I have my first year of tax returns due in January.

Became a sole trader earlier this year, not hitting the VAT threshold yet and managing my records via freeagent.

Always hear very mixed things on how much people are paying accountants, some who help them hugely with tax relief and organisation even on relatively small fees, some who cost a lot more but they swear by them all the same.

Any recommendations based on your experiences would be more than welcome!

I'm reluctant to trap myself in a specific niche, but I can also see the benefit in have a few specialist offers and a focus. Are restaurants a good one? My worry is that the sustainability / lifespan of a unit is generally quite poor in comparison to other verticals, and scaling is limited by the brick and mortar nature of it, but the average order value in the mid range does make it viable for ads.

One of my retainer clients has offered to set me up for 3 days of week which entitles me to a PAYE contract. I have two other 1 day freelance contracts that I am a sole trader consultant for. I'm already acting as a freelance consultant for this opportunity and wondering if there are any drawbacks to adding one of my clients as a PAYE? The NHS payment, paid holiday and bulk of my taxes being paid through that system seems appealing but I want to make sure I'm not missing something about being a sole trader. Thoughts?

I have been freelancing as a bot developer and automation worker for few years now. I am unable to find the clients that would need my services. I automate tasks like checking out a product when it drops or monitor it. I worked on websites like Apple, Lazada, Scottycameron etc. How do I approach to get clients

The Pie Tax App has now made it free for you to file your digital self-assessment tax return through their app. Previously you had to be on a paid subscription (which you can still get if you need a dedicated tax assistant), but they've just made it free.

I think for the quality of the app (clean UI, lots of features constantly being updated, easy to setup), coupled with the ability to see a live calculation of what tax you'll owe for the current tax year, and now being able to file your return for free through their platform, it's a brilliant service.

There are other Accounting tools/services out there that a more comprehensive, but none (at least that I've come across) that are free and this easy to use. It connects with open banking so you can import all of your bank transactions (which it doesn't share with HMRC) and then you can mark them appropriately e.g. income, expenses etc

It's worth downloading just to check it out, and great for anyone who doesn't want to be tied to a subscription/monthly cost, or require tax advice.

If you are looking to complete your self-assessment for the 23-24 tax year in the coming months, do give the app a look in.

link

I’ve started a marketing freelance service specialising in working with small ecommerce businesses. I offer a general marketing strategy service, as well as a more niche conversion rate optimisation service.

My idea is to get consistent clients in with a CRO audit worth around £80, then hopefully upsell the full marketing strategy service to some of them which I price at £800-1k one-off fee.

My main issue is getting clients. I’m trying to build a LinkedIn presence, but this feels like hard work. I’m happy to spend on ads, but so far has been really unsuccessful CTR’s on LinkedIn and Meta.

One thing I haven’t tried is cold email.

What would you recommend for finding clients? I’d ideally want around 1-2 leads per week. My market is pretty niche, I just don’t know how to target the small ecommerce business owner space.

I’m also under the illusion there are more and more small ecommerce stores these days as people launch their own businesses. I’m kind of basing that of anecdotal evidence though.

Hello Reddit!

I am an experienced SEO specialist currently working full time in house but with agency experience too. I’ve recently decided I want to go freelance and I’m a bit overwhelmed on where to start.

I’ve started costing things together but some stuff I’m a bit lost on is:

Payment terms: What should these be set as? 30 days or 60 days?

Tax: I’ve been told that sorting tax is a nightmare when freelancing. Does anyone have any advice on this? Someone told me quickbooks is good for this.

Networking: I’ve come across conflicting things on this. A lot of people have suggested to jump on upwork and fiverr to begin with then build bigger from there. Is this good or bad advice?

Registering as a business: I don’t know much about this. Where do I even begin for this?

Appreciate that’s a lot of questions. As you can tell this is a recent decision and one I intend to go through with, so any help and advice will be hugely appreciated!

I often read that it's much more effective to have a niche, so in my case as a graphic designer, maybe it could be logo design or web design.

I really don't like the idea of limiting myself to just one thing, I love variety in what I do. I am good at a lot of different things, not as in a jack of all trades, but simply the fact that I've dedicated a lot of my spare time over the years to improving my skills (whereas most designers I know just treat it as a 9-5 job)

So could it be an idea to work under multiple brands, and each of those could specialise in one thing?

So a brand geared towards logo design, another for Web design etc? Maybe brands that target design services for specific industries?

After two years of stressful job-seeking, I finally got a freelance job as social media manager!

I'm in the middle of applying for self-employment with HMRC. Any tips or things I should be aware of in terms of taxes and contract? I learned that I should record everything (receipts, invoices, bank statements) and to have a separate business account to keep things in order. Is there anything else I'm missing?

Thank you in advance! 😊

I'm new to freelance fresh out of arts university and was approached by a company to design greetings cards. The rate is £25 a card, which I was okay with until I did further research which suggested I should be paid much more. The cards would be simple and with practice I'm hoping they would take me around 2 hours or less, hopefully less than an hour the more I get used to the briefs as they are only simple, but the fee would include giving all rights to them and I don't get any royalties. I have signed a contract as I am keen to get the experience and start having some income, but I just wanted to clarify if this is a standard fee or if I should aim for higher fees in future?

I work full time as a graphic designer, but in a previous life I used to do a lot of web development.

I plan to start a bit of a side hussle to get some web dev work on the side, from marketing agencies/ freelancers.

I don't really have any examples to send of websites I've built however... at least not yet anyway.

Might it suffice to build some custom templates myself as a way to showcase my skills? even though they're not real client projects?

I just received my UTR today (yay!) but with that now comes the confusion as to whether I purchase tools and subscriptions as an individual or business.

Here I am needing to purchase a ChatGPT subscription. As a sole trader, do I select the "I'm purchasing as a business" as it is a work expense, or do I leave this unchecked? Any advice appreciated!

Hi, if there are any accountants in this sub or freelancers who’ve also asked the following question recently, I’d really appreciate your advice please.

I’m a self-employed freelance writer and use cash-basis accounting. 

I’m currently negotiating a contract to write articles/social media content for a conference (hosted in April 2025), on retainer. The contract will start on 31st October 2024 and end on 30th April 2025 i.e. it’ll span both the 2024/25 and 2025/26 tax years.

I’ve just learned about UITF 40 (revenue recognition in multi-year service contracts).

Those in the know:

1. Will those rules apply to me – I understand cash-basis accounting will become the default for sole traders in 2024/25 anyway so maybe not?
2. If it does – how will I have to account for the contract? Will it be a case of:
   • Accounting for my other contracts as normal (when I’m paid) + accounting for my multi-year contract on an accruals basis (i.e. recognising revenue from it when it's generated)?

Any and all advice would be hugely appreciated.

Thank you!

Hello, i have been working for a company for the last 5 months, as a customer care agent. On my last month they paid me twice the salary of the previous month (540£) To make the story short, they realised it and I told them that I had no money to pay them back as in i have paid some personal debt that i had, not realising where those funds were coming from. That in the meantime they could deduct the amount from my last paycheck, where i worked only few days. Now i have an outstanding of 330£ with them but no way to pay them back ( i am currently in debt, jobless, and i am going to stay 6 months up in the mountains all expenses paid, to a friend house) I asked them to make a plan whereas i could pay them back 10/15£ a month as it seems reasonable for me due the fact that i will be jobless for at least 6 months but they are asking all now and i have no way to pay them back. Due to them being very rude and actually offensive, i was wondering, what happens if I don't pay them back ? Considering i have already a credit score of 0 due some unpaid debt that it already went to collection agencies(covid time killed my finances i had several debts and no money to pay those) what is the worst that they could do for 330£ ? Send me a letter from another colector agency or there are more serious consequences for not paying back a company that overpaid you? Thanks in advance

Hi all,

I started freelancing last year but after a few months got a job offer as a copywriter for a small marketing firm. I worked there for 6 months and got brilliant feedback, but unfortunately got RSI and was made redundant...

I'm still occasionally in touch with them, we parted on good terms and I've passed a couple of clients over to them for projects that were outside my skillset.

When I left my old boss said she was really keen to help me as much as possible, put me in touch with people if I wanted to look for another permanent position etc. However when I queried including any of my work through the agency in my portfolio she said no.

I have a fairly good personal portfolio of basic blogs and can get entry to mid level work in this area. However, I've written for multinational companies, writing everything from press releases, emailers, ad copy, technical articles etc. - but I can't even tell potential clients I've worked with any of those companies, never mind the details of the projects.

Is this normal and reasonable? I'm finding it next to impossible to branch out from basic blogs in my niche (which is getting pretty boring) as nobody wants to take someone with no portfolio evidence to write their press release or other higher level materials.

I'm thinking of getting back in touch to beg to reference at least a couple of pieces of work I've done, but was wondering if this is pointless as it's just how these things go.

Has anyone else been in this position?

TIA!

Hi all, I've encountering some conflicting information regarding the current legislation regarding late payment fees on unpaid invoices.

I've frequently seen the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 referenced, which states that fees apply after 30 days for public bodies, and 60 days for businesses. However, when this act is referenced, only the 30 day rule is typically mentioned (which seems quite misleading as I would expect the vast majority of payments for most people wouldn't be with public bodies).

Also, the current information I can find on the UK government website states:

"If you agree a payment date, it must usually be within 30 days for public authorities or 60 days for business transactions.

If you do not agree a payment date, the law says the payment is late 30 days after"…so does that mean if a date isn’t agreed then it defaults to 30 days regardless of whether it’s a public body or a business?Any clarification would be really helpful, thanks!

Hi All -

The TLDR; 2+yr exp. graphic designer, starting freelance work, new client on a rush job 3/4 week turn around max for brand guidelines/visual strategy, refresh existing logo, powerpoint presentation template, background artwork for Microsoft Teams and Email Signature. Unsure on how much to charge, please advise.

I was wondering whether a few people may be able to advise me on how much I should be charging for the following project. I am a graphic designer with 2+ years experience working in house for a textiles company. However, I am branching out and doing some more freelance work but don't really know how to price myself and on a different thread from about 9 months ago someone else said that I should put rates up due to being female as we tend to price ourselves down a bit -

There's a company that want the following as part of "phase one":

• brand guidelines / visual strat - already have a logo that just needs improving, fonts, colour palettes, how to use, visual elements, etc.,
• Powerpoint presentation template (unsure on how many slides yet)
• Background artwork for Microsoft Teams meetings
• Email signature

The time frame is 'ASAP' could push to 3/4 weeks - so, urgent. Happy to work on it for them but understand I should add a Rush Job fee on top of the final price? About 20%?

Really appreciate anyone's feedback and experience so I can gather as much information as I can before pricing myself out of a job or not accurately pricing myself to the right level.

I've got a client who have very over-zealous email software which blocks a lot of external emails and I've had problems getting invoices paid in the past as a result.

There is a current one outstanding - they confirmed receipt of the invoice (after the 3rd time of sending it) but I haven't been paid yet. It's due in 7 days, based on my 30 days payment terms.

Would you send them a gentle reminder that it's due in a week ("let me know if you need any further information" sort of thing) or just wait until due date? I would never normally chase before due date.

They're a local authority if that makes a difference.

I am currently working full time in UK while looking to freelance on the side. I have started talking to a client based in Ireland. I am originally from Ireland so I have an Irish bank account.

Is there any issue with me getting paid into my Irish account for now, and filing my taxes as a freelancer in Ireland? Or would it cause double taxation issues?

Anyone aware of upcoming changes to double taxation rules with EU?

I’ve been working as a data analyst on Upwork for the past 2 years, putting in 8-10 hours a day. The rest of the day, I like to focus on spending time with my family and working on personal growth. That’s why I really don’t want to deal with accounting—and honestly, I can’t stand it, especially bookkeeping! I am a Kevin, when it comes to the bookkeeping and Tax planning. I’ve also noticed that while some freelancers manage to maximise their income, I end up paying more in taxes than I probably should.

So, what’s the solution here? Are there any accountants who specialise in helping freelancers—and are they affordable?

Quick background; I did some contract freelance software work that required hardware to be sent to me. Ultimately the outfit seemed to be pretty badly run and I was told that they didn't want me any more . I invoiced and they asked for a date to send a courier for the hardware. I said I'd be waiting for the payments to clear first, since I didn't want them trying to pull anything.

Anyway, the payments have come through now, and I'm not better disposed to these people. Given I may have to stay home to deal with a courier, should I charge day rate and have that clear before booking the pickup?

hi everyone! just feeling like i need some encouragement, but anyone have a success story of starting freelance graphic design full-time in london ? all my friends say that it is impossible to make a living as a freelance graphic designer in london and be able to afford rent but i am so discouraged with the state of corporate graphic design that i feel this might be the best for me. any advice welcome

I recently completed an internship at a very small law firm where I was working 1 day a week. My responsibilities included:

• LinkedIn content strategy creation
• LinkedIn content calendar management
• LinkedIn content creation (copywriting, graphic design, video production, video editing)
• Occasional SEO work
• Other marketing when needed e.g. creating email campaigns
• Some PR work such as responding to journalist enquiries

They've asked me to stay on as a freelancer having the same responsibilities. How much should my rates be?

For context, they were paying me £12 an hour during the internship. I'm a recent graduate with 2+ years experience in marketing and PR through various internships and jobs.

Hello! I'm being hired to do social media graphics (not too complicated), website (it's already up but the owner needs help in making it look professional), and have to develop social media strategies to increase followers.

My plan is to offer a weekly package of: 5 social media post & 1-2 TikTok videos + website design. Package will change weekly depending on what the brand needs atm.

It's kind of a long term freelancing, and they also want to take videos/photos for them from time to time. I'm pretty familiar with all these things from my previous job only this time, it's freelance.

I know this sounds a lot and complicated, apologies ahead. Any advice is appreciated. Thank you!

Is it required for a sole trader to show a Passport to the company they’re working with? Because I’m remote they’re insisting i use trustID and that a scan or video call is not acceptable but I would prefer not to share my passport with a third party. The company is legit so not worried about a scam but is it just ‘PAYE’ employees that have to show their passport. They sent me this - https://www.gov.uk/check-job-applicant-right-to-work

Update - I argued that it’s not a legal requirement and not in the contract and would be an extra fee and expense for me to travel so they ended us sending someone to my house to check it in person ha! Thanks so much for advice.

I am under skilled worker visa and have 20 hours to work any other job can I freelance with it . As a freelancer what are the requirement from recruiter or employer do they need your share code or just business details

I have recently left my corporate job to go freelance and have been offered a contract for one month at a different company. I know I need to set myself up as a sole trader however the contract is set to start in 7 working days. I have read online it can take up to 10 working days for HMRC to send you your unique tax payer reference. Has anyone had any experience of this happening in under 10 days?

The contract sheet asks me for details of my business and VAT number so I’m assuming I definitely need to be registered with the HMRC first before starting the work.

I didn’t realise I would get offered work so quickly and don’t want to lose this offer.

Thanks all for the help!

So, i have a couple of years of experience in videography and editing doing shoots for an agency I work at, and filming (for free) for a mate who goes around the country doing DJ sets.

But only now am I starting to promote myself as a freelancer, and I am struggling to work out where to price myself, due to technically only being freelance for like a month or so but also having that background experience of filming and editing. If that makes sense.

A few shoots I have done so far I have been charging by the project and not an hourly rate, this starts at £200.

I am hesitant to charge higher as, to the client, it doesn't look like i have much experience due to my social following, amount of posts I have put out so far and also not knowing what other people are charging, however, most clients are inbound and coming from them liking the content that I have produced.

I shoot with a Sony A7iii so nothing too high-tech, but it gets the job done.

Any advice on where to start here would be greatly appreciated.