Its a scary and exciting time when you have decided to set up your own business. I remember back to when we took the leap of faith from being "employed" to running our own business.
What do we need to do ? how do we get started ? how do we get customers to buy our products. Our products at the time were us, our knowledge and experience.
so here are my top 3 tips to help you on your way to creating your own successful company
1. Type of business
First you need to decide if your going to be a sole trader, limited company or partnership.
All have pluses and minuses and depends what kind of business your setting up the level of risk and reward you want to take and size of turnover. Companies on the internet can help set up a limited company for a fee this gives your the registration and documentation at companies use, remember you'll need to submit yearly accounts to companies house and pay corporation tax (a percentage of profit your company makes) sole trader and partnership need less detail accounts and a preferred option for a lot of small business.
as an example
http://www.companiesmadesimple.com
2.PAYE
Pay as you earn, you'll need to down load from the HMRC https://www.gov.uk/paye-for-employers/paye-and-payroll will help you down load the software you'll need to set up employee (remember even if your the director your still an employee)
3.Keeping records
Good house keeping in regard to paperwork is key, get yourself a small filling cabinet even a second hand one will do. Separate your paper work into various files to allow you to quickly retrieve information and date. I find the best thing for me is to also have clearly marked folder that have as an example:
a. receipts
b. Invoices
c. expenses
use a system that captures your spending, revenue and expenses there is loads of software out there that makes tracking and completing Vat returns and year end balance sheets virtually automated. I use a system call VT cash book http://www.vtsoftware.co.uk/cashbook/ its free and allows me to send a small file to my accountant who completes the submissions for the company. save money as well due to the accountant needing to do little with your data. Don't leave inputting too long try to be deciplined in inputting on a regular basis.
I hope that help give you a little start on your way to creating your own enterprise and successful business, i know these were the areas I had to spend a bit of time understanding and searching for . As an example try to attend the courses run by HMRC that help new directors and business owners comply to the regulation and know what "your" responsibilities are.
I plan to produce more blogs that may help other SME on their journey and if you got this far hope you benefited from spending time reading the blog and will enjoy the others that i plan to produce
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