Simon Cowell's Dentist eh. Surely you'll have retired comfortably some time ago on the profits? :bye
Has the agency said who your contract is with? I.e. the recruitment agency or the design agency? If you found the work through the recruiter I guess they'd be paying you won't they?
I'm not sure if I'm missing something here. A web company hires you to do some work, you invoice (quite rightly without VAT as you're not VAT registered) and they pay you that amount.
Therefore no VAT has been paid to you... :confused . If you do any work 'on the side' you should notify HMRC you are doing so however, strictly speaking.
I guess you've tried the 'nice' approach here before you pull the plug on their site?
You could ask them on what written basis they are not paying, i.e. when they say that it wasn't delivered 'on time' - what date are they basing this on that was agreed between the two of you?
Where is the site hosted? And who is paying for that? Presumably you've organised that until they pay? If so I'd be inclined to give them a short set period for final settlement or else you have no choice but to remove the site you've not been paid for.
You might find this article helpful for starting out:
Also under HMRC’s updated guidance, the newly self-employed must also register to pay Class 2 National Insurance contributions (NICs) by completing form CA5601, even if their self-employment is in their spare time.
You don't know that you'll land the job yet so I wouldn't include VAT.
If you get a signed order then that would be the time to speak to an accountant or phone HMRC to ask about registering - which will take some weeks to get your reg number.
Meantime put the quote in, clearly stating you're not currently registered for VAT and this is therefore not included.
If you do have to become registered in time for actually doing the job then speak to the client and explain that element has changed, it won't make any difference to the amount they actually pay for your work anyway.
How are you getting on with this? Just thought I'd reply as it looks like everyone else is scratching their heads on this one too.
I've had plenty of awful neighbours in my time, so you have my sympathy. Are they at all approachable? Without divulging what you do but saying you often need to concentrate so could they stop doing what it is..well would polite reasoning/gentle request to be a bit more considerate work? The trouble with getting any authorities involved is retaliation, if they are that way inclined... hopefully this has sorted itself by now..
Plus.. spending at least a tenner in Tesco when buying slightly more than that lunchtime sarnie to cheer self up and justify the daily misery generally :)
Enduring shitty local radio station ALL DAY LONG that the design agency I worked for that advertised on.
Work In Progress meetings at previous agency, every Monday morning whether you were awake or not (you weren't by the end of it) to schedule every last frozen food packaging in Ukrainian job through studio.
Times writer Sathnam Sanghera was yesterday talking about the sheer fear his fellow home-working freelancers have about ever having to return to normal office life.
I do remember talking to myself to break the silence of working at home and putting the radio on at first, but now I just can't work with any noise at all so any return to an office would need to have lead walls.
Other fears mentioned by Sathnam's fellow 'feral home workers,' as he calls them, are:
Having to look interested by work
Poor views
Commuting
Office lighting
Background noise
Wearing a suit
Office politics
Competitve dressing
Having to make tea for others
Just the thought of a bums on seats mentality..ugh! shivers down my spine.
I think a lot of people wonder this. Some will pay an accountant just to do their year end accounts and some will pay an annual charge. Either way this makes sure your accounts are submitted in a format the taxman will accept and there shouldn't be any errors.
An annual charge means they'll do your VAT return if you're registered and check your spreadsheet regularly. This means there are no nasty end of year surprises and they should be able to advise you on what expenses you can claim to reduce your tax bill.
I read one post somewhere else the other day where the chap thought it worthwhile paying so his accountant had to deal with the taxman. He said his knees knocked at the thought of the taxman querying something and when he when to see his accountant he saw a file of correspondence between taxman and his accountant he hadn't seen and hadn't had to worry about.
So it's down to the individual I guess, how organised they are, how much they understand about what they can claim back, and whether it's worth it to them.
The only thing I can add to what the others have said is to perhaps think about the business image you want to create. It's obviously all about you and the personal service you provide, which is why people use their name as their company name, but if you want to jump off the page at potential customers perhaps think about something that better says how you do things or why customers should choose you? Think about Innocent wanting to reflect no nasties in their smoothies. What is it that'll you be doing that's different to you local competitors?
At the end of the day you'll be building and expanding your customers' businesses online - you won't just be designing websites.
Read up on IR35 on this site in the tax & legal section. Whether you're inside or outside IR35 is dependent on each contract you have with each client and the actual day-to-day working practices as well (i.e. that both reflect the same picture of your employment status). It's a complex area, your status depends on a number of things such as how integrated you are with your clients' business, whether you could send in someone else to do your job.
Therefore if you find yourself inside see what you can do to change the nature of how you supply services to that client, change the contract to reflect the new working procedures.
With each new client comes a new contract and different procedures for getting the work done so you need to review your ir35 status each time.
I'd check it out with the landlord if it were me. It's a standard clause in all rental agreements, I guess so that it doesn't affect the property itself or the properties around it. But as it's just standard office work with no footflow or whatever the proper term is, I'd think you'd be OK.
I'm fairly sure you are required by law to put your trading name and address on stationery etc - it makes sense to do so anyway really. And yes, a major pitfall for any business is not setting out the terms of business, i.e. the scope of the business, costs agreed etc before starting work. Otherwise you may hit trouble if the client says they understood differently. Check out the guides on the main site like Starting Out etc
Most won't like clients coming to your home like you say, but I've been up front about this in the past and been told so long as the equipment value doesn't go over a certain amount I was OK. The Halifax say you don't need to tell them about trade and professional use so long as the job you do is clerical, i.e. office work. I wonder if told them you were a designer working on a PC at home whether that might change things? Perhaps "freelance theatre designer & community artist" is outside of their lingo and it's safer to say no. Easy enough to hold client meetings away from home if this is their sticking point?
Not sure anyone is going to be brave enough to comment on the software dilemma! But..bank accounts - most freelancers would say set up a separate one, it just makes it so much easier to see what came in and what went out when it comes to sorting your tax.
The costs are those to defend yourself in the event of an investigation. So legal assistance and any other costs you incur during that process, not just accountancy fees. There's more here :: Freelance UK
Lots of general rates of £20/30ph mentioned on here. It depends on a few factors though, if there is a 'going rate' for what you do in your area (mystery shop the competition perhaps), how well the client's budget fits in with that, whether it's straightforward work, whether it's pain in the wotnot work, whether you really need to compromise on the rate to get the ball rolling and get the first gig in etc and also of course what you need to make to make a decent living out of freelancing. You should be aiming to make at least the same if not more to compensate for no sick/holiday pay etc than you did as an employee.
Does that help? You have lots of experience so definitely don't undersell yourself, start high and agree to come down only if necessary. You could also put the ball in their court and ask what they would be willing to pay per hour based on what they've seen of you, it may be higher than you think, or if it's not you can start to present reasons why you're worth a bit more.
I think this enlightened chap gets my vote for sweeping statements of the week as a small agency obviously feeling slightly threatened by his client’s question as to why they shouldn’t use a freelancer half the price for a project.
His justifications for his prices were a “dedicated project management team”. I must confess I do usually delegate client work to the dog myself. “Organised admin and accounting,” well again it doesn’t matter whether I get paid or not really, whether I file the client’s brief in the washing machine or I might even forget I took on work at all apparently and swan off for an impromptu meander around Peru, as Mr Smith reckons I “tend to don a pair of flip flops and travel the world for a year.”
So excited was he by his observations of freelancers he felt like he had opened “ a tube of pringles - once I'd started, I found it really difficult to stop.”
I can imagine it must be immensely satisfying to be sat on the reassurance of specialist skills that give you the confidence peer pitifully down at other, lowly freelancers. Especially since Mr Smith’s trade is er.. Power Point and Word presentations.
Uhm. Well fair play to you Mr Smith for landing that particular job and for appearing to run a busy business. If I were that client I would only have wanted to hear what you can do better than others and why, rather than what you want the client to believe about freelancers generally..which was misguided and plain insulting to boot. Maybe some credit might be due to the majority of hard working freelancers too?
You charge one cost for the design of the logo - based on time spent being briefed, researching, developing concepts, adapting concepts to client approval and sign off - then another set of charges for applying that logo to stationery, cards etc.
I do think they work. Seth Godin was talking about word of mouth being quite a commitment by those that recommend you, especially where they recommend you to a colleague or friend - what if you foul up he says? It looks worse on the person recommending than on the person that fouls up.
To some degree (named) testimonials put their credibility on the line as well. Especially those that say "I think this person's great, if you want to speak to me about this in more detail email me here ..."
So if you're new to a client I think they'll help you, especially if you can't show something in your folio similar to what they may be after.
Obviously made up ones are a bit different though! 🙂
I'm not sure there is a "norm" here so I'll be interested to hear what others think.
Shoe on the other foot this designer probably doesn't know how successful this is going to work out so if he agrees to pay you for cold calling and then doesn't get any business..well I'm sure you've thought of that.
Where are the list of prospects to approach going to come from? How about initially you ask this designer to supply you with a list of say 30 companies that he would like as new clients. That way you get a feel for the sort of company you should be going after for future reference and it cuts down some of the initial research time?
Half of the problem with these things is getting going so sometimes it's best just to make a start as best as you can agree and then review it weekly until you find a system that works, time and money wise. So you could agree to spend X hours in week one trialling it by calling this first list, with expenses paid of course, and then you'll have a better idea for a fair system. Perhaps once you've got profitable work coming in there won't be such an issue about the funds being available to pay you for the time spent on new business or you could ask for a higher success fee if he is reluctant to pay you for the groundwork.
If it's harder work than you thought getting new business then you'll need a Plan B.
Some trivial, granted, but important to me nonetheless:
My own mug; not a chipped, cracked, promo mug donated by the printers 10 years ago. Properly washed up rather than merely on nodding terms with the cheapest stuff from the Cash n Carry.
Decent tea and coffee. Maxwell House. Bleugh.
Breakfast at my desk; something a bit more civilised about checking emails over breakfast rather than juggling toast and the steering wheel.
Commute traffic. Also therefore not being late for work. I still don't quite understand why it mattered if I arrived at 9.04 but then didn't finish until 6.45. Somehow it did though.
No politics.
Internal meetings. Extension of the above. Fair bit of posturing/jockeying for position. Not very much getting things done.
No Christmas parties. Initially these were fun. Then there was the frock competition. Which meant some women only ate steamed broccoli for lunch from October (serious!). That sort of took the fun out of it.
You could also charge the client a fee for handling the print work but ask them if they'd be happy to be billed direct for the actual print costs.
That way there's transparency in what you're charging (be prepared to explain/justify what you do for that charge), and if the client's VAT registered and you're not, they can reclaim that portion which will save some money - so it may be more attractive to do it that way and you can suggest it as such. Make sure they have final sign off of printer's proofs.
Thanks for these GB. Would be nice to accumulate some philosophies as inspiration for those moments when you feel like you're wading through particularly stodgy porridge.
On the theme of No 2: Never give up. (Just because what you're doing does not seem to be working, doesn't mean it won't work. It just means that it might not work the way you're doing it.) I agree it's good to try and approach a problem from a different angle if you can stand back from it (not always easy!) But the bluebottle that repeatedly headbuts the glass that would have sailed straight out the window if it'd had tried moving 5" to the right is something I keep in mind.
Personally I think it's all down to the individual. Do you feel comfortable with every aspect of running your own business, including cold calling new clients if need be? Or would you rather the comfort of a standard pay cheque every month, just being able to sit behind a desk and enjoy what you do without worrying about the paperwork, cashflow etc? What about office politics and toeing the corporate line. What's a positive challenge to you and what's a bind; also what kind of lifestyle do you want - a 9-5 or flexibility (which can work the other way with deadlines eating into your weekend).
this is quite an interesting topic I think, how do you review your rates mid long term contract? The usual stuff would be to set milestones so you can demonstrate you met these, 'over deliver' where you can and set a review meeting 3 months in or thereabouts to check both parties are happy, and re-negotiate them if it doesn't damage relations. If you think you can get better better paid work elsewhere would you be prepared to walk or is the security better?
