Licenses needed to start business

[Ray1]

A Driving License would help. Sorry couldnt resist.

[richy_B]

The "partnership" is often the poorest vessel to ever set sail, they often end in tears.

 

Is it possible to split the business in some way? You each contributing equipment and skills, while each retaining separate owner ship of said equipment?

 

I'm not saying you will have problems, but its very, very common.

 

This. You risk the business as well as a friendship.

[@Wildlife_Mgr]

If you go into a partnership I'd suggest you have each very specific roles within the company whereby you're both not in charge of the same things. For example, one could be in charge and deal with all the grounds maintenance side of things and the other deals with all the tree works, etc. This will want to be drawn up into some form of contract, that way you both know exactly where you stand.

 

I work on my own but when I do need help it's usually from my brother. He gets paid for the work he does and the decisions he makes regards where he's working are his decisions and I'll not go against them. He's responsible for those.

 

Liability insurance is not a legal requirement but what you should ask yourself is could you afford to go to court case if someone made a claim against you? For the price it's well worth it purely for piece of mind if nowt else. Also, most places wont employ you if you don't have some.

 

An accountant isn't a necessity, I don't use one. You can however, run things yourself throughout the year. Keep all your receipts neatly and in order, that way, should you wish, you can take everything to an accountant for them to do your end of year returns. If you have everything neatly in date order it wont be too expensive for an accountant to go through them. If however, you have a bag of receipts, all mixed up you might find you end up with a fair bill cos the accountant will have to go through everything and put things in order.

[paulcumberland]

Any Partnership can only have one manager, otherwise at some point it will fail when something comes up that you cannot agree with, I started off some 30 years ago in partnership and lost my brother through that partnership, he wanted out but we could not agree on the price, in the end the business just shut up, and very few words have been past since and big loss for both of us. I'm in partnership with the wife but she has little input and I have final say normally as far as you can with wife's.

An accountant can charge but will keep you on the right lines if good, best advice would be talk to other small self employed people ( building trades have many) and see who they recommend and what they have to pay. My son uses a small acciount and only cost about £200 a year but is at mates rates, my total bill this year is £3K for two business, but looking to get it down.