Product Design

Change to Ltd.

2010-10-24T12:07:00.003+01:00

I decided a few weeks ago, the only way of making good money is to go contracting instead of permanent staff in my day job. So Amtech Design is now in the process of becoming a Ltd company because no one will take on a contractor without them being ltd. makes sense I suppose. The good thing is this is one way of becoming truly self-employed, Amtech will be my fulltime concern......

I've got another project in the quoting stage at the moment and just waiting on the client to give me a design brief. Don't want to go into too much detail but it's some kind of catering trolley, something that's new to me, but I like a challenge !

Also got a meeting next week with another possible client who's got one or two ideas/inventions that he wants looking at. Myself and my Electronics colleague will be involved with that one.

Things seem very rosy at the moment and seems like there's a lot of new stuff all happening at once. Only downside is my regular client has had to put progress on hold due to lack of funds, just hope he can turn it around sometime soon.

Cheers for now

Starting Out

2010-08-30T11:42:00.004+01:00

Name
The first thing I did was to decide on a name for my Product Design business.
This was pretty easy, I just took my initials and added 'tech' and then to emphasise what the business was about just added 'Design' - AMTech Design. First job done, simple !

Sole Trader or Ltd.
I also decided at this point to go for the easier option of running a business, ie. Sole Trader. This means a lot less paperwork and just requires filling out a tax return each year, paying tax on your profits.
The main disadvantage of not being Ltd. is that you are solely responsible for the company, if you're in debt you have to pay up, things like that and basically you are the company. Ltd companies are really separate entities in the legal sense, if you get into money trouble, you personally aren't liable. But they are a bit more complicated to run, so for me with this being a part time business at the moment I didn't see the need. Sole trader is the best option for now. If in the future I wanted to transfer to Ltd then this can be done with no hassle. There's a lot of information on HMRC website about this.

However the thing to remember is that Ltd companies are registered with Companies House and you have to have a unique name, so please be aware that the name you choose now may not be available in the future for the Ltd option. To be honest this is a chance I've took but it's not really the ideal way of going about it. Have a look at Companies House for more info. Another option is to register the name but as a Dormant Ltd company. I did look into this at the time but was told this would still incur a yearly fee so decided against it.

Business Bank Account
You don't need to do this but I decided it would be much easier to separate my personal and business bank accounts, mainly for ease of bookkeeping. I looked around for the best deal in terms of free business banking and found one that was free for 2 yrs so opted for that.

Keep Records for the Taxman !
This may sound obvious but you should always keep records of all transactions, things like receipts and invoices. I also do a monthly cash flow record sheet that shows my income and outgoings each month. This is just for my own record and is in addition to receiving monthly bank statements. These records are vitral for when you come to fill out the annual tax return and make the job so much easier. Because I also have a fulltime job, In effect I'm paying tax twice and that's 20% of my profits, so only pay tax on what you need to !

National Insurance
Being self-employed means paying Class 2 & Class 4 NI. But you only need to pay Class 2 if your earnings are above £5,075, which is a flat rate of £2.40 a week (at the time or writing). Class 4 is paid as a percentage of your annual taxable profits, 8% between £5,175 & £43,875 (at the time of writing). I didn't reckon on earning even £5K in my first year so I registered for a certificate of exemption. Another cost saving ! Plus I already pay Class 1 NI in my full time job.

Accountant
Right now I don't have an accountant, I can't really justify it and I do a self-assessment tax return online to save cost. Again this will be another area that I'll look at in the the future should business increase. I'm aware that accountants could probably save me money in the long run but my turnover doesn't warrant it.

These are the basics for setting yourself up, On the next blog I'm going to explain how I'm trying to get more business and make money.

Welcome to My Product Design Blog

2010-08-29T19:58:00.008+01:00

Product Design Business Beginnings
Welcome to my Product Design blog. This site is all about my venture as a self employed Product Design Engineer with my own company - Amtech Design. At the moment I still have a full time job but my ambition is to be my own boss and work from home permanently which is why I set up Amtech Design in my spare time.
In this blog I will give updates on my progress, projects I have been working on, how I am trying to get more work and the ups and downs of running your own business.

A little Bit of History
Just a little bit of background history of how I got to this position. I suppose the driving force behind me deciding to try and make a go of this was when the company I used to work for went out of business. I'd spent 3 years there and it was a very small company with only 4 employees. The MD was someone I already knew because he was an electronics supplier to another previous employer of mine and I'd worked on a few projects with him. One day out of the blue he offered me a job in his new business designing a range of laboratory instruments. I was a bit bored in my current position and so jumped at the chance. That was back in 2005 and from then until the end of 2008 it was the best job I'd ever had. I actually used to look forward to going to work in the morning ! But all good things come to end so they say and basically he ran out of cash to get the products we'd developed manufactured. With no help at all from the banks or anyone else the company was wound up and I was out of a job.
I found a new job a couple of months later and that's where I am still today. But a few months later he started the company up again and I found myself working in my spare time for him carrying on from where we left off more or less. That's when I decided I may as well set myself up properly as a sole trader, knowing that I now had my first regular client at least.

So that's the basic history behind my decision and to be honest I haven't looked back. Product Design is what I love to do, so why not turn it into a business !