Worry less and live more

Bookkeeping is the process of recording and categorizing your business income and expenditure.

By using professional you rely on the firm’s team and expertise, reducing the chances of errors occurring.

Investing in accountancy software such as Sage, QuickBooks or Xero can be useful if you have had the right training. However, accounting software can be expensive but when employing a firm this will be a burden off of your shoulders as they will have the required software.

Being self-employed means working for yourself. You invoice your clients and they pay you directly. You must account for your own national insurance and tax and submit a tax return every year.

A limited company is a separate legal entity which is run and controlled by the director(s). The director is given the responsibility of carrying out the day-to-day transactions of the company and accounting for what takes place.

When you are actively seeking work other than employment, you must register as self-employed. By not doing so in time, HMRC can fine you for late registration.

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When filing paper returns the deadline is the 31st October and when filing returns online the deadline is the 31 January.

Corporation tax is a tax which is payable by limited companies on their profits. For businesses making a profit of £300,000 or less, the current rate of tax is 20%.

Companies generally need to pay their corporation tax nine months after the company’s year ends.

You will need to register for VAT if you are in business and in the last 12 months, you have taken in £85,000 worth of income or expect to reach that amount within the next 30 days

You must register as a contractor with the Construction Industry Scheme (CIS) if:

• you pay subcontractors to do construction work
• your business does not do construction work but you usually spend more than £1 million a year on construction

You may be a sole trader, in a partnership or own a limited company.

The Construction Industry Scheme (CIS) sets out the rules for how payments to subcontractors for work in the construction industry must be handled.

Check out HMRC’s guide to see if it applies to you – http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/cis/intro/decide-if-cis.htm

CIS Record Keeping

You must keep a record of all the amounts offset against your monthly or quarterly liabilities.

Either use HMRC’s CIS132 form – http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/cisrmanual/pdfs/cis132.pdf or keep your own records.

Sign up for CIS

To sign up for the Construction Industry Scheme, please login into HMRC online service to register – https://online.hmrc.gov.uk/login