Be Excellent To Each Other

Thanks, mate, have passed it on.

I added other stuff to my post above.

There doesn't seem to be many websites out there that explain how to effectively register a small business for doing a 'bit' of work. Most of the ones I've read talk in scopes far beyond anything I'll realistically do, like, employing people, and other stuff.

If his income is below £4.9k(ish) per year and he doesn't earn anything else, he will need to do a Self Assesment form to inform the Revenue but he won't need to pay any tax. Above that and he'll creep into the 20% tax band. Below £13.4k (IIRC) a year and he won't pay any National Insurance, he will however need to complete a form to get an Exemption Certificate.

Unless he has liabilities, he shouldn't become a Ltd and VAT registration is an enormous amount of work and optional below an annual turnover of some quite high amount (£50k, I have in my head, dunno about that).

It'll help if he opens a business bank account, as he'll be able to cash cheques etc in the business's name. Most of these accounts are free for 18 months or so. Plus the small business advisors in bank branches are very useful.

I used to do some self-employed IT consultancy and freelance journalism (in fact, according to LinkedIn, I am technically a former colleague of Mr Craig Grannell).

It is a lot of work and vastly complicates billing, as you have to raise proper VAT invoices for anyone you charge work to. Plus he'll have the Revenue breathing down his neck, needing receipts, etc etc. As attractive as that 17.5% discount looks, unless he's buying several metric fucktons of kit, it isn't worth it.

Please allow me to shatter your head like a pinata and steal that £50k.

I have a LTD business which does a "bit" of work. It doesn't employ anyone except occasionally my gf who is a "contractor" to it (she's self employed anyway). So if it sells stuff and makes money, she does enough work (accounts and stuff) to extract that much money. I also buy tech stuff on expenses from it, if it seems like a justifiable business thing (the business objective is "research and development"). So those things are bought without having paid income tax on the money first. It also makes no profit at all so it doesn't have to pay corporation tax.
Don't worry, between us we pay loads of tax anyway.

Bring him over here, Mali. We're great, we are.

I voluntarily registered for VAT as it gives you more credibility IMO. Obviously if you're marketing yourself as a single man-in-a-van or whatever then credibility isn't exactly important, but in my line of work the whole "they're VAT registered so they must be legit" angle is quite important, I've found.

He's got the url. he's a nice guy, as it happens, very good looking man.

I was having a chat with my carpet cleaner about how he generates business, and he seems to do crackingly well. He's got a fairly decent website and is at the very top of google adwords (he pays something silly like £2 per click) but reckons he gets enough leads to pay for it many times over.

As usual it made me jealous, as I'd really like to work for myself but can't think of anything sufficiently worthwhile that I'm good at. I don't think I would cope well trying to drum up 'web dev' work from home. I'm happy selling a few comics and t-shirts but its not a great money-spinner. I can't think of an idea with enough scope to really go for it.

Cat herder. Apparently, a lot of people struggle with this.

Adwords can be terrifyingly expensive. I've seen pay-per-click prices from clients for words like "holiday" or "ibiza" or "menorca": fucking yowzers. Monthly bills of £50k+. And you wonder why Google's stock is so high?

Nothing has come up on jobsearch front yet so far, and I've got the DSS to deal with at 9am tomorrow.

COMICAL:

I need your genius. How do I do this one?

Haven't got the game handy at the minute chap, so I've no idea. If you're the patient sort remind me when I'm at home and I'll see if I have a solution for it

Hi guys,
Thanks for all your responses.

Bit o background:

Im not sure whether it makes a difference but im a student at uni, so starting up a so called "one man band" now seems like pretty good time (on account of the experiene i would gain, allied with not having to leave the house to work )

Im currently working as a contractor which sort of started this off (well a sugeestion from my father). Given that i'll be at uni, i shouldnt have to pay tax, and i dont think i will make more than 5000 this year from my business (probably 3grand)

Also as for starting up, i have some work in the pipelin that is all unpaid but would be invaluable work experience and obviously a portfolio of work would be built up from this.

What i do need to think about is a name!

From the combined posts ive come up with the following i need to do

1) Call IR and register as self employed
2) Get an NI exemption form
3) dont register for vat

thats all i can think of that i need to fo legally

Don't they have small business agencies any more? Or some other government sponsored thing to help you get set up?

Also get a business bank account. As a sole trader you can open a business account in any name that you want without any particular documentation. If you're a Ltd. company and want the 'Payable' to say 'Lay's Business Ltd.', you'd need a certificate of incorporation.

Like The Gaywood said, most banks offer business accounts for free for a good 12 or 18 months or so. The charges are usually just per transaction, for example, 30p to put a cheque in, 12p to do an electronic transfer, etc. Every bank has charges like this so there's not much between them.

For what it's worth my business accounts are with Lloyds. Back when I signed up the deal was no charges for the first year, 50% charges for the second year, and 75% charges for the third year, which was fine for me at the time and in reality won't add up to more than a few quid each month anyway.

How young are you? You may be able to get some financial (and advisory) help from the Prince's Trust.

One man bands are excellent. You don't see enough of them.

Also, hurrah for our first 100-page thread

Crikey, I had not thought of that. Old man Afterthought used to be a mentor for that, but he's in foreign at the moment.

Is thier any advantage of using a business account over using my personal account?

Im not young at all!
24 going on 25

Being able to cash cheques that are payable to 'the business', and easier bookkeeping.

Adwords works providing you are not a cretin and are prepared to throw away a few quid on finding out what works.

Some of my bids are as high as 3 quid a click, but it still pays for itself over a month. In fact I've dropped Yell.com in favour of spending that money on adwords.

Think I'm spending about 200 quid a month on adwords at the moment. But it is, for me at least, the most effective thing out there. 200 quid is nothing compared to printed advertising, etc.

The keywords, and negative keywords come to that, are vitally important. It's easy to end up paying through the nose for clicks that will never bring you business.

Easier book keeping is a big one here, if you don't keep your incomings and outgoings straight you're going to have a very nervous time when it comes to submitting the self-assessment.

Indeed, but it won't get much bigger.
Once Lay has got the info he needs, I'm going to lock this thread for the sake of the database.

You're more that welcome to make a new one, of course.

VROOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!!!!

The force is strong with this one.

Get out, you
Big threads do slow the indexing down. Maybe by a miniscule amount, I dunno. But it's not too much of a hardship to let this one go.

someone said, somewhere else, that Malicious Afterthought was a stupid name:





So that should see them straight.

I appear to have a little free cash this month after sorting out the whole Works/Courts/Pay issue (and got some compensation out of it...from BOTH SIDES!!) so I may play Internet Spaceships for a month and see what's changed since I left.

Factional Warfare. It looks good fun. If I had a decent net connection, then I would resub, but upstairs is knackered.

Malicious Afterthought does sound a bit off for a pirate though. It's like you actually make a habit of helping old ladies cross the road, then when walking away think to yourself "You know what I should have done? I should have kicked her in the tits."

Nah, you are right. Lock it and start a v2.

But it must have a witty strap line.

What about
Thread O' Crap
Bits 'n' Bobs II

Bits 'n' Bobs II:
Bums 'n' Buggery.

Relieved to hear that chap, I was worried that the whole Wii purchasing thing had badly compromised you. Hurrah!

I have a business account with Abbey National. Free everything, deposits, withdrawals and all that. Only downside is that it is all automated, so you deposit at an ATM and there is no over the counter service.

http://www.anbusiness.com

You'll then have enough left over for UNO!

I got Uno free with my XBLAH camera.

Highly recommended, unless you value having an over the counter service.

The other downside is that branches don't seem to keep any stock of deposit envelopes, so if you're say, 30 miles away from home and someone gives you a business cheque, you can't pay it in to the branch next door because you don't have a deposit envelope to put in the ATM.

Why are you not bezzying it up in Unotown then?

Done!
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1191

I read that as Strap-on.

Shall we lock this one now then?

We have, genius. Stop posting in it.