Reply to: Anyone used Brookson one, parasol, danbro, 6cats int, jsa, payme or orangegenie ?

[Anonimouse]

Paystream don’t tell you a lot of things

[bstar1]

PayStream Margin's

I'm with PayStream seems they dont tell you they charge different margins for different agencies

[gables]

I am considering paystream too. r u using umbrella service or PSC ?

Umbrella, being inside ir35 there's no point in using my ltd.

[psychocandy]

Danbro are pretty good. Sort things out when theres a problem/answer emails etc.

One other good thing is they allow pension salary sacrifice. So basically, you can save over 50% by paying into pension this way. i.e. £400 goes in to pension per week before employers NI, employee NI, PAYE gets its mitts on it. (Worked out it'd be about £200 after NI/tax in my pocket)

Another one I was with (sterling) just did the minimum pension by law (1%?) and said anything more had to be AVC. Which is a waste because you lose the NI saving then. Basically, they couldnt be arsed to do salary sacrifice.

[northernladyuk]

I need a view on these companies. I am planning to go for umbrella services, although it will significantly reduce my monthly take home amount, but I have no idea about the difficulties i might face if I choose to LLC. my assignment is for 6 months only. My agency recommended these companies to work with. Anyone has any experience using these companies services before ?

Worth searching the forum a bit as plenty of previous discussions. E.g.

https://www.google.com/search?q=foru...w=1249&bih=634

[aeroeng]

Because it's a little lazy and because it's been asked a few times people won't bother responding?

If you've read the forums you'll know it's ADVICE you need and you will have posted this in the right part of the forum..

I think I need coffee...

EDIT : https://forums.contractoruk.com/umbr...angegenie.html

No I looked through the forum plus other websites but I couldn't find all the companies which i wanted to know. So I decided to post.

[aeroeng]

Are you legally able to set up a UK company?
When does your contract start?
Why did you not like the answers we gave you the last time?

I've merged your previous thread with this one to save people repeating themselves.

I am legally able to set up company. my contract is 6 months long.
My contract will probably start before january. It is not certain yet.

I apologize I haven't followed the thread in fact I forgot I opened one here. But I will be on it actively.


Am I allowed to open my limited company in my country which has lower tax rate and work in UK? any pros and cons ? or join someone else's company, i think it is called composite? and work via their company

[aeroeng]

I am currently using Paystream (contractorumbrella wasn't an option for me) and so far faultless since mid august.

I am considering paystream too. r u using umbrella service or PSC ?

[aeroeng]

It's a bit late then though isn't it? You can get the contract reviewed before it's signed, and that way you may be able to negotiate out any clauses which are problematic from an IR35 perspective. Obviously, your working practices should be considered too, but getting the contract reviewed before it's signed should be your first step.

BTW, if it is hays, I've no idea how their contracts fare in this regard.

I didn't speak this with my agency (no it is not hays), but paystream told me I can start off with limited company, and since i won't be making any profit in first few days, they can do ir35 check in a day and tell me if i am in or out. I can close it for free and immediately switch to umbrella. Ofcourse as you said it is better to do it before starting, but there are some working practices i am not too sure, which I believe I will learn at the work like overtimes, working at weekends, offsite jobs..etc. So far I have been told I am outside of IR35, but they just asked 2-3 questions. That didn't really persuaded me a lot. I did online test and it resulted inside.. well i can't really trust on online test too can I ?

[aeroeng]

On that list orange genie but only because I haven’t heard bad things about them.

If the agency is hays contractor umbrella is approved by them but not explicitly announced. If you want to give Lucy a call there and she may be able to persuade the agency to allow you to use them.

Orange genie received a lot of bad reviews. that's what I came across even in here or in other websites.

[aeroeng]

you have been given a choice of trying to find the best of a bad bunch. having been forced to use most of those I cannot really recommend any of them.

I can guess the agency, looking at that list, and you will find that some of them are actually the same company using different names.

Giant and paystream really stands out but comparing both I found paystream much better I havent heard single bad review, and they won awards consecutive years.

[aeroeng]

Be very careful if they insist you use a specific umbrella. It probably means they are getting a kick back.

As WTFH says, use Contractor Umbrella.

They do insist. But they also said if I have already had an agreement with a company which is not in their list, they can stretch the rules but they strongly recommend to use the ones in their list. If I have flexiblity to be outside of their list, I would set up limited company in my country where tax rate is much lower. But in legal perspective I don't know how advantegous it will be to work in UK.

[aeroeng]

What have you found out so far?

6cats int kinda unknown by many contractors. I couldn't find a lot. also their margin is low as 6 quid. Brookson one sounds promising but I heard a lot of bad reviews about them, from old dates and recent dates as sept october 2017. Paystream sounds convincing for me.

[Anonimouse]

I am currently using Paystream (contractorumbrella wasn't an option for me) and so far faultless since mid august.

And yet I am still having grief despite having ditched them last month. Dealing with them is almost a full time job, arse and elbow springs to mind.

[gables]

And you're definitely paying the correct level of PAYE and NICs...?

Might seem a daft thing to ask, but a lot of ex-scheme users didn't know they were being fleeced until the bills started arriving. And I've no reason to doubt Paystream of course.

Yes, confirmed by my own calculations (I run my own payroll when working through my Ltd), Lucy's calculator spewed out similar numbers (different due to fee) and of course I asked my accountant