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I realised I had to register as an employer
with HMRC fairly quickly, I think within about six months of me starting the business, and
I didn't really expect it to be so soon. Luckily enough our accountants let us know
all the procedures that we needed to put into place and, in fact, their kind of recommendations
proved to be really invaluable to us. I didn't actually register myself with HMRC.
When we took on our first member of staff, the accountant raised it and they actually
took care of that themselves. Registration is quite straightforward in that
nowadays you can do it online. When we did it - and I've done it many times - it was
always a paper-based system, now it's an online registration system so it's a lot less painful.
We were advised as soon as we set up the company that we had to register with HMRC.
I don't have to register with HMRC because all the people I employ - or don't employ
- are self-employed and they just give me an invoice for the work done and I pay them
for the work done. We didn't realise we had to register as an
employer with the HMRC but our accountant informed us and made the procedure very, very
easy. I was actually surprised at how easy it was
- a simple phone call, I'm registered as an employer.
Your registration was very simple. It took a little while to find the forms and
to get the right ones to the right people but all in all it was quite a simple process
and we now do all of our payroll ourselves and then sign it off with a bookkeeper.
We spent a lot of time talking to HMRC about what we were doing because we have a slightly
different business model from most businesses, so we took a lot of advice and guidance from
them in the very early stages. All in all, all the resources out there actually
make setting up a business a much easier process than you'd imagine.
Registering with HMRC is really simple, and they're there to give excellent advice and
we've always found them to be really helpful on that basis.
Registering is easy if you take the time to do it. Like I said, the forms can seem a little
longwinded and difficult but if you actually just sit down quietly and calmly and go through
them step by step, it's really not a difficult process at all.
I think my advice to anybody would be if they are going to send you information, read it,
it's useful - it's not just boring, it's useful.