Self employment
Are you self-employed and profitable? Did you know that you can often save tax by trading as a limited company and taking share dividends instead of directly paying yourself? Talk to Discountants about optimising your income.
We find that the self-employed are the most cost conscious of our clients and we hope the Discountants emphasis on good value fees is a big attraction. We guarantee never to be undercut or underquoted by other professional accountants and, true to our name, we offer good introductory discounts for new clients.
Newly self employed
The important things are...
- You need to register as self employed with the tax authority (HMRC). This is easy, come and see us.
- Keep a simple record of your outgoings and income. Paper records are just fine but this is where a spreadsheet on your computer will really help. Keep it as simple as possible with just the date, amount, who and what - for both outgoings and income. Talk to us about it so we can make sure it works for claiming tax as well as keeping your books.
- Keep all your receipts and sales invoices. You can't claim without receipts so they are really bank notes in disguise - losing them will cause losses - real money losses!
- Do your bookkeeping as often as possible. It's hardly fun, so you don't need us to tell you to discipline yourself! Do it at least once a month, preferably more often than that (maybe when your bank statement arrives?) If you leave it longer, you start to forget stuff and this WILL cause you to lose money in missed tax claims.
- Set up a business bank account and don't mix up business and personal expenses, it will only take longer to sort it all out which will cost you in fees from your accountant and he won't enjoy it either!
- Set a third of your income aside for tax and 'contingency' payments, even if it is so painful it turns out to be beneficial for your waistline! Many ventures fail because the money runs out just as they are starting to turn a profit.
- The purpose of an accountant is to make sure your records are submitted to HMRC correctly and to minimise your tax burden by making sure you claim as much as you legitimately can (but not more!). We would hope that the tax saving would be greater than the fees plus the effort you would otherwise have to put in yourself. This is why your relationship with Discountants should work for both you and us.
- Tax Returns are due on 31st Jan every year and there are late penalties. Getting your tax return before Christmas will also give you the benefit of knowing how much you will have to pay. January is a hectic month at all accountancy practices so, like a lot of living a successful life, its all about timing...
- Tax is only collected twice a year for self employed, at the end of July and January. When you start they don't know what to charge you so they don't. You get a nice long period without a tax bill. Of course, what happens then is you get a huge tax bill to make up for it! This is made worse because normally self employed people pay tax six months in advance so this bill can be a real shocker. Talk to us about the timing of it and what to expect. In the meantime, keep setting aside that third of your income and don't spend it (unless its on a plane ticket to South America! ;-)
- Enjoy what your doing. Your freedom usually comes at the cost of hard work and long hours so if it isn't fun why bother? Actually, most self employed people are not vastly wealthier than their employed counterparts.
Accountancy services for the self-employed.
In most cases, the preparation of self employed accounts and tax return is usually quite straightforward for us and fees at Discountants will be correspondingly modest. Costs for agency workers, part timers and temps will usually be very small, often under £100. However, successful full-timers and players with a 'finger in every pie' will benefit from the Discountants full accountancy service as offered to our clients with partnerships and limited companies.
For your self-employment
- year end accounts
- VAT
- PAYE
- nominal and other ledger work
- routine book keeping at your premises or ours
- cash flow analysis and forecasting
- stock
- capital items
- work-in-progress
- financial planning, business plans, project accounting and growth modelling
- software consultancy, implementation and bespoke systems.
- statutory registers and filing
- web design and search engine optimisation
For you...
- cars and other benefits
- personal assets
- mortgages and pensions (through our affiliated Independent Financial Advisor)
- property and other investment portfolios
