I personally feel though your entitled to use it, that its NOT a good idea to use your name in the company, keeping its ID separate for yours so that IF things go south you can put some distance between you & it. Besides if you do a search on the Companies house website youll understand what I mean, especially with dozens of smith or Jones Ltd listed on there. So long as its not rude or lewd its legal to name a Ltd Co what you want. Being a pig headed sort of guy, I actually did ALL the registrations, corporate, VAT, HMRC & more myself. But doing them all separately took me best part of 2 weeks & gave me a big headache in the process. A good accountant will do them in around 30mins but will charge you £200-£300 for the privilege, they can also register your company . On the subject of accountants, not all accountants will be familiar with S/E driver scenario, some specialise in builders, shopkeepers etc. So you may have to ring around and speak to them and explain the scenario. Then if you feel that accountant understands the way you want to operate, theyre the one for you.
Once you have all the info you think you`ll need to register the company (online or via accountant) & get the company No, get a company bank account, then go see the accountant with the Ltd Co No & bank account No.
Soon after speaking to the accountant the following will follow:
registration for corporation tax
registration for VAT (if you choose to)
registration for NI/PAYE contributions (this has become compulsory this year, usually NIL contributions via accountant)
The accountant will also ask you to authorise them to act as your agent, so they can file forms online, accounts etc
I can emphasis how good doing a couple of those free HMRC 2hr business courses are, as they make certain tax processes less daunting
once youve got the above in place, take a copy of the company registration certificate, VAT registration certificate, insurance (if required) to whoever you work for (agy or direct) and (if agy) go through the sign up process as you would with a new agency as a driver, but instead youll sign up your company as a sub contractor. But unless its specifically asked for, don`t show, or tell them about the insurance (PLI etc)
The simplest form of accounting is to get yourself an A4 day to a page diary, & stick all receipts in it. Each receipt stuck to the page/date you got it.
Keeping duplicate copies of bank statements I find useful, with online banking its easy to print 2 copies of statements, even if you only wanted 1, so you keep a copy & you save 1 for the accountant.
ANY files for the business that you store on your computer, keep at least 1 spare copy of them elsewhere (HDD/memory stick & regularly back it up) so that IF you computer goes ■■■■ up you don`t loose the files.
IF your familiar with spread sheets, its easy to keep your accounts, generate timesheets, invoices & much more.
My spread sheet is setup to simplify various processes such as VAT rtns, as it adds up the numbers in various columns (for that quarter) and tells me to put the total figure show in box no 1 etc into the same No box on the tax form
