your circumsatnces together with keeping your costs down where possible.

6. Join networking groups and tell EVERYONE YOU KNOW what you do. It's mega free and simple advertising!

7.If you have to build a website, use people like MR SITE. It cost £35 off the shelf to buy at Staples etc and that will give you 12months subs, proper email addres like your [EMAIL="name@thebusinessname.co.uk"]name@thebusinessname.co.uk[/EMAIL] instead of something[EMAIL="something@yahoo.co.uk"]@yahoo.co.uk[/EMAIL] or similar. Your business then looks professional from the start. With Mr Siete you can monitor stats about hits, have a shopping cart add galleries and much more. It's a bargain at £35 and uses simple templates. This would cost hundreds at a web builders!
Follow the maginificient seven if you want a good start and keep your costs to the minimum! But also there are so many free resources out there but you just gota ask for them!

bezfaery

olgacrackcorn wrote: »

Hi out there to all MSE budding entrepaneurs,
im looking to jack my day job in at the end of march to start up on my own painting & decorating.What i need to know,is it possible for me to claim housing benefits & uneployment benefits for a short while,whilst i try to get established & get a run of work in.I really need to know this,as i have no cash to fall back on as i live week to week on my wages,& also i have a very very bad credit rating,plus three children & a wife to support.
All replies will be very gratefully received.

Hi there. First of all it is a bit of a myth that you cannot claim JSA if you left your job voluntarily. You can claim and receive JSA until a decision is made as to whether you had good cause for leaving your job, then if the decision goes against you your payments would stop for upto 6 months. However you can only work part time (less than 16 hrs a week) and must declare hours worked and any income.
If you will be working full time on the business, you may be able to get Working Tax credits as you can declare a projected nil income. When you first apply you give them your previous year (PY) income which will be the previous tax year ie right now your PY is April 2006 to April 2007 if you wait til after April this year your PY will be April 07 to April 08. Then once your application has been received you can ring up and ask them to take into account your current year income (the tax year we're operating in at that time). You can then declare a projected nil income for yourself plus whatever your partner might earn and savings etc. So, for example, if you were to wait til after April 08 you could assume no income at all for yourself til April 09. If you did it in March your CY income would include everything you have earnt since April 07.
Please be aware that there is no guarantee that they will use your current year income so if you do not qualify based on your PY income then you would have to wait until the following tax year before the lower CY income is taken into account.
You still with me? Once you start earning you just let them know but there will a disregard which basically means you can earn a certain amount before it affects your award.
I would strongly recommend ringing the Inland Revenue and getting a calculation but they will not be able to tell you what you will get until you apply but will give you some idea of which years income they will use based on your circumstances. As far as your Housing Benefit is concerned speak to them but if you are entitled to Working Tax credits you may also get housing benefit and council tax benefit. I am assuming that you are already getting Child Tax Credit if not you definitely should be.
Hope this helps

5foot6

Do not confuse the phrase: 'Working for Yourself' with the similar alternative of 'Seeming to be Working for Yourself'.
Remember: Banks can take a large slice of your hard earned income.
The Taxman is always vigilant for self employed income.
Governments are fickle supporters of the individual entepreneur
Health and Pensions do not come cheap.
Lifelong family support is essential
Accountants are self serving, at a cost
Other considerations: remain to be discovered.

motorguy

5foot6 wrote: »

Do not confuse the phrase: 'Working for Yourself' with the similar alternative of 'Seeming to be Working for Yourself'.
Remember: Banks can take a large slice of your hard earned income.
The Taxman is always vigilant for self employed income.
Governments are fickle supporters of the individual entepreneur
Health and Pensions do not come cheap.
Lifelong family support is essential
Accountants are self serving, at a cost
Other considerations: remain to be discovered.

I totally agree. There is a lot of great info here about running your own business, but for a very high percentage of businesses it all ends in tears. Any business startup could easily burn up £20-£30,000 depending on what business your starting, then crash after a year.

Lots of people go in to it with rose tinted glasses and hope it all works out. Only do it if you can afford to lose what you put in to it.

Maybe we should start a 'Crap working for yourself Hunt' post to highlight the risks, dangers and downside to starting a business..

koru

bezfaery wrote: »

If you will be working full time on the business, you may be able to get Working Tax credits as you can declare a projected nil income. When you first apply you give them your previous year (PY) income which will be the previous tax year ie right now your PY is April 2006 to April 2007 if you wait til after April this year your PY will be April 07 to April 08. Then once your application has been received you can ring up and ask them to take into account your current year income (the tax year we're operating in at that time). You can then declare a projected nil income for yourself plus whatever your partner might earn and savings etc. So, for example, if you were to wait til after April 08 you could assume no income at all for yourself til April 09. If you did it in March your CY income would include everything you have earnt since April 07.
Please be aware that there is no guarantee that they will use your current year income so if you do not qualify based on your PY income then you would have to wait until the following tax year before the lower CY income is taken into account.
You still with me? Once you start earning you just let them know but there will a disregard which basically means you can earn a certain amount before it affects your award.

This is good advice, though I would like to add a warning that your entitlement to working tax credit is based on your actual total earnings for the tax year, so although they may pay out based on current income being zero, you may end up having to give the money back. If there is a chance your income might increase before the end of the tax year, do not assume that the tax credits are yours to keep!

To take an extreme example, assume you start your new business on 6th April 2008 and initially it has no income, so you persuade the tax credit office to pay you tax credits, which amount to, say, £300 per month. Your business starts slowly, so you earn nothing until March 2009, when you hit the jackpot and earn £70,000. You phone the tax credit office and tell them that you have started earning. They will ask you how much you expect to earn in the tax year and you tell them £70,000. This (I think) exceeds the annual income threshold for tax credits, so they will write to you telling you that not only will they stop paying any more tax credits, but you also have to repay the 11x300=£3,300 you have been paid for the last 11 months. Doesn't seem fair to me, because the income in March doesn't mean that you weren't on the breadline up until February, but that's how it works. (If, however, you earn your first income on 6th April 2009, this is after the 08/09 tax year, so you get to keep all the tax credits.)

OK, most people are not going to suddenly earn £70,000 in a month, but it illustrates the principle. If you only earn a little bit, you may get to keep the credits you have been paid, but it all depends on the maths.

Edit: By the way, if you trade through a company, your income for tax credit purposes includes salary and dividends from the company, but not any profits retained in the company. This might allow you to control when income is triggered for you, which might help you keep tax credits, but it would be counter-productive to do this if it means you do not use your tax-free allowance and lower rate tax bands. You might end up losing more in income tax than you make in tax credits.