About the invoice?

[Floating662]

I've recently started as a cleaner for a large-ish company, to take the role they informed me I'll have to be self employed.

I have no prior experience of self employment but agreed to the terms and registered with HMRC in a timely fashion. Did some research. All fine.

On my first day (30th sep) when talking me through everything the manager said she would be sending me the invoice template for me to fill in and send to her by the 21st of the month.

I sent a polite email last week requesting said invoice template as I hadn't received it but received no reply so made my own as the deadline was approaching.

What I created was a professional standard invoice and sent it to her yesterday afternoon in pdf format (as reccomeded by the guide I was using)

I received a snippy reply this morning telling me it needs to be in microsoft word format and to redo it and send it today.

I wrote one out on Word and sent that.

I then receive another reply with a template attatched in a different layout telling me to use that in future as the accounts department are very particular.

AIBU to think she should have just sent me the invoice template in the first place if they are so particular, like she said she would

Definitely don't work for them unless it is PAYE and suits you. I am self-employed and have been for more than 30 years. I devise my own invoices, thank you very much and none of my clients can tell me how they are to be done. I also decide my own fees and, to a certain extent, my own hours. If I were you I'd run a mile from them and try finding work on your own account as you are now registered as self-employed. Don't forget that you can offset your travelling expenses and any equipment you provide for the job against tax. If they don't put you on PAYE and HMRC agree the terms of your job mean you should be, they can be fined by HMRC.

I have read your contract. I think they have put a few things in to get around some of the obvious HMRC tests like substitution. But on the whole it is very much then telling you how things will be, what you will be paid etc, that they will provide cleaning equipment is a big fail in the self employment test, I have never provided tools for my plumbers, builders, decorators etc. So most of it reads more like an employment contract than a contracting contract. Writing “This is not an employment contract” at the top doesn’t mean it isn’t.

I rolled my eyes at “you are responsible for PAYE”. They haven’t got a flipping clue, PAYE is a system for employers / employees not self employed! I guess you need to decide what you can do about it. It isn’t self employment but I doubt you will force them to take you on as employed. If you had been there longer, I would encourage you to take them to tribunal for unpaid holidays etc, but probably not worth it at the moment.

By the way, regarding travelling expenses. If you do genuinely set up as a self employed cleaner (i.e. you advertise for business, choose which clients to take on, which days to work, can send someone else etc.), then as a client, I would find it unusual to be billed for your travelling time, however when you do self assessment, you can include travel as a tax deductible expense.

OP they are taking the piss and the pay is very poor! I'd bin this job ASAP they will only get worse I think.

As you can only work weekends (prefer afternoons) have you looked into retail/supermarket work? We'd kill for someone only wanting to work weekends and you'd get paid a lot more too.

Good Luck, you are worth more than they are putting you through

Disguised employment, I'm afraid.

There are better cleaning jobs out there on paye with holiday pay.

Yes, some large companies (in my case JCB and Rolls Royce ) require you to use their systems, which of course one does given the amount of money.

Small suppliers just send a pdf invoice.

Thanks ladies, you have all echoed my gut feeling. I'm being took for a mug.

RE retail, I would gladly do that if somebody would have me on weekends. I worked in retail some years ago pre DC few but that place wasn't flexible at all. I did 16 hours a week but they wanted that spread across 4 days so I had to travel miles each way 4 days a week for around £400 a month and it was miserable.

I'm due to be paid on the 1st November (£216 this month yippee) so I think I'm going to look around for something else and then once I have my money, bin it off.

The yippee was sarcasm btw

I am self employed, I use my own format for my invoices; don't even give a thought about whether my clients like it or not. They do not tell me my hours, we agree what works for us both.

Some clients I charge mileage, some I just include my travel time at my normal hourly rate.

If you're happy to do cleaning at weekends I expect you'd find enough work privately.

£9 ph when you have to sort out your own tax and ni, no holiday or sick pay . Did they charge you for pre employment checks or training too? Might be worth a call to hmrc once you can move on.

If the company you are not working for ;-) has pissed you off sufficiently why not approach the management of the place you are cleaning and offer to cut out the middle man i.e. the rule breaking tosspots who have pseudo employed you? The place where you work will get your services for less, you get to work where and when it's convenient, and for reals you can send someone else if you can't go for some reason. All you need to do is figure out how much tosspots are charging them and undercut slightly. I'd stick it out til Christmas, make a good impression and then pounce in the new year/April for new tax year.

When I spoke to HMRC I briefly raised it as a concern but that was only in passing at the end of the call. They didn't sound too alarmed by it so in turn that made me think it must be all legit. I'm really glad I posted here now.

I'm not able to pick up any work from people at the current job as they're all members of the public you know what I mean.

They didn't charge me for pre employment checks or training no.

That's another point I should make.

I applied via Facebook, got a phone call for an interview and the interview consisted of "this is what you have to do, it's self employed, you clean this area, that area and use these products, congratulations"

They didn't want to do a background check nor ask for any references. It was like they were that desperate, anybody would do.

This may be a bit outing but I have to clean changing rooms / showers both male and female when people are in there in various stages of undress.

How do they know I'm not not a sex offender? I'm not, obviously, but they wouldn't know if I were.

I was saying to my other half it's a good job it's me doing the job and not some creep because they didn't vet me or anything.

Do not send in word format, already from your post there seems to be red flags so I would not send them something that they could easily change.

As long as your invoice has your name, UTR, amount to be paid and bank details that’s all that’s needed.

Could you imagine going into Tesco and refusing to pay them until you gave them a layout of how your receipt should look 🤔🤔.

I'm self employed it's absolutely standard practice to send a pdf as word docs can be altered. So it's funny they were so snippy about it being in word which is less professional.

It's also very unusual to use an invoice template in my experience. And if the do want it bloody done in a certain way they should have sent the template. Really irritating. Yanbu.

So I've just got a phonecall from the deputy manager at work, calling on behalf of the manager (invoice woman) to ask me to confirm my bank details as the details on the invoice are 'wrong' and not working.

They weren't wrong, I proof read them back to myself no less than five times because the last thing I'd want is to not get paid so I was VERY careful to make sure there were no errors.

I've got a bad feeling that they're going to blame it on 1) me or 2) the system.

I'm due to be paid on 1st November but I'm due in tomorrow..

Bad feeling that I'm not going to be paid, that should have said.

Barely above minimum wage and you have to pay your own NI, holidays, pension, sick pay, etc. Disgraceful! Raise it with them, then, when they terminate your contract, report them. You may be able to get some support to mount a legal challenge. There is clear legal precedent about this involving delivery drivers for various apps.

@Floating662 so sorry to hear this. Please start looking for something else. They're just going to mess you around.

Just caught up on this.

Can you do evenings as well sometimes? I think you could earn more privately doing small offices, retail spaces that are closed in the evenings/weekends and sack this lot off.

If they are paying you £9 an hour then they are charging much more than that to the people you are cleaning for!