Some advice please?

Try Business Link for advice.

Hi Jordan, it's not so difficult if you take things one step at a time.

Don't worry about VAT until you are turning over over £70,000 per year.. so no need to deal with that straight away.

Also you can start as a sole trader and then change later if the business proves itself and it is worthwhile to change. To do this you need to let HMRC know and register there as self employed. I think they are quite helpful and even have an accounts app where you can record invoices and take a photo. I don't know much about it but saw someone from HMRC talking about it at a business do.

However you do it make sure you record everything coming into the business and all your expenses with evidence. This is fairly easy to do from Paypal records if you use ebay solely.

Many accountants will give you an initial meeting for free where you can talk over all these issues. Their advice is better than mine! _Although I don't knowingly mislead!!

Business link site is really useful, but as an organisation they no longer give individual advice as they once did.

Hope it goes well.

This forum seems a great place to start!

But you'll also need to go somewhere where you can read some solid information.

As Ethical PR recommended, the website Business Link has a lot of information about starting your own business. There's a link on the side called "Starting Up"

Most startups initially start as a sole trader before becoming a limited company as they grow. This just means you'll have to register with the HMRC so that you pay tax on your profits.

Once you start spending/making money, an accountant would be a good idea, but if the numbers are initially small, you may want to keep track of things with a simple excel spreadsheet with expenditure, and incomings (but I'm no accountant! So someone more experienced can comment here).

Then it comes to your business
- Come up with a business name
- Create a logo/brand
- Exactly what services are you going to offer
- Think about who your target audience is and how you're going to tell them about your services
- Are you going to have a website to promote your services/prices
- Come up with a marketing plan or how you are going to get business

Hope that helps! Good luck!

THE most important step to take now is to ensure you have a solid set of terms and conditions and also ensure that you so organise your business processes that the customers are legally bound to them. These will, amongst other things severely restrict any potential risk of claims against you eg for consequences of causing damage , not repairing, jail breaking etc.