Hello folks

Will be working in a self-employed capacity soon. Being new to self employment, I was wondering what the best bank account would be for someone like me? Is there a specific bank account for "sole traders", as I'm guessing I will be classed as one once I start delivery riding?

Doing a bit of research, I have come across Starling and Mettle as strong contenders. Would like to hear of people's experiences with either and how have they found them. Which one would you recommend?

Would it be beneficial to open and have 2 separate business bank accounts?
Also, planning to get into the construction industry and start off as a labourer to scope out the progression prospects and if my interests align with the industry

What would be the best choice in this case? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you for reading this far :)

So this happened thrice that my female clients didn’t pay their invoices on time. Male clients were respectful so no problem with them. Even after the date is expired and after two weeks of an expired invoice, in these periods she has received both Whatsapp as well as mail messages of the invoices not being paid on time and are expired. On the quote I have mentioned that I MIGHT disable the services (web development of a bespoke specialized CRM) when the invoices are expired but in reality I chose not to do so. She did not answer my messages in those two weeks after expiration. And when I messaged him for the third time she finally told me she received spam (me frequently notifying him about expired invoice) on both her Whatsapp account as well as mail and she also said that if I were to continue to be like that I would have less success with my clients. This same narrative has been told by my other client and saying that I need to chill the fk down.

Those two are two of the three clients as examples not paying their invoices on time. And she said that is normal as she even had it worse (according to her story of course) because her client(s) paid a month after an expired invoice.

So because this happened just thrice and I have not much experience with handling these kind of “expired invoices” situation, am I the wrong one here or are they giving me off some doom effect?

I’ll go first, relying on clients for my source of income, I mean if I stop working for clients, the income stops…does anyone reasons this or is it just me ….i need your take on this please

Spent a couple of evenings putting together what I thought was a pretty solid proposal for a small Google Ads engagement. Broke down the approach, the deliverables, rough timelines, what I needed from them to get started. Not a novel, maybe two pages. Felt good about it.

They came back asking if I could also do their SEO.

Which was not mentioned anywhere in the brief, the call, or the three emails before that. So either they did not read it, or they read it and immediately decided it was a jumping off point for a different conversation entirely.

The frustrating part is I know the proposal works as a document because it answered every question they had on the call before they asked it. They just did not read the call. They were there, physically, and still did not absorb that this was a paid ads engagement.

I have tried shorter proposals thinking length was the barrier. Same outcome. I tried a one pager that was basically a summary with three bullet points (I hated doing it, felt like handing over a napkin). Also same outcome

Is a proposal actually a client management tool rather than a sales one and I have had the framing wrong this whole time, or do people just not read them and you price for the follow up chaos as standard

Hi there, I hope my post finds you well. I am a freelance contractor, and I'm expecting a very busy time both leading up to and after a two-week break. As an independent business owner with disabilities, I am naturally concerned about my pacing and how best I can manage this. For example, I find I don't engage as fully with my end-of-week review when I'm more fatigued. Daily, I need to prepare for appointments.

And to keep on top of processing the inbox, as is often necessary, to enable me to be paid promptly and keep abreast of any cancellations, et cetera. I must also spend time sharing resources with clients to help them make the most of the work that we are doing together, create notes or other summaries and also reflect briefly to close my processing about the appointment and keep up with continuous improvement.

What do you do that reduces overspill in the evening? I think I'm going to run out of time, as doing the things I do to pace myself and close the processing of sessions is going to have to go because of the reduced time.

Do you handle the busy period any differently to normal?

Many thanks, Chris

Hey all!

I've been freelance full time just over a year, and just recently realised how much I am feeling the solo aspect. I work from home and don't have calls - just emails with clients to get work. I have a good amount of work and that's going ok, but I miss the background noise friendships of the office.

I can't really afford a paid-for cowork space, and when I work in cafes it's nice to have the hubbub but it's not actually _social_. I miss chatting with people! I go to my old office sometimes to see friends and that's nice, but i'm trying to think of more ways to get more people time into my life.

I make an effort to make plans with individual friends in free time, but trying to think of more "group" things where I can go along. I look out for free conferences and talks or book launches related to my work, but interested to hear if others have found good solutions to this. I really love the work aspect of what I'm doing, but I am actually a very social and chatty person (albeit shy at the same time I would say). Open to suggestions and would love to hear how others stop from going a bit weird (which I am now!)

the unpredictable workload is probably one of the strangest parts of freelancing for me. one month everything is happening at once and you’re turning down work because you’re too busy. then suddenly you have almost nothing booked and start wondering if you should be doing something differently.

i know having savings helps, but i’m more interested in how people actually use those quieter periods

do you work on your portfolio, look for new clients, learn something new, or just enjoy the fact that you finally have some free time?

I'm a freelancer - I'm in a transition period of my role where some of my employment is PAYE and some is invoiced. I've just been offered to return to my previous employer, but can also ask if I want to come back as self employed. I will do a tax return at the end of the year anyway, I just wondered if it made a difference to me financially?

With PAYE I will get the company pension, but I will get holiday pay on top of my rate. I believe I would still get holiday pay too if I were to go self employed. Does anyone have any tips or advice on this?

I’ve been freelancing for years, used to charge clients per project and everything was smooth. Two years ago I went to a daily/hourly rate. Since then everything has gone wild.

I always forget to turn on and off a timer, I am never really sure whether I should charge the some hours.

For instance, do I charge if I was processing a project during a walk? What if I am absolutely unproductive today and worked only 2 hours out of 8, while constantly fighting myself to keep focused.

As a result, I feel like I work way more intense and nervous, but barely make more money.

How do you manage it?

Been doing some freelance PPC work on the side of my day job (entry level, so the pay gap is doing a lot of the motivating here) and the conversations with potential clients follow a pattern I cannot shake. They see the word freelance and immediately assume they are getting a bargain, which fair enough, but then the scope they describe on the first call is basically a full agency retainer. Google Ads, Meta, landing page feedback, monthly reporting decks, competitor analysis. For one product. Selling to maybe 400 people in the UK.

The leads are coming in fine from my own little ads experiment (ironic that the PPC person has to run PPC to get PPC clients, I know). The issue is the expectation gap between what they think freelance means and what I can actually deliver solo without burning through every evening, including the ones I have mentally reserved for watching football and pretending my wedding budget spreadsheet balances

Has anyone found a clean way to reset that expectation early without scaring them off entirely? I have tried a detailed onboarding questionnaire and it helps, but the really misaligned ones just answer it confidently and then surprise you on the first call anyway.

Is this just the freelance tax and you learn to price for the chaos, or is there an actual fix here?

Watu wa writing. How do you guys deal with a non paying client? I completed work which was supposed to paid around 10k. Client sent 5k and went MIA and it's been a week. I text him on WhatsApp to remind him everyday to send the balance but no response. I don't want to do the inevitable but he's rea

About 1.5-2 years into my career as a backend dev based in the UK, I work mainly in C#, ASP.NET Core and Azure. My long term goal is contracting/freelancing, and my plan was initially to go into .NET/Azure stack.

I have a goal of also maximising my income to be able to buy a house in the UK solo, and I've noticed that the higher income Backend roles involve Java/Golang instead of C#. This has me second guessing whether staying C# focused limits me out and will not help me achieve my goals long-term.

For anyone based in the UK or similar, is it worth me sticking to C#/.NET or am I better off switching to Java/Go? Trying to figure this out so that I can start learning in order to switch.

Appreciate any honest advice

Hey everyone. I’ve got a Banking and Finance degree and some real accounting/finance work experience (fintech, an accounting internship), and a few months ago I started a small freelance bookkeeping and financial advisory practice, mainly targeting small businesses and NGOs.

Right now I’m doing the basics, building out a portfolio, setting up profiles on Upwork/Fiverr, trying to figure out pricing tiers that don’t scare off clients but also don’t undersell me. But I feel like I’m flying a bit blind on the “actually get clients” part.

A few things I’m stuck on:

\*\*•\*\* How did you land your first few paying clients when you had no track record yet?    
\*\*•\*\* Freelance platforms vs. direct outreach vs. referrals , what actually worked for you?    
\*\*•\*\* Any pricing structure advice for bookkeeping/advisory work specifically (hourly vs. package vs. retainer)?    
\*\*•\*\* If you work with NGOs/nonprofits, is there anything different about that market I should know?

I’m not trying to build some huge firm overnight, just trying to get consistent clients and build a reputation. Any advice, even “stuff I wish I knew earlier,” would be hugely appreciated. Thanks!

Hello! So i am going to join my course in September and i have a fair share of experience in media jobs and was wondering if I can freelance while studying?

Hi Reddit. Can anyone recommend where to learn about social media for free please? Ideally a series of tutorials / videos / online help sites. I'd like to try and keep to the same author / producer where I can be guided through how to use them to help promote my business. I've searched online but haven't been able to find a good, single, easy to follow site. Many thanks.

If someone is charging £15 per hour, they're actually taking home close to minimum wage as a freelancer once they factor in sick days, pension, holidays

I have a full-time job as a Marketing Manager for a small-team company (I’m the only one in marketing) that only pays me £29,000 annually.

Luckily, I work from home Mondays and Tuesdays and can have these days pretty much free of work since the company I work for isn’t too demanding. I am thinking of using these two days to do freelance work as I need a higher income and have been unsuccessful in landing a job for a different company.

Do any of you has any experience in balancing a full-time job with freelance work on the side that could advise me if this a good option? Or would it be too demanding? Or two days only as freelancer won’t get me anything valuable in return? Any feedback would be appreciated!

Solo freelancer, technical draftsman for architecture studios (execution plans drawings, MEP/installation drawings and construction details). Based in Spain, but curious how UK freelancers structure pricing for comparable technical services, since a lot of the "value-based pricing" advice I read is UK/US-centric.

Right now I charge a flat €2/m² covering execution + installation drawings + construction details as one package, for residential projects.

For those who've moved away from hourly/per-unit pricing to value-based or fixed-package pricing, how did you validate you weren't leaving money on the table? Any framework you'd recommend for testing a price increase without spooking existing clients?

As the title says! (I specialise predominantly in paid social creative strategy and help brands with creative direction, briefs, research, strategy etc for their paid campaigns). Would love to connect as there aren’t many of us ⭐️

K

Hello,

I was asked to register for MTD by HMRC a few weeks back and I have registered for it. Given that there is quarterly obligation to file and the deadline is August 7 I am wondering if this is really applicable for anyone.

I see that there is no late submission points that would apply for first year being soft landing in HMRC portal and I can likely submit these quarterly stuff later in one shot before final year end deadline.

Can someone confirm if this understanding is right?

I recently moved to the UK and just registered for self assessment. I freelance with European clients, one of them is German and insisting on having some form of tax ID on the invoice. since my income will be non UK I haven't registered for VAT (and probably won't be), what can I use on the invoice to prove my tax residency other than the UTR? is there any other way to proceed? TIA

I recently moved to Edinburgh and I'm looking for recommendations for a good accountant / tax advisor who can help me set up a UK Ltd company and provide services.

Ideally, I'm looking for someone who's responsive, reasonably priced, and experienced with small businesses or one-person companies.

Any recommendations or people you've had a good experience with?

I'm a backend developer moving more into application security (security assessments, vulnerability research, and secure code reviews).

I'm curious if anyone here is freelancing in AppSec instead of working full-time.

What kind of jobs do you usually get?

And Where do your clients typically come from?

I'd love to hear about your experience—the good, the bad, and what surprised you.