Invoicing as a consultant

[DoingItForTheKid]

I may be doing some ad hoc work for a company as a consultant, and the contract says I will have to invoice them to be paid.

Do I have to set up a company to be able to invoice?

You don’t. When I was in your position I used Wave to produce invoices. www.waveapps.com/

Good luck

Thank you. I don't usually do a tax return but do I have to do one now?

Yes, you need to do a tax return, as the company will be paying you money that hasn't been taxed.

You also have to register as self employed. Unless you start to do a lot of consultancy work or you get clients that require it, you will probably just be able to be a self employed sole trader for this work, rather than setting up a limited company. You can also do PAYE work at the same time, it doesn't have to be either/or.

If you look on the HMRC website, there's advice about what you need to do.

No you don't. I work as a sole trader and just send invoices to clients in a word document. You don't need an app unless there are loads of them. You can find templates on line to make them look professional. They get paid into a business bank account but there is no reason why they could not be paid directly into your personal account as long as everything is declared to HMRC as income. I use an accountant for a couple of hundred pounds a year to do this for me.