Going self employed - a couple of questions

[Simon-R]

Following taking Voluntary Redundancy at the end of December I have decided to go self employed again as a Freelance Automotive Standards Auditor and Mystery Shopper. I have an agreement in principle with a company who I will be doing work for. They are well established and well know in the sector so hopefully no worries about getting paid etc.

So I have 2 hopefully simple questions:

1. I will be trading as a sole trader, do I use my name as the business name or do I try and come up with a fancy name e.g. XYZ Auditing. Not planning on setting up a bespoke website at this stage looking to keep things simples or I could call it Simon_R Auditing? what are people thoughts.

2. What insurance cover do freelancers have? Is it just a case of Public Liability or do I need anything specific.

3. Has anyone got some recommendations for software to use for invoicing? or shall I just use excel? I will not be creating huge volumes of invoices but just want an easy and free way of managing it.

Many thanks for any help

Edited by Simon-R on Friday 23 February 13:04

[Simon-R]

Vincecj said:

My advice would be to go limited.

Why? What are the benefits?

[Simon-R]

Eric Mc said:

How many customers will you be invoicing?

Initially only 2 or 3 but over time I hope this will grow but probably to no more than 20???

[Simon-R]

Thanks to all of the really useful pointers, I think I will go with the sole Trader option as it will not influence whether people do business with me at this point, i dont think.

I am already in conversation with an accountant and will talk to some insurance companies on Monday. Other than that just need to sort Bank Account when I have decided on a trading name.

Once again thanks for all of the information