Forming company & business bank before choosing an accountant?

[eek]

It doesn't to me. It sounds like you are doing on the cheap rather than starting off properly with full advice and guidance.

+1 and I've just moved to 1st online - however that is because they are cheap, work the way I want to and I explicitly don't need tax advice...

[MrBrown]

Thanks All, stopped me just in time..

Irt advice. Problem I have is that I've been receiving conflicting advice. Some say, register for vat add the Mrs as a shareholder, others say don't bother with all that.

I guess your right though.. a mistake at this stage could end up very costly.. so best to pay more for the whole service..

Time to make a few more calls..

[SueEllen]

If you want to give your wife shares as she doesn't work and isn't likely to in future then give her a minor shareholding now. In short you want to be the major shareholder in case of problems later.

My company shares are valued at a 1p each and I have 100 of them.

Other people have them set up as £1 each and they have either 10 or 100 of them.

I personally would get a free agent account as stated here and get them to do everything for you.

Paying £100 a month may seem a lot but in your first year you need to learn a lot and if you are working at client(s) full time, you need someone who can explain things to you or provides links to info you can read on the bus, train, in the toilet etc.

[MrBrown]

Thanks Sue. Spoke to another FA accountant this evening, their advice was to give my wife shares at the start, otherwise HMRC may see it as tax avoidance if done at a later stage. They mentioned splitting shares down the middle starting with 1000 shares (500 each). I assume, these are just arbitrary numbers to measure percentage as opposed to holding any real value in reality.

[northernladuk]

IMO get a specialist like QDOS, Baur and Cottrell or other specialists to do your insurance and IR35 checks. They might have done deals the specialists so could be wrong but I'm just not 100% au fait with the accountants organising my business stuff. Maybe a personal thing and there is nothing wrong with it.

[MrBrown]

IMO get a specialist like QDOS, Baur and Cottrell or other specialists to do your insurance and IR35 checks. They might have done deals the specialists so could be wrong but I'm just not 100% au fait with the accountants organising my business stuff. Maybe a personal thing and there is nothing wrong with it.

Thanks NLUK. They use Baur and Cotrell for IR35 checks.

Insurance wise, the role is pretty low risk (i.e. working mostly from home), so is all of Professional Indemnity insurance, Employers’ Liability insurance, Public Liability insurancereally needed?

[northernladuk]

Thanks NLUK. They use Baur and Cotrell for IR35 checks.. not sure who they use for insurance. But good point, will look at getting quotes for these individually and redoing the maths.

Insurance wise, the role is pretty low risk (i.e. working mostly from home), so is all of Professional Indemnity insurance (£1million), Employers’ Liability insurance (£10million), Public Liability insurance (£1million) really needed?

Ah that's OK then. You probably need PI and Pl as a contractual requirement. Just get it and forget it.

[BigRed]

Insurance wise, the role is pretty low risk (i.e. working mostly from home), so is all of Professional Indemnity insurance (£1million), Employers’ Liability insurance (£10million), Public Liability insurance (£1million) really needed?

Several of my contracts have specified a level of cover. None have actually checked it is in place. Depends on exactly what you do and where you do it, but it's highly unlikely you will need it which is probably why it's very cheap.

[SueEllen]

Thanks NLUK. They use Baur and Cotrell for IR35 checks.. not sure who they use for insurance. But good point, will look at getting quotes for these individually and redoing the maths.

Insurance wise, the role is pretty low risk (i.e. working mostly from home), so is all of Professional Indemnity insurance (£1million), Employers’ Liability insurance (£10million), Public Liability insurance (£1million) really needed?

90% of my agencies and clients check I have insurance in place so get it. The price of the insurance will show how low risk you are. QDOS tend to do cheap professional indemnity while Direct Line apparently do cheap public liability. If you need things like business mobiles and laptops insured outside the home then you may want to get a bundle so another provider will be cheaper.

Also you don't want to do a straight 50-50 share split with your wife. The reason is you want to be the controlling director of the company, plus some agencies are now incorrectly interpreting various finance acts meaning they will not give contracts to contractors who aren't the controlling shareholder of their company. Instead of having to fight it if you are already the controlling director due to having a larger shareholding you can just ignore their incorrect interpretation.

[Fred Bloggs]

+1 and I've just moved to 1st online - however that is because they are cheap, work the way I want to and I explicitly don't need tax advice...

Exactly, they were just perfect for what I wanted. Can't fault them on that.