Anyone gone from self employed to running company?

[Mumofdolls]

Hi, just looking to see if anyone has gone from self employed to company? My partner is a tradesman has been self employed for about 8years now,he got up and running with help of business enterprise. We are thinking now is the time to expand as he is knocking work back all
the time because he just can’t take on anymore work by himself. He has a great reputation in our area and most of his work comes from recommendations. He have been approached about taking in an apprenticeship but he just doesn’t know and the leap from self employed to having employees is unknown territory for him. Currently I do all the books and paperwork and I send them all to our accountant she checks everything and files his returns, but I know nothing about paye etc we have so many questions. How do you know you can afford staff, holidays and sick days etc. We live rural so getting another meet with business enterprise right now is unlikely. Any advice for where to look more in depth or personal experience would be much appreciated.

I went from self-employed, to employed, to having my own limited company.

BUT I'm a limited company of only one person, so not much use to you on advising about having employees.

One option could be for him to set up his own limited company and trade that way, and get it up and running and established so you can get a feel for how that all works (and the differences between that and self employed). Your accountant should be able to advise on how to set that all up and how to manage it.

Then you can gradually find out more about adding in employees. I'd assume he'd need to build up funds in his business account first anyway? I have no idea though on employees.

We run our own company - employees complicate things considerably. Your dh has a great reputation, one that he is proud of I assume - he will have to recruit very carefully to ensure he can maintain quality and reliability and encouraging employees to care as much as he does is not always easy and could ruin his business. I often wish dh had stayed as self employed - he works all hours - still working now and up since 5am! It never stops and I'm not sure the money compensates, his health suffers and I miss him.
Contact the FSB - Federation of Small Businesses to connect with other local businesses.

Thanks for the reply yes we definitely will be speaking to our accountant hopefully she will give us some advice. I have read quite a few post on a fb group tonight of people who wish they had stayed self employed, it’s so difficult to know what to do for the best. We currently are in a good situation with regard to savings as being self employed we always make sure to have a pot that we can use if needed. But you are spot on with the worry of taking on an employee that will keep his standards. He literally is working himself into the ground right now which is not great. Someone on a fb group suggested staying self employed and taking on someone who will be self employed themselves to work with, not sure how that goes as a sole trader but will definitely look into all options. Thanks for the replies.x

Your DJ has to just learn to say no. We recently took on another Senior Manager- life has not got easier - it just enabled us to take on more work. What do you do if someone goes on the sick - you have to pay them at the very least Statutory and some GPssign them off for very little - you have to pay Stat sick psy almost £100/week for 26 weeks and the work still has to be done so you’ll need to pay someone else to do the job too. Staff are a big risk.

Sorry my reply was badly edited. We keep a big reserve in the business so we head off cashflow issues and pay staff regardless (and afford sick leave and getting in a replacement, when it happens - we pay enhanced sick pay, so it's expensive when it happens). And it's just as well because some of our clients despite being household names are very slack at paying invoices on time and often delay payment by months for no good reason other than not getting their shit together - in the beginning we had to lend money to the business to cover cash flow issues - it can be a big problem for small businesses.