General Contractor help.

[gareth01422]

Hi all

I am sort of new to the forum as I haven't been contracting for a long time. So I've started a fresh with a six month contract in Chester. Loving the work, great guys I am working with. I have also been using the services of Paystream on the PAYE system (which is ok for now). This afternoons task was to contact companies house and seek advice on becoming a limited company. They were really helpful and pointed me in the right direction. After about half an hour reading I decided to get the ball rolling and filled out the forms online with a companies made simple and away we go. The site states 3/4 days for setup, which is quite good as I don't want to rush into this.

My first question is:

1.If I manage to secure a contract that is to far to travel, and decide to stay at a hotel in the week. Do I pay for this out of the money in the company account? and how is this as an expense claimed back?

2. As a design engineer, I need a laptop and the CAD software called Solidworks to do my job. Most companies who I work for supply you with the tools to do the job. But If i managed to buy a laptop and the software (I think its about £5000). Will I be able to get a grant or some sort of business loan? also if this is an expense how will I claim for it? and roughly how much will I get back?

So If these questions have been answered many times before but Ive read a few threads on here and didn't find the answers.

Gareth

[Zippy]

Welcome back Gareth

It being Friday night and all, I hope you take the replies you are about to receive in the spirit in which they are intended.
You'll probably get some sensible replies tomoorrow.

[gareth01422]

Welcome back Gareth

It being Friday night and all, I hope you take the replies you are about to receive in the spirit in which they are intended.
You'll probably get some sensible replies tomoorrow.

oh yes, I agree it is a bit of a silly time to post a thread (I should be at the local).

Thanks Zippy

[AtW]

Thanks. Zippy

You are Zippy?!?!

Even fembots now have sockies!

[OwlHoot]

Hi all

I am sort of new to the forum as I haven't been contracting for a long time. So I've started a fresh with a six month contract in Chester. Loving the work, great guys I am working with. I have also been using the services of Paystream on the PAYE system (which is ok for now). This afternoons task was to contact companies house and seek advice on becoming a limited company. They were really helpful and pointed me in the right direction. After about half an hour reading I decided to get the ball rolling and filled out the forms online with a companies made simple and away we go. The site states 3/4 days for setup, which is quite good as I don't want to rush into this.

My first question is:

1.If I manage to secure a contract that is to far to travel, and decide to stay at a hotel in the week. Do I pay for this out of the money in the company account? and how is this as an expense claimed back?

2. As a design engineer, I need a laptop and the CAD software called Solidworks to do my job. Most companies who I work for supply you with the tools to do the job. But If i managed to buy a laptop and the software (I think its about £5000). Will I be able to get a grant or some sort of business loan? also if this is an expense how will I claim for it? and roughly how much will I get back?

So If these questions have been answered many times before but Ive read a few threads on here and didn't find the answers.

Gareth

Just get a decent accountant, such as Bruce Allen and stop stressing.

Of course you can claim for laptops and software, and mileage, and hotels.

In fact, claim for everything. Only "little people" and mugs pay taxes, and that's as it should be. Take no notice of losers and sanctimonious lefties who claim othewise.

HTH

[Clippy]

Welcome.

Can't sleep so will give you some quick advice.

1) Email or PM the Administrator and ask him to kindly move this thread to a more appropriate section where you will get more constructive/relevant answers
2) Most of what you have asked has been covered before - check the Welcome/FAQs section for answers/guides
3) If no luck with 2) search the site instead - the search feature on the site is not the best so use Google instead - details of how to do this are in a sticky in the Welcome/FAQs section of the site

Good luck.

[MarillionFan]

You can claim for both. If you are vat registered you will automatically save that. So for example let's say you earn £1000 per week and you're Vat registered. You invoice £1000 per week plus £175 vat. A total of £1175.

Your hotel is £50 per day and food a tenner. Let's say you rack up £300 per week. Roughly £40 is vat, so the true cost to you is £260. So after expenses etc you have. £760 per week approx, plus £135 left over for the tax man.

Then for your computer/software. £5000 includes the Vat. So true cost is really £4300 plus £700 vat approx. Pay for it personally on credit card and make it a debt. I suggest you take out a new 5% Amex cashback card for 3 months. You would then make £250 on it tax free or take out a 12 month 0% card on purchases.

So now the company owes you £5000. You can then pay yourself back when the company has the money.

So after 3 months you have invoiced £13000 exc vat. Expenses were 13x£260 plus £4300 exc vat a total approx of £7500. So you're left with £5500 to pay some basic tax on and some sundry vat. You have the software and you're up and running.

Btw. Do you like gladiators?

[NickFitz]

Greetings, salutations, and felicitations

Welcome back Gareth

It being Friday night and all, I hope you take the replies you are about to receive in the spirit in which they are intended.
You'll probably get some sensible replies tomoorrow.

WZS, although so far you seem to have found the denizens of General (which is usually a bit like 4chan/b/ without the balls) in quite a good mood

(N.B. that link to 4chan is Never SFW.)

1) Email or PM the Administrator and ask him to kindly move this thread to a more appropriate section where you will get more constructive/relevant answers
2) Most of what you have asked has been covered before - check the Welcome/FAQs section for answers/guides
3) If no luck with 2) search the site instead - the search feature on the site is not the best so use Google instead - details of how to do this are in a sticky in the Welcome/FAQs section of the site

Good luck.

WCS - you'll probably have more luck with this in Accounting/Legal, although as I mentioned above you seem to have struck lucky with constructive advice tonight.

Here are the tips on searching the forum via Google. In the pending changes (which hopefully will be deployed this weekend) I've switched the default advanced search to the "single content type" which is much more useful than the current default of "multiple content types" - but search doesn't really get any better than Google once you twiddle the right knobs

[MarillionFan]

Greetings, salutations, and felicitations



WZS, although so far you seem to have found the denizens of General (which is usually a bit like 4chan/b/ without the balls) in quite a good mood

(N.B. that link to 4chan is Never SFW.)

Naughty, naughty, naughty! You filthy old soomka!

So that's what you do in the middle of the morning Nick!

[NickFitz]

Naughty, naughty, naughty! You filthy old soomka!

So that's what you do in the middle of the morning Nick!

I hadn't even remembered that 4chan/b/ existed until the other week, when the Jessi Slaughter thing kicked off:

"Consequences will never be the same..."