Things to Consider When First Starting Your Own Business*

So not only have you decided to go self employed and work for yourself, you’ve decided to start a business! Congratulations, this is a big step! I don’t personally own my own business, I work self employed on a freelance rate and I know how scary that was. So today I’m going to go through a few things to consider when you take the first steps into the world of owning your own business.

What Will Your Business Do?
This was something I even had to think about when I went freelance, what services do I need to offer? And this is the same if you’re starting a business. Are your services needed? Is it specialist or niche? You need to make sure you have a firm idea for your business before you start out because this will help you with advertisement, selling your services and even if you need to go to the bank for loans to help you out in the beginning.

You also need to look at all the legal information such as protecting the data of your customers and clients. The laws changed over the last year so you really need to get up to speed! Make sure you know what is data governance, if your website or store will be collecting information and how you’ll make your clients aware of that.

Where Will Your Business Be Based?
Are you using your house as your business? Or will you be renting or buying a building? This is another vital thing to think about as when you register as self employed you will have to include all this. If you have a separate premises you’ll be able to claim back for amenities and some of the cost of the building where as if you run it from your house there will be only a small percentage you can claim for as the majority will be general living cost rather than the business cost.

You also need to think about storage. If you are selling a product and you have only a small premises or you’ll be running from your house you may want to look into some external storage such as Warehouse Storage Solutions. This will help you survive the storage pain on where you’re going to keep your stock securely so you won’t lose any or have anything to declare as damaged. In the long run having external storage will be better value for money and it will be a load off your mind about how safe your stock is.

How Will You Deal with the Money Aspect?
How will your afford your new venture? Do you have money saved up to get started, or are your taking out a loan? Whatever you do make sure you make an appointment at the bank to talk through your options and get set up with a business account.

The paper work when you run your own business can be time consuming, so it’s always a good idea at looking at ways in which you can reduce that. For example, using a service like https://shiftcare.com/us/. This reduces the amount of paperwork freeing up time to serve your clients.

The other point associated with money is getting registered with HMRC so you can sort out paying your own taxes and national insurance. This is so important and make sure you keep a hold of all invoices and receipts. If you feel your business is going to make big money you may want to consider getting yourself an accountant to help with the paperwork side of things.

Of course there is so much more to think about when starting your own business but these are three important points to get you started.