Self Employed Contractor

[Dan1983]

Hi All,
Looking for some advice regarding self employed, contracting and wage slips...

I have been contracting for around 2 years but always done this via an umbrella service. I am now earning more and it seems sensible to now set up a Ltd company. My umbrella company have a managed service but that is £130 per month. This deals with everything from preparation of accounts, HMRC returns and even advice slips on how much to take as a salary each week.

I am sure that i can take a less expensive service from them if i can work out how much i can take as a salary per week and how much i should put aside for HMRC and NI. I have been looking on line for a while but i do not seem to be able to find anything (i may not be searching for the correct thing).

Is there anyone out there that i could send some figures to to give me a rough idea of take home wage / dividends and how much i need to set aside for other costs.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Dan

[Eric Mc]

The answer to your queries is "a good accountant".

[MickC]

Eric Mc said:

The answer to your queries is "a good accountant".

Which will probably cost more than 130 per month...

[anonymous-user]

A good accountant will do more than just manage your affairs. My accountant has saved me many times more over the years than he has cost me.

[Eric Mc]

MickC said:

Eric Mc said:

The answer to your queries is "a good accountant".

Which will probably cost more than 130 per month...

Not necessarilly.

[wizzbilly]

Was in exactly same situation myself .

As said before a good accountant will become your best mate , i pay £900quid a year and if am honest i get lot more back than that .

bugger them of who your with now and find a good accountant .

[New POD]

doogz said:

MickC said:

Eric Mc said:

The answer to your queries is "a good accountant".

Which will probably cost more than 130 per month...

I'm £1500/year, roughly, with a local accountant. I was paying more with the previous lot i was using, that sounded a lot like "Cooks son", and were utterly frigging hopeless, and actually managed to cost me rather a lot of money over the 2 years i was with them.

The biggest advantage for me though, is that my current guy actually seems to care, and if there's ever anything you want to know the answer to, you can pick up the phone and call him, or fire him an e-mail, and he'll get back to you.

With the previous company I used, if you called them up, you'd get a phone monkey, not an accountant, who wouldn't have a clue, and would tell you something like "I'll get someone to call you back" which very rarely actually happened.

Of all the contractors I know, (quite a few) every one of them uses a local accountant, or is in the process of leaving one of these umbrella/agency companies to move to one. It's a much better arrangement.

£450 to £600 is the typical cost I've surveyed amongst Ltd Company Contractors working at Rolls Royce. I have asked 10, all happy with their accountant's advice, when I was changing mine, because he was fairly Bad.

Typically most are on a Flat Rate VAT scheme, which brings in extra money if your business costs don't incur much VAT.

So £35 to form a company through Companies made simple.
Free accounts for first year with on line banking.
Register Company for VAT and as an Employer.
Register Yourself for self assessment.

Accountant charges for doing payroll submission approx £100 (although you could do it yourself)
I do my own Vat submission once every 3 months
Then Companies house charges you £15 a year to tell them your business details haven't changed
and Finally
Accountant takes my records about November and does Corporation Tax Submission, with Profit and Loss etc and I pay the Corp tax and decide how much of the profit to take in dividend, (which is why you have to register for self assessment)
Finally Pay the accountant £500 ish for his work.


The Umbrella company is making money for old rope in my humble opinion.

I offered to put a friend on the books for up to 10 months, on PAYE and worked out I would make £1800 for doing next to nothing except taking the small percentage difference on the flat rate scheme.

Unfortunately (for me) he was also offered a permanent position and decided to take that instead, because he didn't like the uncertainty.

[Eric Mc]

Couldn't have put it better myself.

[New POD]

Eric Mc said:

Couldn't have put it better myself.

I copied and pasted much of that from 2 emails from 2 contractors I had worked with, when I was starting out 3 years ago.