So who's self employed then?

[Oily Rag]

Well here's my plan of attack if people are interested, I think it's good!

Firstly I'll be making my parts at work, at this point it's only going to be automotive and motorcycle parts so as not to tread on other's shoes - we manufacture components for the aerospace and electrical industries - which I hope will help further down the line. I've sorted out a couple of things to get my name around, I'm having a stand at my local race track during the Scottish Championship bike racing and a friend will be given the task of making a few kentattie.co.uk stickers which will be distibuted among some of the riders I know. I'll still be working FT.

During this time I'll look for some premises of the ideal size and begin to build up a stock of things I'll need, small lathe, Bridgeport mill, cut-off saw, flypress and sort out a lease on a CNC machine/software. When set up my weekends/evening will be spent here instead of at work.

When I get to the point of having a good workload I want to see about going PT so I still have a guaranteed income, the rest of my time will be in my workshop.

Eventually when my work verges on being overwhelming it'll be time to hang up my Zot shoes and put on the KT ones. I'll be aiming to intercept the work we subcontract at work just now and keep a great relationship with the management at work.

Now I bet there will be hundreds of variables that come and upset the process but that's the ideal way I'll progress.

Of course it'd be more ideal if I won the Euromillions tomorrow but hey!

If I won the euromillions tomorrow, I would be on the Riviera on Saturday.:bannana: I am thinking along the same lines myself at the moment, going self-employed, only advice I can give is keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer. All the very best in your venture, my friend, and every bit of luck for the future.

 

[Lugy]

If I won the euromillions tomorrow, I would be on the Riviera on Saturday.:bannana: I am thinking along the same lines myself at the moment, going self-employed, only advice I can give is keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer. All the very best in your venture, my friend, and every bit of luck for the future.

You could say I'm so far up my MD's **** I'm in his mouth

If there's only one person I can leave work on good terms with it's him!

 

[Benzowner]

Well here's my plan of attack if people are interested, I think it's good!

Firstly I'll be making my parts at work,

That is what I did and was given instant dismissal, be careful. You will be using their machinery, probably their materials(?) etc etc Can you afford the no work now senario.

Having said that, that was nearly 20 years ago, one bankrupcy later and a lot of worry, but still here. Good luck in your venture and the best in finding your market. You may consider trading with the protection of a limited company rather than sole trader, there are ways of getting money out of the ltd company and certainly some nice tax dodges. Speak to an accountant and if you ever get to be VAT registered, pay them first

 

[Lugy]

That is what I did and was given instant dismissal, be careful. You will be using their machinery, probably their materials(?) etc etc Can you afford the no work now senario.

Having said that, that was nearly 20 years ago, one bankrupcy later and a lot of worry, but still here. Good luck in your venture and the best in finding your market. You may consider trading with the protection of a limited company rather than sole trader, there are ways of getting money out of the ltd company and certainly some nice tax dodges. Speak to an accountant and if you ever get to be VAT registered, pay them first

I'm going to level it out above board at work, I'm intending on "hiring" the machines over the weekend if need be and sort out materials myself. Basically I'm going to do whatever it takes to make it work!

 

[Deleted member 11979]

I'm sort of self employed in so much as I have a small business employing myself and 2 others. Remember, your needs always come last when you are an employer, if i can only afford to pay 2 people then I lose out! This recession has hit our industry really hard (supply capital equipment to manufacturing industry in UK imported from Europe - a perfect storm given the recession, bank restrictions on lending and the exchange rate) but has allowed me to branch out into northern Europe and the US, all of whom are much buseir than the UK. When times are good it is a fantastic lifestyle, when times are bad you'd wish you'd never done it, although I am still doing ok with no borrowing overdraft etc.

Conversely, a person I know in the same business has been in trouble for years, and has got himself into so much debt that now he can't afford to stop as he will lose everything he (or now more accurately the bank) owns!

My advice would be that if it looks like it's not going to work, pull out quick to avoid a situation where you risk it all!

Good luck!! Microsoft was started in a recession as posters all over the states remind us!

 

[Lugy]

As for employees I'll be the only one for the time being! What I may do is give my current apprentice a Saturday shift if I need the help.

I will be learning from a company that has just gone bankrupt, he was a one man band and bit off way more than he could chew.

 

[wemorgan]

Well here's my plan of attack if people are interested, I think it's good!

Firstly I'll be making my parts at work, at this point it's only going to be automotive and motorcycle parts so as not to tread on other's shoes - we manufacture components for the aerospace and electrical industries - which I hope will help further down the line. I've sorted out a couple of things to get my name around, I'm having a stand at my local race track during the Scottish Championship bike racing and a friend will be given the task of making a few kentattie.co.uk stickers which will be distibuted among some of the riders I know. I'll still be working FT.

Will you be making parts to existing designs? If so, are there patents on those designs?

If you're designing your own parts have you thought of design optimisation tools? Possibly more suited to high volume production, but it would help keep your costs down by minimising material costs and offer a unique selling point to your customers.

 

[GordyB]

I've been self employed twice before - one success and one failure. Both through ltd companies with accountants sorting everything out. Now 10 yrs later I'm about to start self emp again - no accountant or ltd company!! Anyone know of good websites which tell you about being self employed and working from home so that I can see what you can and can't claim, what I have to do etc. etc..

Thanks

 

[wemorgan]

I've been self employed twice before - one success and one failure. Both through ltd companies with accountants sorting everything out. Now 10 yrs later I'm about to start self emp again - no accountant or ltd company!! Anyone know of good websites which tell you about being self employed and working from home so that I can see what you can and can't claim, what I have to do etc. etc..

Thanks

My accountant has lots of free info:
SJD Accountancy - Accountants for Contractors, Freelancers, Consultants and Small Businesses

 

[Lugy]

Will you be making parts to existing designs? If so, are there patents on those designs?

If you're designing your own parts have you thought of design optimisation tools? Possibly more suited to high volume production, but it would help keep your costs down by minimising material costs and offer a unique selling point to your customers.

The parts will be made to customer drawings/specification and my own parts will be designed on the good old A3 drawing board (or AutoCad ). Neither will be large volumes.

 

[manalishi]

OMG Barry...lose the photo.

But that's my equivalent of Dorian Grey. In real-life I'm 21, impossibly handsome and have just the right amount of hair.


Lugy - like some of the others, I'd be wary of doing the work at your current employer. Can you start building a business on a nod+wink with the MD? What if the relationship sours (e.g. his machine breaks while working on your stuff)?

My gut feel is that if the business only makes sense (i.e. sufficient money) with that sort of casual/beneficial arrangement, it's unlikely to work in the future when you have to pay for rent and the purchase and maintenance of the machines yourself. My own engineering supplier tells me of the scarey bills he gets for some of his machines - another potential cashflow killer.

But if you've got real-world numbers figured out and planned for this stuff, then it might be feasible.

 

[renault12ts]

But that's my equivalent of Dorian Grey. In real-life I'm 21, impossibly handsome and have just the right amount of hair.

Me too

 

[lxi]

Got any more info on this?
Mrs Esox is SE and some of the companies she works for seem to have trouble in recognising what an invoice is........

read this Late payment legislation and the BPPG Interest calculator.
good advice - amazing how interest crystalises the mind of the debtor

 

[Lugy]

But that's my equivalent of Dorian Grey. In real-life I'm 21, impossibly handsome and have just the right amount of hair.


Lugy - like some of the others, I'd be wary of doing the work at your current employer. Can you start building a business on a nod+wink with the MD? What if the relationship sours (e.g. his machine breaks while working on your stuff)?

My gut feel is that if the business only makes sense (i.e. sufficient money) with that sort of casual/beneficial arrangement, it's unlikely to work in the future when you have to pay for rent and the purchase and maintenance of the machines yourself. My own engineering supplier tells me of the scarey bills he gets for some of his machines - another potential cashflow killer.

But if you've got real-world numbers figured out and planned for this stuff, then it might be feasible.

My plan for this is to have a leased machine with service cover. I've seen some of the bills we have had for our machines, someone somewhere thought it'd be a good idea to save a few pounds a year .

Maybe I should miss out the working on the machines at work stage and start getting my own stuff and work on that in my spare time instead.

 

[Satch]

I am now sort of self employed in the sense that I work 3 days per week in a Temple of Mammon and remainder doing Freelance stuff.

What did I learn from the days when I was full time SE in a partnership?

Cash is King. Manage the cashflow properly, especially when building up the business and expanding. It is all too easy to let day to day business push this into the background and be lured into spending on "investment" and "ooh shiney!" items.

Then, one day, when things seem otherwise to be OK, somebody fails to pay or you have to stump up for unexpected costs (particularly that tax/NIC liabilty not fully provided for) and you are in what can easily turn out to be a long, slow but entirely non-recoverable death spiral in terms of available cash.

At which point you will discover, if you have not done so already, that

1. Banks are not your friends. Never have been, never will be. Might not pull the plug but not help that much either.

2. Credit card companies are very useful for sales but can be a curse in terms of laying recharges on you after months of silence. If you get pushed and put expenditure on cards and cannot pay it off in full promptly, you will soon find that Goldman Sachs is not the original Vampire Squid Wrapped Around the Face of Humanity: that distinction already belongs to Credit Card companies

3. HMRC is a dull evil at work that will extract the required cash or otherwise grind your bones to dust. As a "Customer" you will soon find they seem to be staffed mostly by lazy, miserable and otherwise unemployable half wits in a far distant call centre who are all too often baffled by the vast complexity of the system they have to operate. Operate on the basis that nothing is right first time and distrust any and all oral assurances given.

Otherwise, be realistic, ask yourself those hard questions and do not give yourself delusional answers! And be mean: very mean!

 

[PXW]

I've been self employed twice before - one success and one failure. Both through ltd companies with accountants sorting everything out. Now 10 yrs later I'm about to start self emp again - no accountant or ltd company!! Anyone know of good websites which tell you about being self employed and working from home so that I can see what you can and can't claim, what I have to do etc. etc..

Thanks

try www.businesslink.gov.uk

Loads of stuff on there - it's the government portal for all things business, large or small. At the margins you or your advisers may or may not agree with everything on there, but doing what the site suggests is pretty safe.

 

[camerafodder]

Thinking like this is probably the biggest mistake people make. What you're missing is that your company had to find that job (probably spending hours unsuccessfully tendering for similar jobs), cover the rent/rates/electric/etc on their office. Pay your NI, sick pay, holiday pay. Pay VAT, legal fees, all of Gordon's stealth taxes etc..etc..
What I'm saying is that you have to remember to cover all your overheads with each job you do. Keep your overheads as low as possible to start with and don't try to just undercut the competition.

Spot on

 

[camerafodder]

Nowadays, I've downshifted and gone blue-collar B2C, running www.ampmaker.com

Oohh ooohhh oohh that's an interesting website, I may be in touch soon :bannana:

 

[manalishi]

read this Late payment legislation and the BPPG Interest calculator.
good advice - amazing how interest crystalises the mind of the debtor

I'm sure this is quite true - in some cases (especially one-off jobs). But if you're S/E with a small number of regular clients, it takes cojones of steel to pester them for the (supposedly) statutory interest. IME, most S/E folks only hassle for the invoice value, and the late payment blurb on the invoice is there simply for show.

Lugy - are your typical clients going to be individuals or companies? There's no need to offer credit to the Joe Public, but credit for business customers is one of those things you may have to get your head around.

 

[fuzzer]

read this Late payment legislation and the BPPG Interest calculator.
good advice - amazing how interest crystalises the mind of the debtor

The only debtor invoices that this actually works with are for government contracts and normally it just spurs them into paying rather than getting the interest from them.