Advice of becoming a self employed mobile worker

[Wallis.massage]

Hi,

Everyone seems very knowledgeable on here so hope you can help. I am a massage therapist and will be training to do male waxing. I want to register as self employed and do it properly but have some questions.

1) My rented property doesn't allow you to run a business from it, can you still use the address for registering as self employed for mobile work?

2) Following on from the last question, if mobile, would it be OK to do the occasional treatment from my home if the client prefers?

3) Does anyone have tips for becoming self employed such as record keeping??

 

[sweet cheeks]

i know there are a lot of people on here who recommend it bu business link are always brilliant when you have any questins regarding business you can either search on the website or give your local area a ring if they can not answer your questions straight away they ring youback with what they find out. i cant thank them enough they really been helping me out lately with understanding everything hope this helps xx

 

[Melonie Brown]

I run my own mobile business. You can register your mobile business at your home address, but if you are not permitted to run a business from home you cannot carry out any treatments in your own home. As with record keeping WHS or Staples do a great accounts book called, 'The best small business account book', (the yellow book) it is very simple to kep a log of all your accounts as you go along, make sure to keep ALL your reciepts, and it's a good idea to open a business account seperate from your pesonal account.

Hope this helps?

 

[SparkleJeanie]

make sure to keep ALL your reciepts, and it's a good idea to open a business account seperate from your pesonal account.

It doesn't need to be a proper business account as you will get business charges, i have been self-employed for many years ( as a bookkeeper, with a qualified accountant for a husband) and had a seperate current account for all my business transactions, it makes your bookkeeping alot easier, and if any problems occur with hm revenue then they will only look in that account first. Any direct debits linked to your work can come from this account and things like mobile phone too. So unless you require any special services with the bank a regular account should suite you fine. I have never in all my time being self employed had any problems when asking clients to make cheque payable to myself rather than my business name.
HTH

 

[steve@nouvatan]

Small thing, please register with NI within the first three months or you can be fined £100!! If your not earning in that period just let them know when you register

 

[Silver Fern]

I too am in rented accommodation and in theory they can evict you immediately if they find out you've had any clients at home if the tenancy agreement tells you not to run a business from home. It is absolutely okay to register the address for business purposes though.
I second the opinion about not needing a business account - but a separate acount makes things so much easier.
The inland revenue do some brilliant (free) courses about self-assessment which make things really easy. Register to file your accounts online - again, very easy. It is quite scary at first - business link went through my first self assessment with me and identified things I didn't know about so do this too before you file your accounts.
I find it helps to keep a notepad in the car and for each day I write down the appts as they happen, any purchases I make and any tips I receive - it means I'm not scratching my brain later on!
Hope this helps!