Self Employed: Keeping Records.

This is an unavoidable part of being self employed but you are going to need to keep records of any income you receive or expenses you may pay out. Keeping receipts is important as it is evidence for when you want to make a claim. You will also need to keep a record of any income you receive be it cash, card or bank transfer.

This may seem like a lot of work but over time it will be become second nature and you will start to do things automatically. You can make things easier by:

Open a separate bank account. This will allow you to keep all your income and expenses separate from your personal bank account preventing any confusion.
Set up a cloud accounting software such as Quickbooks which is the quickest way to manage your bookkeeping, store your receipts and file your tax return.

Allowing both your bank account and cloud accounting software to work in sync will allow you to:

Link your business bank account so you don’t have to manually enter payments;
Store copies of invoices (you’re legally required to store your receipts for 6 years by HMRC);
Photograph receipts and make expense claims;
Raise and track invoices automatically;
See how much tax you owe in real time;
File your tax return directly to HMRC;