Self-employed people - how do you manage your finances?

[bubbasweet]

OH and I have been freelance/self employed for about 12 years now (although I've had a paye/staff job for the last year and a half)

Its a nightmare as clients don't always pay you on time. We nearly lost our flat about 3 years ago as a client went bust and owed us loads of money We have never ever seen that money and I hate them for opening a new company under a new name whilst owing so much.

Unfortunately we've experienced 'phoenixing' a few times so I totally feel your pain! DH is tv (post production) and the most he ever lost was about £5k. We managed somehow! He's got quite a long list of people he now won't work with, or companies they own/are involved with. Defo misses out on some work that way, but I can totally see why he won't take the risk! He's working much more with broadcasters now rather than post-houses so touch wood we've not had any problems for a couple of years. Seemed to be endemic about three years ago!

Would you mind PM-ing me the name of your man in Gerrard's Cross? DH is self-employed but everyone keeps telling him he needs to become a ltd company!

[Peony]

A business account all the way for us so we can tick off the invoices and expenses. In our industry it is standard to go through an agency and get our invoices paid within 30 days (it's usually about 5 days).

We cheat and have an accountant tell us how much we can take out each month and how much needs to be left to cover VAT and corporation tax. Flat rate VAT scheme is a no brainer for us.

[Velvet Chain]

I've pretty much always been self employed, the way I handled it was to always to put two piles separate at the end of each month - 1 for the tax and the other for contingency (out of work for a few months). It definitely helped with the budgeting and when tax had to be paid as I didn't feel it as much then - otherwise a tax bill of a few grand can be awful!

[knotjustjigs]

When I first set up a business account with Lloyds they were offering free banking for 18 months but I know you can get some which are totally free. I have all my income go into business acct and transfer my wage to my perosnal acct, much easier to keep track of for my accounts