Clean It Up
UK General Cleaning Forum => General Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Lynda on July 01, 2005, 03:15:11 pm
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I will be working on my own cleaning unfurnished rental properties. What is the min. insurance I need?
If I take someone on should I form a Partnership or employ them? Which is the easiest?
I'm taking so long to work it all out I feel I'll never get started! :-\ :-\
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Hi Lynda,
Good luck with your new venture, you can check out for insurers on the net to get a idea of the cover you will need. Has for employing someone or a partner, there is no contest i weould never have a partner in my business.
Cheers Mark.
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min insurance you will need is public liability, but if you take on someone you will need employers liability too...........i have mine with groupama (found via google search) £120.00 per person per year employers (£10,000,000 cover) and £96.00 per year public (£1,000,000 cover).
And I agree with Mark.....absolutely no partner!!
good luck!
Jan
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i have just had a quote employers liability for £714 ,thats not counting my public plus products plus a bit extra if i hire a buffer or scrubber/dryer, i never asked but assume that i would be able to have more then six empolyees for £714
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If not as a partner is it easy to employ someone? I have someone in mind they will not earn enough to pay tax or national insurance how much paper work will this make?
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I got my insurance quote from Zurich, I pay £315.00 per year for £1million Public Liabilty and 2 employers liabilty for £10 mill each,it cost me £28 per month.
With my girls they are self employed and they sort out their own finances.Lifes much easier this way.Just need to deal with my own.
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hi , i got my quote from the same people,seems dearer, must have said all the wrong things
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Dustdees
If I take on someone who is self employed how do I enter this in my accounts?
Do i just show their name or do I need to give more info?
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Hi Lynda
If you are there only source of income i don't think they can be called self employed, employing staff can seem a daunting step at first but it need not be with a little planning. I would suggest the following to you
Step back for a moment and decide on which way you intend to go.
If employing staff you will need teerms and conditions of employment ( templates on the acas website or ring them 08457 474747 ).
Although you will need the goodwil of your staff for your business to flourish don 't lose sigt of the fact its your business remember he who pays the piper calls the tune.
Hope all goes and good luck Cheers Mark.
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I agree with Mark. Just because you treat them as if they are self employed does'nt mean they are you could end up in trouble with Tax and stuff.
If you are only going to employ part timers under the tax threshold and they have given you a P46 declaring that their employment with you is their only source of income then all you have to do is fill in one form at the end of the tax year.
Ring up your lacal tax office or visit the tax website at http:\\www.hmrc.gov.uk and get the facts it's better to be safe than prosecuted.
Either way they will still need to be givent terms and conditions of employment.
BE VERY CAREFUL!
Good luck with your new business.
Norman.
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You need to be extremely careful when taking on people and calling them self-employed. I took legal advice on this issue as I was going take on staff in that way. BUT my Solicitor explained that if they Celaner was working for the same customer, for the same hours on a regular basis (eg weekly, fortnightly, monthly) then they were employees and not self-employed! For instance, Jack works for Mrs Clean's Client every Thursday for 3 hours each time..........he is NOT self-employed, neither is he subcontracted, he is employed by Mrs Clean!
The Inland Revenue will crack down hard on any company it finds operating Cleaners on a self-employed basis when they are obviously not self-employed!
My girls are employed by me! They do not earn enough to pay NI or tax and therefore do not need to be registered as employees with the Inland Revenue(already spoke to IR on this).
The most amount of paperwork I have to do in this regard is the invoicing and subsequently the payslips at end of each month!
The hardest bit is ensuring all Clients pay on time!!
Good luck and don't get caught out!!
Jan
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If I take a person on for larger jobs only maybe once or twice in a month at most, how do I record this person?
Is there such a thing as casual staff these days?
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Hi Lynda,
The person who works a few hours each month on a ad hoc basis is still governed by the same rules as someone with regular hours . You might be able to put the casual person on a zero hour contract.
Cheers Mark.
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"BUT my Solicitor explained that if they Celaner was working for the same customer, for the same hours on a regular basis (eg weekly, fortnightly, monthly) then they were employees and not self-employed! For instance, Jack works for Mrs Clean's Client every Thursday for 3 hours each time..........he is NOT self-employed, neither is he subcontracted, he is employed by Mrs Clean"
The law doesnt specify exactly what the difference between employed and self-employed person is. So your solicitor might be wrong. As a sub-contractor the self-employed person can work on regular basis. That's the way how thousands of agencies are employing self-employed contractors.
To hire sub-contractors you need two main things:
1) To be invoiced for the job done by the sub-contractor
2) The sub-contractor to be registered with Inland Revenue as a sole-trader (self-employed). This must be checked by you.
And someone said the girls doesnt earn enough to pay NI and thats why they are not registered as an employees. That could cose you some problems with the taxman in the future, because if they do not earn enough they can't support themselves. But I am not deep into this thing and do not accept this as a sure thing please.
Regarding the insurance I've post a reply somewhere in the forum...
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"And someone said the girls doesnt earn enough to pay NI and thats why they are not registered as an employees. That could cose you some problems with the taxman in the future, because if they do not earn enough they can't support themselves. But I am not deep into this thing and do not accept this as a sure thing please"
Perry, that someone was myself, and you are way off the mark with that coment I'm afraid. It will not cause me any problems with the taxman, as it was them I rang and spoke to in the first place when I took on my first employee. I enquired how I would go about registering them but the IR explained that as their earning were below the Tax and NI threshold that they do not require registering with the IR. Also as they are only working 16 hours a week they are entitled to Working Families Tax Credit, which will bring their income up to a liveable standard.
There are hundreds of other Agencies adopting that practice, yes you are right there are, but the IR have caught onto this and are in the process of changing the way companies like us employ their staff. I was also advised by an Accountant and my Business Advisor NOT to go the 'self-employed' route for staff purely because of what the IR are doing!
Not only that but I have much more 'control' if that is the right word to use, over my employee's with them working for me, rather than if they worked for themselves via me! I have alot less instances of sickness or them just wanting a day off for the hell of it, than if they were self-employed!
I worked for a cleaning agency myself on the 'self-employed' basis, so I know the business from both sides...........I will admit that sometimes I would wake up in the morning not wanting to work, and I knew I was getting paid each day I worked (which was every day). But there were some Cleaners who occassionally took the day off without warning, it made no difference to their pocket as it always had cash in it, if you like, and I would often get calls from the Agency asking if I could stand in at the last minute!
I decided I didn't want my girls adopting that practice, and I have far less incidences of sickness or unreliability as the Agency I worked for did!
After 8 months of research and putting together a 35 page business plan I launched my business knowing (as best I did at the time) that I had covered everything I needed to in order to make my business work best for me, my Cleaners and my Clients (not necessarily in that order). I have very little or no stress, very little paperwork and very little expenditure (hence I can keep my prices low in comparison to other companies).
good luck anyway Lynda!
Jan
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Thanks for the info.
As I said don't accept anything I said about the NI and the registration stuff as a sure thing.
About the employing and sub-contracting a staff all depends how busy you are.
If you can give a full time job to someone then employ him, but if you need extra people ocasionaly then sub-contract them. And as long as your paperwork is ok (acording to your accounter) evrything is fine and you shouldn't worry too much about sub-contracting.
I am wondering what the other users think about this. ???
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I would agree with you there Perry :)
Jan
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If you want a rough guide to what employee can earn before tax each week just use this simple equation
Take their tax code e.g. 471L
Take the numbers 471 and add a zero making 4710 then divide by 52 thus arriving at a weekly figure before tax.
Cheers Mark.
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i know i am replying to the first post...but forming a partnership will only benefit you if u include your wife or hubby who doesnt work...list them as a secretary or something and u will get their tax allowance.....also i employ 2 girls under the tax an NI limits and although there is a fair bit of paperwork holiday entitlements keeping track of there sick days ect i do not have to deal with the tax man as such except for sending in "nil payment forms" complete waste of time but its what they want
i registered self employed and then had to register as an employer even tho they are under the tax allowance...so gettin confused with your posts.....like not been registered as employees? im a registered employer and my employees are registered too....the tax man has all there details and they are insured....even tho they only work 15 hours a week each they are still entitled to 4 weeks hols and need a written contract cheers x
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If you employ staff you have to register with IR and have an employers ref number.
Anyone who works for you no matter how little the hours will need to give you a P45 or fill in a P46, you then send part to IR.
At the end of the year you will have to generate a P60 for each employee no matter how little they earn and relevant copies will go to IR.
This is all the IR needs on ANY employee this way they have a reference to where each person works and can adjust tax codes for each year accordingly.
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When I employed my first member of staff, I duly sent her P45 off to the Inland Revenue, and they duly sent it back stating that they didn't require it as she was earning less than the thresholds for tax and NI, and they didn't require her to be registered either!!
And that was straight from the horses mouth!! Typical English laws.......one rule for one and another for everyone else, eh? ::)
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Jan - don't know who you were dealing with - are you sure it was the tax office!?! ;)
One of the reasons you must send this paperwork in is that many people get sencond jobs. If they don't declare to their second employer that they have other employment they may be getting paid on the wrong tax code! When the IR then recieve the 2nd P46 they issue a letter to the first employer 'notice of employee leaving' as obviously they will not have recieved the relevant part of a P45 if you haven't issued one! I usually send these back with 'person still employed' written on them and in due course recieve a tax code for them.
As an employer you have got to show that you are responsible and have done all the relevant paperwork for the employee, if you have done this and the employee has lied to you about other employment it is not your problem. Ultimately the IR will always catch up with people (if not during the year then definately when your P35 return is done) and adjust their codes as necessary to get their money back.
If I were you I would carry on filling in the IR's part of P45/46 and sending them, at least you know you are covered then. I have sent hundreds in my time and not once have I recieved one back stating they didn't want it!
Fox
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It wasn't just one person I spoke to in one conversation. I phoned them 3 times altogether, spoke to 3 different people all telling me the same thing!
Having said that she is only working for me and declared that this job was her only job. Ive still got the P45 on file.
I am not sure if this information is only relevant as my turnover is (intentionally) very small at present and I doubt if I will be liable to pay tax myself this year!! ;D
We shall see if this goes any further as I have just completed my 2005 tax return and obviously declared employees payments on it.
They probably decided that making an effort on my baby business just isn't worth it lol!!