Self Employment.

[RealMaroon]

Hello chaps,

Currently working full time in a job that I genuinally hate and even the thought of going in makes me feel depressed.

In between jobs and on days off I have been doing music lessons as I play multible instruments. I have also been advertising for gigs and been buking and doing all sorts of different things. Having half arse promoting myself it seems that there is a market for earning excellent money as lately I have probably beeny earning more from my part-time work than from my current full time job.

I will be honest and admit that I worried about taking the plunge and quitting my job and doing all this full time. I have so many ideas but as I have no experience in running my own company I am unsure where to start.

Anyone here have any advice or experience in going self emloyed?

Cheers.

[Nutz_the_Squirrel]

First of all- well done for even thinking about taking the step into self-employment.

Firstly, you need to phone HMRC to declare yourself as self-employed. Just because you do so, doesn't mean that you can't be employed as well.

Secondly- Buy a wallet. Seriously. Use this wallet to keep ONLY cash and receipts from self-employment. Don't dip into it until you take it to the bank.

Thirdly- is you are reasonably young, contact the PSYBT (Prince's Youth Trust). They are fantastic and will give you advice on tax, advertising, running a business etc and can even provide you with some funding (in the form of a loan) or point you towards where you can get grants (Art Council and others). They run workshops and if you're serious about doing it right, then you really should visit your local office. They run workshops at evenings too.

Buy a cabinet. Make sure ALL your bank statements and receipts are kept, P60s/P45 from employment.

Business banking facilities are required. Most banks charge. I operated a successful business via Santander which didn't charge, but they don't offer in-branch support. Their phone service is excellent though.

Music teaching isn't easy and will take a long time to build up your clientele. If teaching piano, you'll really want to have a real piano. You'll also want to contact ABRSM to offer access for your students to exams/grades.

Inform your home insurance provider if working from home.

Get PVG checked (working with children) and consider public indemnity cover (cheap).

All of the above can be covered and talked through via Business Gateway or PSYBT.

Good luck.

[Jamie_B]

I did the same about 4 years ago and haven't ever looked back, best thing I ever did. With a little bit of organisation you can keep on top of the tax/accounting side very easily. It doesn't need to be complicated.

Good luck!

[Nutz_the_Squirrel]

Bear in mind that if you plan to get a mortgage soon, it might be tough.

Also, tell us more about music tuition, your experience and qualifications etc.

Not to say that you're like others but my Facebook feed is full of half-decent lead guitarists trying to offer teaching services.

[Skyline Drifter]

Business banking facilities are required.

Not necessarily, I know people who run perfectly good businesses without having a business bank account. It's still possible to trade exclusively in cash if you want to and you could also just use a personal bank account, though the bank itself will not let you do so if you tell them that's what you are doing almost certainly.

In general though I agree that it's better to keep the business banking separate and all your other advice is great stuff.

To OP - Be wary of referring to your business as a "company" as you did in the opening post. It isn't one (unless you intend to incorporate but at the sort of numbers you will be talking here that would be completely unnecessary and counter productive). I'm not trying to be smart but a company is a completely different legal entity to a sole trade and it will confuse the issue if you start making the terms interchangeable.

[Sweet Pete]

Being self-employed is great. Stay a business and not a company, keep the declared turnover under the £70k mark and keep the invoices for expenses plentiful and enjoy.

[longjohn]

First of all- well done for even thinking about taking the step into self-employment.

Firstly, you need to phone HMRC to declare yourself as self-employed. Just because you do so, doesn't mean that you can't be employed as well.

Secondly- Buy a wallet. Seriously. Use this wallet to keep ONLY cash and receipts from self-employment. Don't dip into it until you take it to the bank.

Thirdly- is you are reasonably young, contact the PSYBT (Prince's Youth Trust). They are fantastic and will give you advice on tax, advertising, running a business etc and can even provide you with some funding (in the form of a loan) or point you towards where you can get grants (Art Council and others). They run workshops and if you're serious about doing it right, then you really should visit your local office. They run workshops at evenings too.

Buy a cabinet. Make sure ALL your bank statements and receipts are kept, P60s/P45 from employment.

Business banking facilities are required. Most banks charge. I operated a successful business via Santander which didn't charge, but they don't offer in-branch support. Their phone service is excellent though.

Music teaching isn't easy and will take a long time to build up your clientele. If teaching piano, you'll really want to have a real piano. You'll also want to contact ABRSM to offer access for your students to exams/grades.

Inform your home insurance provider if working from home.

Get PVG checked (working with children) and consider public indemnity cover (cheap).

All of the above can be covered and talked through via Business Gateway or PSYBT.

Good luck.

Good upsum but worth noting that you can also register with HMRC online.

Receipts - bag them in weekly lots and make notes on the back of them of what they are for as you will forget. Remember that the easier you make it for the accountant to do your books - the less they will charge as they charge by the hour. If accountant has to spend hours messing around trying to figure out what receipts are for, it is eating into your profits.

Money - keep simple notes as you go along, even a spreadsheet or note book to register money in/out on a weekly basis will be a big help. Won't take long if you do it once a week.

Good luck

[chomp my root]

Business banking facilities are required. Most banks charge. I operated a successful business via Santander which didn't charge, but they don't offer in-branch support. Their phone service is excellent though.

I've got a wee sideline and my bank was helpful when we wanted to set up a separate account to keep a track of the money, because we weren't talking vast amounts we just set up an extra current account and the bank didn't treat it as a business account. Its worth trying your bank to see if you can do something similar, obviously if it gets too big they'll want to push you down the business route but certainly to start with if you have all your transactions in one place its easier to keep a track off.

[CooCoothenoo]

RealMaroon. I've been self employed doing music tuition and playing for nine years. Feel free to PM me.

[welshbairn]

First of all- well done for even thinking about taking the step into self-employment.

Firstly, you need to phone HMRC to declare yourself as self-employed. Just because you do so, doesn't mean that you can't be employed as well.

Secondly- Buy a wallet. Seriously. Use this wallet to keep ONLY cash and receipts from self-employment. Don't dip into it until you take it to the bank.

Thirdly- is you are reasonably young, contact the PSYBT (Prince's Youth Trust). They are fantastic and will give you advice on tax, advertising, running a business etc and can even provide you with some funding (in the form of a loan) or point you towards where you can get grants (Art Council and others). They run workshops and if you're serious about doing it right, then you really should visit your local office. They run workshops at evenings too.

Buy a cabinet. Make sure ALL your bank statements and receipts are kept, P60s/P45 from employment.

Business banking facilities are required. Most banks charge. I operated a successful business via Santander which didn't charge, but they don't offer in-branch support. Their phone service is excellent though.

Music teaching isn't easy and will take a long time to build up your clientele. If teaching piano, you'll really want to have a real piano. You'll also want to contact ABRSM to offer access for your students to exams/grades.

Inform your home insurance provider if working from home.

Get PVG checked (working with children) and consider public indemnity cover (cheap).

All of the above can be covered and talked through via Business Gateway or PSYBT.

Good luck.

Bollocks to all that. Do a couple of hours of PAYE work a week at McDonalds or wherever to keep the HMRC happy, and only take cash.

[Nutz_the_Squirrel]

Bollocks to all that. Do a couple of hours of PAYE work a week at McDonalds or wherever to keep the HMRC happy, and only take cash.

[ayrmad]

Just get another personal account solely for your business, the charges associated with business accounts are a nonsense.

Get the highest levels of insurance available for your field.

Get PVG'd.

Get a website that's done properly for search engines not one that looks good.

Learn how to do the ads on Google, Bing etc, eventually you'll probably not need to advertise too much if at all.

Do not charge a pittance for your service, if you're good, charge like you're good and be open about your pricing.

The bolded one is the most important in my mind, why work for £x per hour and appear cheap and poor when you can work for £2x per hour and appear professional.