“We are on a mission to make life easier for small firms by getting money moving faster through the economy by tackling late payments.”
Emma Jones CBE, Small Business Commissioner
It’s good to see the government keeping up the pace on its late payment plans this week.
READ MORE >Posted on 31 March 2026
Guest post by SA Mathieson
You can edit with a typewriter or a calculator, but not both, legendary Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter apparently used to tell his underlings.*
This may be true if you work for a large organisation, but if you are a creative freelancer it helps if you can use the modern equivalent of both.
While most people can use a word processor, spreadsheets remain a mystery to many. That’s one reason why spreadsheets are one of the two main topics of my new course on demystifying technology for freelancers, along with artificial intelligence.
READ MORE >Posted on 20 March 2026
Over the years I’ve learnt that hot takes on Budget day are a waste of time. The really interesting stuff for freelancers tends to be tucked away in the supporting documents.
The Chancellor only really talks about half the stuff that’s relevant when she speaks in the Commons.
I’ve just spent a day looking through the other half, and here’s a summary of some of the bits that might be useful for freelancers:
READ MORE >Posted on 01 December 2025
An umbrella company (or just ‘umbrella’ for short) is how a client might bring you in to work, usually on short term projects, but avoid having to put your on their payroll.
Instead you will be on the payroll of another company (the umbrella company) which will treat you as their employee. They put you on the umbrella’s payroll, use the PAYE system and take off income tax and NI, student loan repayment and pension contributions just as any other employer does.
READ MORE >Posted on 16 October 2025
For years I’ve been talking about the importance for freelancers of calculating the cost of your personal life and then targeting the amount of work you need to get to cover those costs.
READ MORE >Posted on 04 September 2025
There was an interesting bit of news for limited company freelancers a couple of weeks ago.
If you’re not sure what a limited company freelancer is, read this guide >
The government announced it was ditching the plans for ‘Making Tax Digital for Corporation Tax’.
READ MORE >Posted on 01 August 2025
Late payments are always a hot topic on my training courses.
For any freelancer who sends out an invoice, it can feel like dropping a stone down a well and waiting to see when (if?) there’ll be a splash.
I even have a whole help sheet on the topic:
Help sheet 13: Late Payments and how to avoid them >
Posted on 01 August 2025
This post has been updated to clarify the difference between the sole trader registration threshold and the trading allowance.
Well, it’s nice to write about some good-ish news.
The government has announced that the point at which a sole trader has to register as such for self-assessment (ie filling in a tax form every year) will go up from £1,000 to £3,000 per year “in this parliament”.
That should mean that you’ll soon be able to earn £3,000 ‘on the side’ from sole trader work, without having to register as a sole trader for self assessment.
The change could benefit PAYE freelancers who just do a bit of sole trader work.
Posted on 12 March 2025
I’ve written many times over the last decade about HMRC’s big Making Tax Digital project – aka MTD.
Over the next few years it will mean a radical change for many sole traders.
If you’re registered as self-employed for self-assessment, this means you!
Some sole traders will need to get their heads around this from April 2025, for reasons I explain below.
You might even have received a letter from HMRC which alerts you to the fact that you might (or might not) need to engage with MTD from April 2026.
READ MORE >Posted on 16 February 2025
Any sole trader or company freelancer will know how important it is to get invoicing right. One missing code number, or the wrong format, and you might not get paid.
I even have a whole help sheet on late payments and how to avoid them >
The government has been consulting on the next step in invoicing – e-invoicing.
READ MORE >Posted on 16 February 2025
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