I've been so busy lately! not all with paid work unfortunately, but I have had some - business is picking up and at the minute I know I made the right choice going self employed!
The rest of the time I have been working on things like my business plan and cash flow forecast with my business advisor. Its a great free service offered to start up businesses and helps me to secure any funding available to me.
I've also attended another course on this, provided by the same enterprise centre as last time. It's a great service as not only do I learn essential information but I get to network with other local startups. We may never need to use each others services but it's great to speak to other people in the same boat.
The thing I'm struggling with at the moment and doing a lot of research on is insurance. There's lots of types out there - at the moment I need personal imdemnity and public liability - not to mention equipment cover. Its not cheap and there's a lot of small print involved. However, it is essential!
As and when I know more about business plans, cashflow forecast and insurance, I will blog of course!
Wednesday 14 July 2010
Monday 5 July 2010
Enterprise Course
Today I went on a course provided by a local grant-funded enterprise establishment, on starting up a business.
It was a general awareness course so covered a few subjects like registering with the inland revenue and what type of trader to register as and the tax implications of that choice. It also covered sources of funding and business plans but not in great detail.
Unfortunately, most of the tax stuff, I already knew but it did give me a brief outline of business plan writing so I can give it a try before my one to one session with a business advisor on Friday.
There's more courses available free of charge, too so I will definitely be attending those!
The one point to mention is business names. If you're thinking of starting a business, research your name. There's lots of marketing pointers of this too ie. try and get a name that says what it is you do and if you can localise it too even better! but fundamentally, make sure the name is not already in use, for a similar trade, in your area or you could be sued and made to change it.
More to come on business plans!
It was a general awareness course so covered a few subjects like registering with the inland revenue and what type of trader to register as and the tax implications of that choice. It also covered sources of funding and business plans but not in great detail.
Unfortunately, most of the tax stuff, I already knew but it did give me a brief outline of business plan writing so I can give it a try before my one to one session with a business advisor on Friday.
There's more courses available free of charge, too so I will definitely be attending those!
The one point to mention is business names. If you're thinking of starting a business, research your name. There's lots of marketing pointers of this too ie. try and get a name that says what it is you do and if you can localise it too even better! but fundamentally, make sure the name is not already in use, for a similar trade, in your area or you could be sued and made to change it.
More to come on business plans!
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