Monthly Archives: August 2021

Should I go sole trader, partnership or limited company?

By Anna Jordan on Small Business – Advice and Ideas for UK Small Businesses and SMEs
You’ve finally mustered up the courage to wave goodbye to your boss and are now going solo. Surely you didn’t think this would be easy, did you?
As a matter of fact, many who have made the same choice know that this is just the beginning.
This is the time for a series of decisions to be made. You can take comfort in the fact that once your company formation is in place, each step along the way will be easier.
A key decision to be made when starting your own business, or becoming self-employed for the first time, is to decide what type of business structure you want to follow.
There are a number of options, all of which have their merits and differ in legal and taxation terms – but your four key options are as follows:

Sole trader
Partnership
Limited liability partnership (LLP)
Limited company

Simon Renshaw, director of AABRS, explains what you need to know about each.
On your own as a sole trader
By opting for the sole trader route, you and your business are effectively one and the same – from both a tax and legal perspective.
This means that you

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A complete list of Scottish business grants

By Ben Lobel on Small Business – Advice and Ideas for UK Small Businesses and SMEs
If your business is based in Scotland, you’ll interested to learn there are Scottish business grants that you may be able to access.
Grants are a type of funding provided by the government, local councils and some private organisations.
You don’t normally have to repay them. But you might have to meet some terms, for example a job creation target or deadline.
Grants are usually available to help ideas or businesses that will create jobs or develop new products, services or markets.
Grants are there to help you fund a specific project and will usually cover only part of the total costs involved, so you will need to provide match funding in most cases.
Furthermore, most grants are paid retrospectively which means that you’ll need to pay out money upfront and reclaim the grant money later.
Every grant will have a different application process, although there will be common things you’ll need to show, like how the grant will cover shortfall in funding and what other efforts you’ve made to raise funding.
The main grant funding available in Scotland is to help ideas or businesses that:

Will create social or economic benefits, for

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How to become a sole trader

By Small Business Team on Small Business – Advice and Ideas for UK Small Businesses and SMEs
Setting up as a self-employed sole trader is the simplest way to start a business. Paperwork is generally minimal, accounting and record-keeping is fairly straightforward and the benefits of being your own boss are numerous.
When establishing a business on your own for the first time then, being a sole trader is the sensible legal entity to start.
How to become a sole trader
There’s not really a difference between being a sole trader and being self-employed. ‘Sole trader’ describes your business structure, while ‘self-employed’ is a way of saying that you don’t work for an employer or pay tax through PAYE. As a sole trader, you are the legal entity in your own right, employing people and entering into contracts. You have no limited liability; your own assets are at risk should the business fail.
Getting started
The first step to becoming a sole trader is to choose a name. Make sure you have chosen a name that’s not being used by any other business. If you do then they could stop you using it. With this in mind, it is worth considering registering your name as a

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