Five Ways To Protect Yourself When You’re Self-Employed
When you are self-employed, you may feel like one of the fortunate ones. You don’t have a manager that you hate, you don’t have to work with anyone that you don’t want to, and you have control of your income. However, it’s safe to say that there is also a lot you need to sort out in order to be stable.
When you are self-employed, you may feel like one of the fortunate ones. You don’t have a manager that you hate, you don’t have to work with anyone that you don’t want to, and you have control of your income. However, it’s safe to say that there is also a lot you need to sort out in order to be stable.
When you go it alone you lose the protection that you would get from an employer, so, let’s have a look at some of the ways you can look out for yourself, because at the end of the day, being self-employed can far outweigh the benefits of being employed.
Use An Accountant
When you work for someone, they will take care of your taxes and payments. But, when you’re working for yourself, you have the responsibility to do this yourself. That is unless you pay an accountant to do it for you. Taking care of your taxes can be a time-consuming task, so hiring an accountant can protect you financially and free up some time to do other tasks.
Take Out Insurance
No buts, if’s, or maybes, you need to make sure you take out insurance. It may seem like it’s taking a big step, but you need to be protected. It’s worth having a look at business insurance quotes and researching income insurance.
Know And Understand Your Rights
You need to know your rights and understand them. Even if you are sub-contracting to a company, you need to know that you are protected. Also, when choosing clients to work with, it’s important for you to know how to defend yourself if things don’t pan out.
Build A Financial Safety Net
When you’re self-employed money can become a huge issue. If you work all of a sudden dries up, or you don’t have an invoice paid on time, you can sometimes be left short if you don’t plan for it. Building yourself a financial safety net is definitely a good idea. It’s going to be there for the times when things are less than stable. It will also give you peace of mind that you are going to be able ot pay your bills.
Account For Holiday Time
This might not be something that all self-employed people want to do, however, it can be useful. Much like having a financial safety net protects you so does accounting for your holiday time. At the end of the day, you don’t have an employer to pay you for your holidays so you need to decide if you want to put a holiday fund to one side to cover for your time off. The best thing you can do is plan your time off in advance, this way you will either know that you need to build extra funds before or after, or expect a day with no income.
These are just five of the ways you can protect yourself as a self-employed person. What do you do as a self-employed person to make sure you are looked after? Please share some tips in the comments below.