Over the last 30 days I have been taking part in the Ultimate Blog Challenge, where the challenge is to make an average of 1 post per day over the course of the month. As far as I can tell I completed the challenge and learnt a lot of new tips along the way about blogging.

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Below are 5 of the most popular posts from the last 30 days:

• You Are What You Tweet
• How Much Money Do I Need to Start My Own Business?
• 5 People You Should Be Following on Twitter
• 7 Tips to Balance Your Personal and Professional Life
• 5 Social Media Pet Peeves

Thank you to everyone who has viewed/commented on my blogs over the last 30 days. I hope that you continue to come back and read the blog (hint: subscribe to the RSS feed )

Over the past few months I have made a lot of blog posts giving tips and advice for small businesses. Below are the 3 posts (in no particular order) which have received the most comments. Have a read through them and let me know what you think.

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• 3 Reasons you shouldn’t put off filing your tax return – Quite a topical one considering the UK Tax Year has just ended
• How much money do I need to start my own business? – Always the most visited post throughout the week
• 5 Social Media Pet Peeves – This is a recent post, but seems to have got people talking

If you’ve read a post on the blog recently that you have liked, please let me know by way of a comment/retweet. Based on the comments/tweets I will be able to tailor more posts to suit your interested

 

Once you have registered with HMRC as self-employed you are free to run your business, but at some point you will ask your self ‘What Records Should I Keep?’

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It is important that you keep your business’ records accurate and up to date from the very first day you commence trading. Not only is it easier for you/your bookkeeper to compile your year-end accounts/tax return, but it means you can instantly see how your business is performing.

You must keep records of all your sales and takings, along with all your purchases and expenses. In the eyes of HMRC the transaction never happened if you cannot produce the proof. These documents include:

• Sales invoices
• Receipts
• Mileage records
• Bank statements
• Capital expenditure – high value items such as computers, vehicles etc…

It’s also a good idea to set up a cash-book for your business to enable you to track your turnover and expenses. These are fairly simple to set up (depending on the business), if you would like any help please contact me.

Image: renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

You must keep these records for a minimum of 6 years. If storage space is a problem you are allowed to store all these documents electronically provided that you capture all the information on the document. It’s also a good idea to make a back-up and store it away from your premises in case of fire or theft.

If you are still unsure about what records to keep speak to your bookkeeper or accountant who will be able to advise you, or post a comment below…

You’ve got the idea, you’ve got the skills and most importantly you’ve got the motivation to become self-employed. But do you know how to register as self-employed with HMRC?

Thankfully it is not as difficult as you may think – you can either fill in one form which can be found here – Form CWF1 , or you can fill in the same form online at the HMRC Website. Both are very easy to do and I recommend using the online version as there is always the chance that the paper form could go missing in the postal system.

It’s as simple as that!

If you are considering outsourcing your book-keeping/accounting to a 3rd party (Why Should I Outsource?) it will be beneficial if you send form 64-8 to HMRC once you have chosen who you would like to act upon your behalf. The form authorises HMRC to communicate with an accountant, tax agent or adviser acting on your behalf.

2 simple forms and you’re all set for self employment.

Source: Simply Business

There is no doubt about it, if you work for yourself your relationships will suffer to some extent. Quite often to reach your goals, in the early stages, you will work twice as many hours for half as much pay as you would in a ‘normal’ job. A lot of your time will be devoted to getting your business up and running and making a healthy profit. This may upset your nearest and dearest as you are not paying them as much attention as they would like you to. Here are some tips to help keep your family relations under control:

• Explain why you are working so many hours and how the family will benefit from it.
• Try to involve your family in the business (if possible). Is there something that needs doing that someone else could easily do e.g going to the post box to send out invoices etc… You don’t have to do it all yourself.
• Arrange times when you will devote the full day to the family and not go near the office.
• If you win a new contract/client or make a big sale, celebrate and take the family out for a meal. They will feel like part of your success.
• If you are mega busy explain that the work you are doing is going to earn you a lot of money which could be used to go away for a family holiday/break. If you run a Ltd company make sure you withdraw the money in the correct way.
• Ask if your family are able to offer any ideas about how you can work smarter. Quite often someone from the outside will notice something that can be improved very quickly.

The early stages of any business are always tough, but with the help and support from those around you it can become a lot less stressful.

Have you started a new business venture lately? If so how do you manage to keep the peace in your house?

If you are in full-time employment and are thinking about becoming self-employed to earn an extra income one of the main niggles at the back of your mind will be ‘How will my employer take it?’ You might be surprised to know that the vast majority of employers do not mind as long as there isn’t a conflict of interest. Here are some tips about how to tackle the issue.

• Be open and honest with your boss from the start about what you are doing.
• Explain why you are thinking about becoming self-employed (don’t say that you aren’t paid enough!).
• List the benefits that your self-employment will bring to your employer – better organisation, better interpersonal skills, better use of IT etc… and that it is a win/win situation for you both.
• Make it clear that your self-employment will not interfere with your main job.
• Go through your vision for the business and how you intend to develop it – your boss may even be able to give some good advice.
• If your boss doesn’t have a problem with you being self-employed, arrange quarterly meetings with them to give an update about how things are progressing.

If the worst happens and your employer is not happy about you becoming self-employed, stay calm and ask for another meeting in a week when you can bring documentation and evidence that what you intend to do will increase your worth to your employer.

Having a great idea is worth nothing unless you put it into practice.

A short while ago I wrote a review about The Small Business Guide to Apps which is an e-book available from Brightword Publishing. Shortly after they asked me if I would like to read and review another one of their books; Turn Your Talent into a Business by Emma Jones, which I was more than happy to do….

I didn’t really know what to expect with this book; I’ve read other books by Emma Jones and found them very helpful and to-the-point. What I was not expecting was a 260 page book to land on the doormat (it is also available as an e-book). The book has 10 chapters which walk you through all aspects of earning a living from your hobby:

1. Making the move from hobby to business
2. I’m Off
3. The must-dos
4. Create the perfect work environment & top tech tips
5. Starting on a budget and basic financial planning
6. Selling
7. Make some noise!
8. Putting on a professional face
9. Happy customers and a balanced business – a recipe for success
10. Grow the business without outgrowing home

As you would expect some topics are covered in a lot more detail that others, but all of that detail is relevant. The book includes a lot of case studies on people who have turned their hobby into a successful business, whilst these are all craft-type hobbies (the book has been written in partnership with Country Living Magazine) the content can be applied to almost every business. Each case study will give you valuable tips about how to start out in business from people who have been there and done it.

Sometimes business books can be hard to read, but this one is very easy and you’ll be surprised at how quickly you can read through it. If you are thinking of starting your own business this book will be a very enjoyable read for you. All the information you need to be able to start on your own is included within the 260 pages, along with some fantastic advice about how to conduct your business affairs and what to do if you need any help.

Whilst it is more geared towards craft hobbies the content does not focus too strongly on crafts, which makes the book ideal for anyone. There is a lot of content about how to sell your product/service and promote your business to let people know that you exist, which is vital for small businesses – chapters 6 and 7 make up nearly half of the book.

The book costs £12.99 (£9.74 at the time of writing this) and the e-book is available for £5.00 (£4.25 at the time of writing this) and both represent excellent value for money. If you don’t mind not having a real book to flick through the e-book is a bargain.

Whilst this book gives you all the information and knowledge to successfully make the leap from hobby to business, it won’t make profits for you. You will still have to do the hard work and make your business a success. Fortunately there is a lot of help on hand for start-ups at the moment, meaning it has never been easier to turn your talent into a business.

What are you waiting for?

 

I’ve just been reading this article on the Small Business Trends website, which gives 5 easy ways to stay on top of your accounting if you are running a small business. If you don’t want to read the full article, I have summarised each point below:

1. Make Friends with Technology
2. Call In Reinforcements (contact me if you would like help)
3. Visual Reminders to Open Your Eyes
4. Make Falling Off the Wagon Hurt
5. Be Publicly Accountable

The full article can be read here and is very useful for those of us running a small business.

If you manufacture something from scratch this will be a vital piece of information for your business, but sometimes businesses don’t have a clue what a cost price is! In simple terms a cost price is the price it costs you to make your product. Sales may be going up and up, but if your cost price is high and also rising you may not actually be making much profit.

How can you work out a cost price? Let’s say that you make cakes: the cost price is the total cost of:

• Ingredients/Raw Materials (milk, eggs, flour, sugar etc…)
• Cost of baking the cake (electricity/gas for the oven)
• Packaging costs
• Your time – eaisly the most overlooked

All these things combine to give you the cost price of your cake. Don’t forget though that you need to apportion the ingredients accordingly. If you buy a 2kg bag of flour, only a fraction of that will go into the cake, the same for the other ingredients. If 2kg of flour costs you £5.00 but you only use 500g of flour in the cake, the cost price for the flour in the cake is £1.25 (£5/4).

The cost of the electricity/gas can be hard to work out, but if you are able to bake more than 1 cake at a time the costs will come down per cake.

Your time is easily the most overlooked aspect of a cost price. Work out how much you think that your time is work per hour, then work the cost out from how long are you physically working to make the cake. This includes making the mixture, decorating and packaging it.

Once you have calculated your cost price, you can then start to arrive at a selling price to enable to you make a profit for your product. But remember to reguarly re-evaluate your cost price as raw material prices increase and decrease regularly. When this happens you will need to make the decision to either absorb these costs yourself or pass them on to your customers.