Hi I am just after a bit of advice!! I am currently an ICB student member and have passed level 1 & 2 (manual) I am studying level 2 computerised and hope to complete by end of june/july. I am wanting to work for myself from home and wanted to complete up to level 3 before going into self employment however 3 clients have suddenly fallen into my lap so I want to take the plunge now rather than loose them as from some of the posts on here, finding clients in the first place can be the tricky part.
I have looked into what I need to do and am just after some reassurance that Im doing it properly and havent overlooked anything. Here goes....
1) upgrade my ICB membership to associate member.
2) Apply for ICB practice license (which I understand covers all necessary MLR supervision and allows me to use the ICB crest).
3) Arrange PPI
4) Sort out my own self employment status with HMRC, NICs etc.
5) Sort out business bank account for myself and keep my own books!!
Also wondered if I can charge membership fees and the cost of my practice license as an expense of my business?
My clients include a mobile hairdresser, p/t online trader and beautician none of which are VAT registered, and all sole traders so I am confident that my qualifications cover me to do this.
Thanks for any advice or pointing out anything I have missed!!
you seem to have your head screwed on about this (I can see that you're an avide reader of the posts on the site) so not a lot of advice to give.
#3 you say PPI but that should read PII. Once you have your practice licence from the ICB you can get cheap PII via their pet insurers Trafalgar.
There is one gem of a question buried in there. Can you charge membership and practice licence fee's to your business.
In your case, yes. But one has to be careful with that answer as the key is that you will have started your business and the fee's are wholly and necessarily incurred for the running of that business.
That is quite different to a situation where someone is retraining to bookkeeping in order to start a business or change direction of an existing business. Until they start offering their services on a commercial basis, memberships and training costs are not allowable expenses.
Oh, you missed that one out. Once you start your business then further training specific to that business (Payroll, Self Assessment, ICB level III) would be allowable expenses of the business as they are incurred wholly, exclusively and neccessarily as part of the business. (You are enhancing the service that you are allowed to offer as part of an existing business, you are not adding new unrelated services).
That would have also been the case with anyone who was AICB in practice when the ICB changed the rules and you had to pass an additional exam to keep your practice licence.
Considering the above, might be a good idea to hold off from signing up for any more exams until you are in practice.
I must admit that it does confuse me a little where one uses a training provider for an exam such as the ICB that doesn't require you to have a training provider. In that case one could argue that the training providers fee's are not neccessary and are therefore not allowabe. So would training providers fee's be allowable or just the study material and exam fee's? Interested to hear other peoples views on that.
Good luck with the new venture Jaclyn. Just one minor issue. I didn't think that you could become AICB until you have passed both the manual and computerised level II in which case your not going to be able to set you business up until you've (fingers crossed) passed that one at the end of June. Does that muck your plans with these clients up at all?
All the best,
Shaun.
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Thanks a lot shaun you have clarified what I suspected. I did mean PII just mistyped along with a couple of other typing errors! It is also useful to know about charging relevent proffessional development to my business as I may like to do this in the future.
As far as I am aware I can become an assoiciate member with ICB with just the manaul qualification at the moment although I would need to have completed the computerised exam before September 2011 when their criteria changes, I will check with the ICB that this is the case (unless anyone is available to confirm on this post??)
I have found this forum a great help for advice in all areas and it is nice to get opinions and reassurance.
Providing I can get AICB status I am ready to get everything up and running and will be happy to just tick over with these clients while I am still studying up to level 3 as this will bring in enough to cover my costs and turn a small profit. After that the plan is to actively seek out new clients.
I dont know if this is of use to anyone else but in my area there are a number of workshops/courses for new business start ups and my plan is to target these!!
