Self-assessment: sorting out your expenses

If you are self-employed you'll be familiar with the date of 31st January looming on your horizon. For the un-initiated this is the deadline for filing your tax return with HMRC.

If you are very organised (or a bookkeeper like me) you'll have submitted your tax return shortly after the financial year end in April. If you're a normal business person you may well be hoarding a box of receipts which will need sorting through in January :-)

This year take the stress off and get yourself ahead of the game by sorting out your receipts now. It's a good investment to get a bookkeeper to work through them for you. Many of my clients find that I've saved them money by pointing out receipts which are missing. Or you can tackle the work yourself by setting up a simple spreadsheet or making use of an online accounting package.

Here's how to manage your own expenses (if you are not VAT registered):

1) Get all of your invoices and receipts together and make piles for each month. Remember the financial year usually runs from April-March unless you have a different financial year for your business.

2) Set up a spreadsheet with the columns 'date', 'description' and 'amount'. Then further to the right you can add a few columns for type of expense, eg 'travel', 'stationery'.

3) Type in your expenses one by one. Type in the amount in both the column for amount and also the type of expense. For example, if you paid £10 for some printer paper type in 'amount' £10 and 'stationery' £10. You can then total your expense type columns to see where your money is going.

4) Once an invoice or receipt has been entered put a tick in the corner. Then you can file them away in a folder.

5) Make a list of all of the things you have not got a receipt for. Did you make any business trips which had online tickets that you didn't print out? Have you claimed for mileage? What about claiming for using a home office? Print out any documentation you may have for these items and add them to your spreadsheet. HMRC has some guides for what can be claimed for home offices and mileage etc.


If you are VAT registered then you should ideally be inputting this data into an accounting software package so that you can claim the VAT portion of your expenses. Cloud based software is expanding rapidly and allows you to enter details from anywhere, including on your smart phone. I use Sage One for my business and I usually recommend it to my clients.

Let's get organised!

How much space do you need to run a business from home?

Our house is full to the brim. We live in a modest 3 bedroom new build, where the downstairs has a kitchen and an everything-else room. The small lounge has to function as a kids play room, adults sitting room and our office. With 3 small children space really is at a premium.

We run an online e-commerce business, ie we sell stuff online, mostly via ebay and Amazon. This means that we have a significant amount of stock to store, plus all of the associated packaging. We have a computer and printer that need to be available all of the time. We have files for accounts etc and several in-trays worth of ongoing paperwork.

Being a self-employed mum means that I am always trying to figure out how to store away all of this stuff. Our stock lives in the garage, and we have a large unit in the garage which is full of various sizes of packaging material, labels and flyers. Inside the house I keep our files etc stored out of sight in a cupboard. But realistically there is always a lot of paperwork floating around looking unsightly.

A major factor for us is that we now store ta significant amount of stock at one of Amazon's warehouses and get them to post the goods out to customers. This means that we are able to carry on our operations without needing to hire our own storage space.

Don't let lack of space be a barrier to working for yourself. With many businesses you can get up and running with just yourself and a laptop. The rest can be figured out as you go...

Keeping track of your accounts

Getting started

Over the past 5 years of running my own business I've had to learn some basic accounting. I started off with keeping simple records on an excel spreadsheet. This is the bare minimum which I'd recommend to anyone starting their own business. Write your income in one column and your expenses in the next. Keep all of your receipts. It's a good idea to start as you mean to go on so buy a few ring binders. Use one for your bank statements and one for your purchase invoices.

If (like me) you are liable to leaving bits of paper hanging around then find a place to store them. I have an in-tray in my cupboard where I put all of the invoices and bank statements that come in. Then every few months I go through them and sort everything out, input it in the computer and file everything away.

Ideally you want to sort out your accounts every 1-3 months. It makes it much easier to figure out any problems as you go along. You can also use your bank statements to check that you have accounted for everything.

Increasing complexity

A couple of years into running my business I realised that I needed some proper accounting software. I decided to use Sage and have been now using it for 3 years (www.sage.co.uk). You can either buy a version for your computer or use an online version. There are of course other software packages you can use so do shop around and find what best fits your needs.

Have a think about what you need out of your accounts. For us there were 3 main areas: 1) ensuring we are compliant with the law 2) being able to understand the figures from our business in order to plan for the future and 3) to see if we could afford a mortgage. It was for these three reasons that in addition to using Sage for our book-keeping we also took the step of using an accountant.

Employing an accountant

Last year we made the decision to employ the services of an accountant. To give you an idea of costs she charged us £550 for the year to be available for advice and to prepare our end of year accounts, and our individual and partnership tax returns. This was definitely value for money as our accountant helped us identify various errors amounting to far more than we paid her.

We still do the day to day book-keeping as above (although you can pay for that service too) but having the ability to accurately account for everything has enabled us to keep a much closer eye on our business and gives us the facts to inform business decisions.


That's all for now! I'll be writing about some specific accounting topics in the future...

How do you manage work during the school holidays?

Let me start by saying I don't have a good answer for this question! One of the main ideas of running your own business is to have the flexibility of being around for the children. In some industries it may be possible to not take on any work over the holidays and therefore resolve the problem. Inevitably that means doing extra work before and after the holidays.

Some families manage to continue their childcare arrangements during the holidays by keeping children in nursery or by enlisting the help of grandparents. This is a good solution if it means that you can get a few hours work done here and there.

In my case I have one child at school, one in pre-school 3 mornings a week and an 18 month old who is always at home. So during the school holidays all 3 children are at home. I have not yet managed to find an ideal way to manage both my business and childcare so we just make the best of it. Luckily my business (selling maternity and baby clothes online) means that I don't have a set amount of work each day. I need to dispatch parcels on a daily basis but that can take anywhere from 20 mins to 1 hour to pack plus a couple of visits to the post office. If that is all I do then we can easily manage days out and have tons of fun together. There are plenty of other tasks that I need to be getting on with (preparing the end of year accounts, ordering stock, preparing stock to send to Amazon's warehouse, doing my VAT return...) and so I just have to figure out how and when to do those.

Some of the smaller jobs I just get on with whilst the children are playing together or even (bad mummy warning!) watching TV. I plan to get loads done in the evenings but most of the time I'm just too tired by the end of the day. Some jobs such as preparing parcels and stock my older children like to 'help' with so I let them assist with the bits they can do.

In conclusion, you probably just have to muddle through - much like the rest of the year! My feeling is that is still well worth the hassle though.

Taking the plunge: time for expansion?

My advice so far in this blog and to anyone who asks is that you should do as much as you can without spending any money. I have steered clear of upfront investment and favoured organic growth. But now my business has come to a stage where I feel that an injection of capital could really push it forward.

At what point do you take that step? If there is a clear project which needs investment then the answer might be more straightforward. In my business I sell maternity and baby products online so there is no pressing need for investment. Except that my stock sells out and I feel that I could gain additional sales and grow the business if I had more to invest.

What I have done is to write my business plan for the next 3 months (I now keep it as an online document so it can keep being updated and I have diary reminders for when the next plan is due) and am outlining what exactly could be purchased so that I know what size of investment would be healthy for the business. I will also need to keep a close eye on what the cost of borrowing is, to make sure it won't push up the price I charge to customers, and of course I need to be sure that I can meet the monthly repayments. The theory is that the rise in income should more than cover the repayments so some projections for turnover need to be included.

Once I have this information I can apply for a loan for a reasonably short time (1-2 years) and I'll know exactly how the money will be spent. My fear in doing this is that I'll be saddled with debt repayments without seeing the requisite increase in turnover. But, I should at least be able to recover the cost price of my stock, so it should be a worry-free strategy!

Maternity top with the background removed

The real background - putting the stair gate to good use!

How much storage do you need for an online business?

So there are all the wonderful benefits of running your business from home, but when 9 boxes show up at the door then it does remind you of the downside! Thankfully these boxes were able to be sorted out within 24 hours. Eight boxes were just picked up to be sent to Amazon's warehouse, and the remaining one has been put into our garage.

We sell maternity and baby clothes on ebay and Amazon so our entire garage is taken up with stock, and as you can see our hallway does suffer too!

If you are thinking of starting an online business you may need to consider storage. For a startup company you can probably fit stuff on a shelving unit in one of your bedrooms, or in a garage or shed. Don't forget to consider damp and also security. At some point you will need stock insurance and most insurers won't cover you for wooden structures like sheds.

On the plus side you can count the cost of your rent or mortgage for that portion of your property which is used for your business. So if like us your garage is used exclusively for your business then you can put a sensible price on that (as a percentage of your monthly rent / mortgage) and include it in your costs which in turn lowers your tax bill. You can also claim the same percentage of your council tax. Treat it just like you would if you were hiring a commercial unit for running your business.

We always assumed that as our business grew we would need to rent a storage unit or ideally buy a bigger house! But as it has turned out we now send a lot of our stock to Amazon who post it out for us. In our particular situation this has worked out well.

All in all though I'll happily take the inconvenience of having my hallway stuffed with boxes rather than have to pay for the children to go to nursery whilst I go out to work elsewhere. And look, I can even get them to help me with processing stock! (The one around her neck is our own... I am keeping a close eye on the stock!)

Register as self-employed

As soon as you get started it is vital to register as self-employed with HMRC (in the UK). This is a very quick process - either a short phone call or filling an online form is all it takes. Please be aware this is a legal requirement and really cannot be overlooked.

You might be unsure whether you need to register, but if you are trading at all then you should be registered even if you are making a loss or have no income from your self-employment.

There are 3 main types of self-employment:

Sole trader
If you are working alone then this is you. It could apply to a plumber, market stall trader, ebay seller, accountant or consultant. There will be a tax return to fill in at the end of the year in which you report everything you earned and everything you spent. If there is any profit then this is liable for taxation.

Partnership
If you are working with another person, eg your spouse or a friend, then you should register as a partnership. This means you are jointly responsible for the business and can share the profits. You set the percentage that each partner is entitled to. Each partner needs to fill in a personal tax return at the end of the year, and you also need to fill in a partnership tax return.

Limited company
This is a more complex mechanism and involves more paperwork. If you register as a company then you create an entity which is separate from you. You become a 'Director' of the company rather than being a sole trader and this can have some savings when it comes to paying tax.

Find more info at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/selfemployed/

Don't neglect the paperwork!

Getting Started - Initial Investments

Finding the money

As you probably know, few businesses can provide a decent income in the first year of trading. If you keep costs to a bare minimum you may be able to turn a good profit, but you'll find that you need most if not all of that money to re-invest in your business to make it grow. We are constantly facing that problem. The more money we put in, the faster our business will grow, but we really need to draw a salary out of it now! One solution to this problem is to borrow a lump sum to either get things started or push forward growth. If your idea is solid and proven then this might well be a good strategy, but don't forget to calculate interest payments into your margins.

Lets say you want to buy 100 pairs of jeans which cost £5 each. You need an initial investment of £500 so you take out a loan. You find you can sell to customers at £10, and it costs you £1 to sell each pair, eg on eBay. You are left with £4. But, you also need to repay the loan interest. If your interest was 5.5% then you are paying £27.50 a month extra, or 28p per pair of jeans in the first month and more as the months go past. Provided you can sell the jeans relatively quickly then you can still turn a good profit. Also beware of VAT! Many suppliers quote prices without VAT, so when you come to pay you realise the jeans cost £5 + VAT at 20% which = £6 a pair.

You should do all of these calculations before you borrow the money. Don't just borrow a lump sum to get started. Borrow only what you need at the outset, as paying back the loan might hinder further growth.

Ideally you will be able to the invest the £500 from some of your own income. I started my eBay business with about £50 of my own money and grew it from there. But, I hardly withdrew any salary for the first 3 years and invested all of my profits straight back into the business. Now after 5 years I am expecting to see an annual pre-tax profit of £14-£16,000.

Getting established

It is soooo tempting to invest in lots of things. Office space, office equipment, signs, logos, stationary, web designers etc etc. Spend as little as you possibly can to start with, and be satisfied with a 'soft launch'. If your business is PR or marketing then yes you probably do need a big launch with everything perfectly finished. But, for most businesses you can start with what you've got and then grow and improve. You can design your own website for free using software like google sites. You can promote your business on Facebook, Twitter, Google + and Pinterest.

A key part of your business plan should be asking 'how will people know about my product / service?' If you are offering something locally then you might want to invest in marketing materials, eg flyers and/or online adverts. If you are starting a website then you may need to pay for online adverts such as Google and Facebook ads. But, plan your investment carefully and figure out what your money is likely to get you in return.

Write your business plan
You know you need to do it, but it can feel like a real chore. Writing a basic business plan is an essential aspect of being prepared. Write if for yourself rather than for an external agency such as a bank. I now have a 3 month business plan which is an ongoing document that I never really view as complete. I make small alterations to the plan as I'm going along, and of course write a new plan every 3 months. Your first plan needs to take a longer term view and also needs to make some financial predictions.

You don't need to have a complicated structure. Set out your idea - what you want to do, why, and how. Think about why this business is needed in this area. Think about what skills you can bring to the business. Include an assessment of the finances for the first year: include all possible costs and a prediction of the income. Include a 'SWOT analysis' in which you list all the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats for your business.

Remember to keep referring back to your plan to see if there are small adjustments you need to make and to measure how far along you are in your plans.