Blog

Many London-based businesses find that using a professional telephone answering service, such as the one provided by Capital Office in London, to be very beneficial in many ways. Like most things in the capital city, the costs associated with starting up and sustaining a business in London can often far exceed the costs paid in other less expensive areas of the UK.

One way to keep your business running costs down is by taking advantage of the services offered by a professional business call answering service. Luckily, London is home to one of the best call answering services in the country and offers businesses of all sizes the help they need to significantly reduce their overheads while at the same time maintaining a very high level of customer service and customer satisfaction.

How can your business call answering service save me money?

Well to put it in plain English, your business gets to benefit from a full-time receptionist answering every single incoming business call you receive without you actually having to employ any staff or provide an office or reception area for them to work from.

Using virtual office services such as these can save you thousands of pounds because your business will no be paying out to cover the wages of any reception or office staff. You will also be saving a lot of money on office rent, utility bills, IT infrastructure and equipment costs.

When you think that the average salary for a London-based receptionist on a full-time employment contract is in the region of £25,000 per annum, by choosing to use a professional call answering service for your business instead will be making you an instant saving of thousands of pounds. This is an obvious saving, but when you add on all the extra savings from not having to include office rental, IT and telephony-related equipment, power, heating and water bills etc. it makes so much sense to go with a virtual service provider that can deliver you the professional services you need at a remarkably low price.

Why choose Capital Office Call Answering Services?

With our professional business call answering services, you get to benefit from our services immediately. Think of the time you will be saving not having the hassle of finding your own receptionist – from paying for a job advertisement, sorting through job applications, short-listing candidates, going through the interview process and finally appointing the best candidate.

In most cases, you may also have to wait while your new employee serves out their notice at their previous employment before they can even start working for you. Then you need to provide your receptionist with an office to work from and the equipment needed to answer your calls. You also need to work out an employment contract, work out National Insurance contributions, pension payments and holiday entitlements etc.

Instead of all this hassle, why not simply save yourself a lot of time by booking our professional call answering services. There are no setup fees involved and instead of waiting around for weeks, you get to benefit from our services from day one. You can directly benefit from the services of a fully qualified and experienced telephone receptionist at the fraction of the cost of employing your own.

How does your call answering service work?

Our friendly staff at Capital Office can quickly and smoothly set up your fully personalised call answering service the same day. We will need to know your preferred greeting so that your virtual receptionist can answer your calls exactly as you like.

You will get your own unique London based telephone number that you can use as your own, or if you want to keep your existing business number, you can choose to have your calls diverted to your personally issued new number.

Our professional call answering team will recognise your telephone number and will be able to answer your incoming business calls swiftly, politely and efficiently. Your callers will get to hear a professionally trained receptionist answer their call and they will never know they are speaking to anyone other than an in-house staff member.

Your callers will also interact directly with a real human being, so this means they will not be put off by being greeted with an automated answering service or a robotic recorded message. In reality, our London-based call answering staff are a friendly team of real-world receptionist with many years of collective experience!

You can tell us exactly how to handle your incoming business calls and what you want us to do with them. For example, you may want us to log every incoming call and take messages that can be passed on to you later in the day. Or you may prefer us to filter your calls and only put through genuine calls directly to you from existing customers or B2B clients.

Your business callers will never know

Because our team of dedicated virtual receptionists are all professionally trained and have plenty of experience, your existing and prospective customers will be delivered with a very high level of customer service. Their call will be answered quickly with your preferred greeting and dealt with accordingly. This can include being directed to one of your staff members as appropriate, a message taken and relayed either immediately or at a convenient time as dictated by yourself via either text message or email so you can call them back at a time that is more convenient.

Having a real-life human answering your phone calls creates a much better first impression of your business than being greeted by an answering machine. You may consider using an answering machine to take your calls and messages while you are otherwise engaged, but research has shown that a high percentage of first-time business callers are put off by encountering an answering machine. Most callers either put the phone down without leaving a message and never bother to call back, or they will leave a message and then worry that they will never be called back.

The reassurance of speaking to an actual person on the end of the line can make all the difference. Callers are much more happy to leave messages with a real receptionist and are more confident that their message will get through to the right person and be called back accordingly.

This is a much better plan of action to take for the success of your business than sitting and listening to the playback on your answering machine only to hear many callers immediately hang up on hearing the message. Research shows that as many as seven out of ten business callers do just this when met with an answering machine. To you that can mean you are missing out on up to 70% of potential new customers coming to you via your business phone. Can you really afford to lose so many potential new customers to the coldness and detachment of an answering machine?

Sounds too good to be true!

You may be wondering if there is any catch to our call answering services. The truth is that there are none! It is so much simpler, quicker, cheaper and less hassle to use a good call answering service such as ours for the following reasons as well as the ones already mentioned above:

• No more cold callers: As your calls are screened by our service, you will never be disturbed by cold callers wanting to sell you something.
• Privacy and protection: Your home telephone number will be kept private, this is especially important for those small business owners that work from home.
• No interruptions: You don't need to break your concentration or interrupt a business meeting with a client to constantly answer your incoming business calls.
• Higher productivity: When you need to get your head down and get a work project completed in peace or to meet a tight deadline, you can get great peace of mind knowing that your calls are being answered.

Capital Office London can deliver you with a professional unlimited call answering service at an incredibly cost-effective price, especially when you compare prices against hiring your own in-house staff.

Our professional call answering service can help your business to grow in so many ways and free up your cash flow to reinvest back into your business instead of spending it on expensive overheads.

To get a clear idea of how our call answering services can help you, watch our quick video or contact our friendly team at Capital Office to discuss your business needs and how our flexible service can help you.

There has been an increasing rise in popularity of using virtual receptionists and professional call answering services amongst solo-entrepreneurs, small and medium-sized businesses across the UK in recent years. The reasons for the rise in popularity of these services is quite obvious once you take a look at the many benefits that using these virtual services can bring to your business and how they can help you to improve your productivity levels and bottom line.

Let's take a closer look at ten ways that using a professional call answering service or hiring a virtual receptionist can help your business to improve.

1: No need to hire and train new staff

One of the most obvious benefits for your business, especially if you are a sole trader or solo-entrepreneur that employs no other staff, is the fact that you will have a fully trained professional virtual receptionist ready to take your business calls from day one.

Professional call answering services, such as our own team at Capital Offices in London, are all fully-trained individuals with years of experience of working as a virtual receptionist. This means that as soon as you book our services, you will get immediate telephone coverage with polite and professional receptionists answering your calls using the greeting of your choice.

You will be saving yourself a heck of a lot of time and money hiring a virtual receptionist rather than employing one for your business by yourself. Employing your own receptionist will mean paying for a job advert, sorting through tons of job applications, shortlisting the best candidates, scheduling interviews, conducting interviews and then having to complete all the legal paperwork, registration with HMRC and drawing up of a contract of employment.

All this hassle and expense even before you can start to benefit from having the help of a receptionist! Then there is the settling in period and the training needed, especially if you have chosen someone with little receptionist experience.

It is so much simpler, quicker, cheaper and less hassle to use a good call answering service instead!

2: No more cold callers!

We all know that you cannot afford to ignore your ringing phone, especially if you are running a business where you are encouraging prospective new customers to call you for more information about your products or services.

Advertising your business number and making it visible to the general public will not only enable you to receive calls and enquiries from prospective new customers, as well as existing customers, but you are also opening yourself up to calls from sales reps and cold callers from all sorts of different industries. It can be incredibly frustrating to answer your business phone to find that maybe three out of five incoming calls are from sales reps or survey companies.

With a professional call answering service, you will never need to take the call in the first place. Your own virtual receptionist will be able to screen all of your calls for you, which means that you will only get genuine business calls coming through to you that actually want to get.

3: Put your productivity into overdrive

By using our high-quality call answering services you can truly maximise your productivity levels and take them to new heights! We all know that constantly being disturbed by your phone ringing can break your concentration and take your focus away from your important work tasks.

Having your own virtual receptionist will enable you to safely ignore your phone and allow you to continue to focus on your work projects without disruption. You don't need to worry about missed sales opportunities or missing important messages from your clients or customers because your virtual receptionist will intercept your calls on your behalf and leave you in peace to get on with your work. Your business caller will still feel very valued in your absence because their call has been answered swiftly, politely and professionally.

4: Travel between meetings safely

If your business involves you being on the road a lot travelling between customers or clients, then you will have a problem with answering your phone safely. It may be incredibly frustrating and time-consuming to constantly need to pull your car over to the side of the road to simply answer your phone each time it rings.

We all know that it is against the law to drive while on a mobile phone, so ignoring this can seriously put your safety at risk while driving. If you are spotted driving while on your phone by a police officer or a surveillance camera, you can face a hefty fine and points on your driving licence.

You can travel more safely between your appointments with more concentration and with fewer interruptions when you put your business calls into the hands of a professional virtual receptionist.

5: Phone cover while in meetings

There can be nothing more frustrating for your clients or customers than you constantly interrupting your business meeting by taking incoming calls on your phone. Your call answering service can take down important messages for you while you are busy in your meeting and quickly deliver them to you once you are free and able to respond to your messages.

6: Prioritise your callers

When you are busy working or in a meeting, you need to focus on what you are doing at the time. This can often mean having to miss a call or query from an important existing customer or B2B partner. Your virtual receptionist will be able to take messages from your general callers, but will also be briefed about any very important callers that need to be prioritised. This can often mean putting these calls directly through to you regardless of where you are or what you are doing.

7: Make your business look bigger than it is

Your prospective new customers will call you for more information about your products and services. When they have their call answered by a professional receptionist, they will immediately get an impression of a large and successful business with an organised set-up. This is a much better first impression to create in your customer’s mind than to have their call answered by a very flustered and irritated business owner that is trying to juggle too many tasks at once.

This can help to reassure prospective new customers or B2B clients that may be a little wary about dealing with a small, unknown company.

8: Much better customer service

The success of your business starts and ends with your customers. Without them, you would have no business! Keeping your customers happy and well treated is of vital importance for your business success, so having a very professional virtual receptionist on hand to answer customer calls promptly, politely and with a friendly manner, each and every time they call will add so much power to your ability to convert prospects to paying customers.

A consistent level of high-quality customer service can build a lot of trust and loyalty in your customers that means they are more likely to repeat-buy from you rather than go to one of your competitors.

9: Flexible services

Hiring our call answering services gives you a lot of flexibility that you couldn't get from employing your own staff. You may be working from a very tight budget that means you cannot afford to employ a full-time receptionist for your business. Staff wages and all the added expenses that come with providing your employees with the IT equipment and infrastructure needed for them to do an effective job all costs a lot of money.

The great thing with professional unlimited call answering services such as ours is that you can tailor it to suit your needs. You can save yourself a lot of money by using our virtual solution for just one month, three months, six months or twelve months – as you need us!

10: You get to keep more of your money

Quite simply, it is far more cost-effective for you to use virtual services such as our Professional Unlimited Call Answering Service because it is far more affordable than employing your own staff and kitting out an office or reception area of your own.

In many cases, a sole trader or solo-entrepreneur that is happy working from home can completely avoid the necessity and costs of setting up a physical office for their business if they are happy to continue along as they are and have no plans to expand their business beyond creating a job for themselves alone. Or if they prefer to have a small and flexible workspace where their team can collaborate together without having any designated desk space.

With our professional call answering service, our team of PA's answer your phone calls allowing you to have great peace of mind that you haven't missed any important business calls while you were unavailable on were busy in a meeting. This means that you will be left with more money in your bank account that can be invested in other important areas of your business.

Find out more about our professional call answering services and how cost-effective our services are!

An important part of any business set up is their office base, even a solo-entrepreneur needs some sort of office set up to work, from even if you are starting your business from home using a spare bedroom or maybe even your kitchen table!

Sorting out your office can be a daunting task, especially if this is your very first business set up and you have no idea where to start. You need to figure out how much space you will need if you are going to employ staff, will they need their own desk space or would they be better off with a flexible shared workspace? Do you actually need an office at all? If you are starting small, is there any reason why you cannot outsource your office tasks to save yourself some money on office rent, wages and utilities?

There are so many questions to ask yourself before you can even get your business up and running efficiently, but you need to find answers because your business will not work properly without having a good office structure in place.

What sort of office space is your company going to need?

One of the questions you may not have asked yourself is what type of working space your company is going to need. If your business involves the manufacture of a product or the assembly, repair or rebuilding of a physical item then you will obviously be going to need some sort of workshop space with plenty of room for your necessary tools, machinery, spare part storage etc.

However, just because you need plenty of productive workshop area doesn't necessarily mean that you will also need to rent huge office space to go with it. There are many small businesses, such as motor mechanics, car repair operations, florists, small bakeries etc. that simply don't need to have a large on-site office.

If you are starting a business that needs more workshop space rather than office space, don't be conned into renting out unsuitable premises that have a 50/50 split floorspace between office and workshop areas. Many garages and workshops have large ground-floor spaces that are ideal for this type of business, but will often come with built-in offices on the floor above that are exactly the same size as the floor below. You may well end up paying through the nose to rent a property and be spending out your hard-earned cash on renting empty and unwanted office space when it is really only the workshop space you need.

The changing face of office leasing

If your business is actually office-based, then obviously you will need to look at renting office space to accommodate your staff. These days new business owners are looking for more flexibility with their office needs. Fortunately, the days of strict and inflexible long-term office leases are long gone.

In the past many office leasing companies would inflict harsh financial penalties on their clients should they want to end their contracts early. This could happen if the office space being rented no longer met the needs of the company and they wished to move to larger premises, or even downscale to smaller facilities. It didn't really matter what the reason was for breaking the contract, the office leasing companies would almost always put a clause in the leasing terms and conditions to include a harsh penalty for not seeing out the contract.

This often left the client in a frustrating situation being stuck in unsuitable office facilities for the duration of the lease or paying to get out of the lease. Either way, the old system was expensive no matter which way the business chose to go.

These days modern companies don't just look for one type of office space, instead, they recognise the need for more flexibility to allow their staff to share workspaces and resources. They need areas where they can collaborate and converse with their teammates on joint projects and to share information easily.

The way we work is changing, and so the type of workspace we need will also need to change to meet our needs. Let's take a look at some popular office set-ups and why they could be a good fit for your business needs.

Virtual offices

The popularity of virtual office services has boomed in recent years. This is mostly down to the rapid rise in the numbers of self-employed people in the UK. Most new solo-entrepreneurs are happy to work from home to help keep costs down to an absolute minimum, but still need to portray a very professional business face to build trust in their clients and their company.

This is where the virtual office stands head and shoulders above simply renting office space in your local town or city for your business. With a virtual office service, such as Capital Office's Complete Virtual Office service, comes with a very prestigious business address that is centred in the heart of London's business district.

Choosing to have your business admin handled by a professional virtual office service provider such as us will also mean that your business gets to use a London telephone number and a high-quality call answering service with experienced virtual receptionists using your personalised business greeting.

You will never have to worry about missing a vital and important business phone call ever again, which can be especially reassuring when you are busy concentrating on a project or in a business meeting with a client. You will also be able to keep your professional work number separate from your private home number, meaning you will not be inundated at home with sales calls and scam artists trying to get your financial details.

Because you get a professional central-London office address for your business with your complete virtual office package, you also get a reliable and efficient mail sorting service where all of your business post will be sorted and forwarded on to you.

You can choose to have your business mail collected and forwarded to an address of your choice at regular intervals that suits your timetable, or you can drop by our offices to collect your mail in person. You can also have a scan and email service where we open your business post on your behalf, scan your mail and email the scanned documents directly to you. This can ensure that you never miss any important statutory mail coming from Companies House or HMRC that you cannot afford to ignore or mislay.

Complete virtual office services are ideal for solo-entrepreneurs and SME's that want to keep their costs down, yet still, ensure they run an efficient office while building a prestigious business profile for their company.

Co-working spaces

There are a number of co-working hugs springing up around the country in response to solo-entrepreneurs looking for more flexibility. These sort of spaces can be very handy, especially if you are running your businesses on a part-time basis, and don't want to have the expense of renting a full-time permanent office that will sit empty for the majority of the week.

With co-working, you can choose to use the space as and when suits you. In most cities, you can find co-working facilities that operate 24 hours a day, so if you were planning on starting a business on the side of your full-time job, you can get access to a co-working area during your free time in the evenings and at weekends.

The greatest benefit of using a co-working space is that you will be mixing with like-minded people who can help to give you a sense of community. This means you don't need to feel so isolated or alone if you are a solo-entrepreneur working from home. You can mix and mingle with others in a co-working environment as much or as little as you please.

You never know, there may even be some very useful contacts that you can make within your co-working community that can come in handy to help you with your work or a particular project that you are working on.

Mostly, co-working is great for anyone just starting out and not wanting to blow a huge chunk of their budget on setting up a physical office.

Fully Serviced offices

Probably the most expensive of these alternative office solutions to invest in fully serviced offices are just that – a complete turn-key walk-in and operate solution for a business owner that is itching to jump in and get started.

Everything you need from a working physical office space will be included in one monthly bill. So for example, your office rent, power, internet service, heating, maintenance, cleaning and IT equipment are all in place and ready to use. You will also benefit from a permanent on-site front of house receptionist that can receive your visitors and deliver them to your offices.

You may be offered optional extra services such as in-house mail sorting and telephone call handling, but you will need to check the small print carefully to see what is and what is not included in your service charge.

Leased offices

A more traditional approach that may be suitable for already established businesses that have outgrown their current available workspace or have grown too large to operate from a co-working space. Leased offices offer you the opportunity to truly put your own stamp on your office space. You can choose exactly how you want to plan and layout your office instead of having to adapt to an existing setup, such as what is offered by a fully serviced office solution.

The costs of this type of office set-up will need to be carefully considered. Unlike fully serviced offices that charge one regular monthly fee, you will be paying a monthly rent for your office, but you will also need to add on the costs of kitting out your office yourself, plus utility costs, business rates, IT infrastructure and maintenance costs etc.

Choose the most flexible option

No matter which of these office set-ups appeal to you, it would be wise to take some time to carefully think about your decision before going ahead. Think about how rapidly you expect your business to grow and whether your choice of office set-up will still be suitable for your needs in two, three or five years time.

Choose the option that suits you right now, but make sure you have the ability to scale up or scale down your office needs easily to match the ebb and flow of your business.

If you would like to find out more about our Complete Virtual Office solutions, do not hesitate to chat to one of our live agents from our website or give our friendly team a call.

Call us: 0207 566 3939

EMAIL: OFFICE@CAPITAL-OFFICE.CO.UK

Call in to meet us at Capital Office, Kemp House, 152 - 160 City Road, London, EC1V 2NX. We look forward to meeting you!

Running your own business takes a lot of hard work and effort. Any business owner will agree and appreciate that fact, but a big part of making your business a success is to be open to the latest ideas and innovations in technology.It can take a good while to establish an efficient and productive workplace with a lot of testing, trial and error along the way to find what works best for you. However, if you want to stay on top and run your business to maximum efficiency than you cannot risk becoming complacent about your work processes and procedures.

How is technology improving the workplace?

There has been a technological explosion over recent years that has seen the rapid adoption of new technology and computer apps and tools that have provided great advancements in the workplace. This has meant that a lot of brand new startups have jumped in with a completely different workplace design that looks nothing like how a traditional business was structured, even as little as five years ago.There is no denying that the workplace has been gradually evolving over the years with small improvements and updates, but throughout many decades the humble office has pretty much stuck to the same tried and tested structure that existed 150 years ago, or even longer.New start-up businesses are finding new ways of working that not only help to improve productivity in the workplace, but also enable entrepreneurs to start their new ventures as a lean business operating on a minimal budget.This involves creating the right workplace environment to attract and retain their key staff members that will act as the foundation nuts and bolts of their business. Many new business enterprises are started these days on a very small scale with just a handful of key staff that are essential to the company. Modern technology has enabled more entrepreneurs to launch their successful business ideas without needing huge financial backing or business loans for large-scale office and workspace premises to work out of, or the need to hire as many employees as would have been needed on the ground as say 15 or 20 years ago.Modern technology has now been providing new business owners with the right tools for productivity, effectiveness and efficiency at the fraction of the cost of having to pay in-house staff to do certain essential everyday tasks.

Flexibility to grow and expand or scale down as needed

A lot of business owners can face fluctuations in business revenue throughout the year. This is quite commonly expected for seasonal businesses and for those who's manufacturing output depends on the consistency of incoming orders. Navigating the ebbs and flows of a variable cash-flow and managing it well is one of the key elements to running a successful long-lasting business.The flexibility that modern technology offers a business owner means that they can scale up or scale down their operations to match their workflow and will mean that they are not paying out a huge chunk of their business revenue on costly office rental contracts or staff wages.These days your company staff no longer need to be chained to their work desks or glued to their computer screens to ensure that their tasks get completed. The introduction of portable IT products such as laptops, tablets and smartphones have enabled workers to carry their work with them. This has lead to a lot of employers offering flexible work contacts to their employees that has enabled many of them to hire remote staff that can work from home so they don't have to pay out to supply their workers with a physical bricks and mortar office, the IT and telecommunications infrastructure needed, or power and water services that go with a standard office lease.For the business owner, this is a very freeing approach because they can simply take on more remote freelance or contracted staff to help them complete an incoming large project that their existing team may struggle to cope with on their own. It also means that they don't need to turn down any opportunities that come their way simply because they lack the capacity to handle large projects with the staff they currently have.The use of online collaboration tools such as Slack and Smartsheet means that you can control all of your team members from one place, no matter where in the world they are! Your team can collaborate and share files, progress and essential information in one place and you can keep an eye on everything that is going on without needing to leave the comfort of your office.

Scaled-down workplaces

With the use of modern technology combined with flexible working patterns, many business owners find that they no longer need as many office desks or workstations than before. Because not every employee is in your office all day every day, you can look at saving yourself a lot of money by having a scaled-down office structure where desk spaces are shared between employees.Technology is a wonderful thing for productivity and efficiency at work, but you may not want to go as far as using smart sensor technology to monitor your desk occupancy, but it is useful to know how many people are using desk space at any one time.Knowing how long desks are left vacant can help you analyse how much desk space your company actually needs. You could look at incorporating hot desks or workspace benches where your employees have somewhere to work from while in the office, but isn't their own designated area and is shared by your team as a collective.

Virtual Office Options

Is there actually a need for you to have a workplace office or reception area at all?This is a very important question to ask yourself, especially if you are setting yourself up as a sole trader or solo-entrepreneur. You may be thinking of starting up a small business from home or from a small workshop or retail shop where you either don't have the space for an office set up, or you simply don't need to run an office or have a reception area.Of course, if you are setting up on your own, you will have to realise that you need to handle all of your business administration tasks by yourself and that includes answering your business calls, doing your own bookkeeping and business accounts as well as opening and dealing with all your business post.For a lot of solo-entrepreneurs with big ideas, the thought of doing everything yourself, right down to being your own receptionist and office clerk, can be very frustrating. The time it takes to do your everyday administration tasks can be huge, and it is time that could be better spent more productively elsewhere on your business.This is why Complete Virtual Office Services have taken off in recent years, especially amongst small business owners that are trying hard to start and grow their business on a limited budget. Virtual office services are wonderful tools for a solo-entrepreneur simply because they don't need to blow their budget on leasing office space and hiring administrative staff to look after these essential business tasks.By using virtual services you can free up your time to spend engaging with prospective new customers or building your business network, or simply actually doing your work instead of getting distracted and interrupted by answering the phone every time it rings.If you think you can handle your incoming business post by yourself because that is just one task per day and can be handled in the morning, then this task is still time-consuming enough to tie up a decent chunk of your working day. Answering your telephone on top of this is different because the phone can ring at any time during the day. This is why it makes good business sense to look at using a professional call answering service such as the one offered by Capital Offices.Professional call answering services can free up your time and allow you to concentrate on your work without constant interruptions. This means that you can become more productive and are able to better meet your client deadlines. Your business calls will be in the safest of hands and will ensure that not a single phone call is missed because you are busy working or are with an important client that needs your full attention.With a call answering service alone you will greatly benefit because you will never lose any new opportunities coming from curious potential customers and your callers will be impressed that you have a professional receptionist answering their call instead of the stressed-out boss who is obviously struggling to manage everything on their own.

Better communications

Winning new clients and holding on to your existing customer base is crucial if you want your business to remain sustainable. A lot of business success is down to your customer service and the way you communicate with people.There is so much modern technology available that you can take advantage of to make managing your customer relationships easier, and that includes outsourcing some of your essential business tasks to experts in their field that can help you.Rather than struggling with numbers and balancing your books, you can look at hiring a professional accountant or using an online bookkeeping and accounting solution, such as QuickBooks. For your business administrative tasks, you can look at hiring either Complete Virtual Office Services or just having your business calls taken care of via a Professional Call Answering Service.Additional physical workspace such as meeting rooms are also being changed for the better by modern technology. No longer do you need to pay out rent on a meeting room that is hardly used on a regular basis. Instead, you can look at taking advantage of hiring ready to use meeting room space in London for your important client meetings or as a gathering place for your annual AGM.All these advancements mean that you can help your business to reach high levels of productivity, collaborate easily with all of your team without the need to keep them tied to your office, and save a lot of money by using apps, software tools and virtual services.If you would like more information about any of our professional business services, feel free to call our friendly team on 0207 566 3939 or email us: OFFICE@CAPITAL-OFFICE.CO.UK or why not pop in to meet us at Capital Office, Kemp House, 152 - 160 City Road, London, EC1V 2NX.

When starting up a new business your mind will automatically start thinking about why type of office set up you will need to get your new enterprise off the ground. This can be a very easy choice for a solo-entrepreneur that plans to start off working from home in a spare bedroom, home office or even from their kitchen table. However, the time will hopefully come where they will need to make plans for some sort of office as their business grows and expands.For those who are planning to jump-start a small business or a partnership where you need to facilitate an office or a workspace to operate from then there is the option of choosing to rent a fully serviced office. This type of office space can save you a lot of time and money because you don't need to actually set up your own physical office space at all – you will simply be able to walk your staff right into a fully set-up and working office space as soon as you sign on the dotted line of your serviced office agreement.

What is a fully serviced office?

Serviced office spaces isn't exactly a new thing to the business world. Rented service office spaces started to pop up in the USA back in the 1960s. The providers most often offered serviced offices as a temporary solution for business owners that were planning to relocate their business to another area or larger premises and who needed an immediate stop-gap solution to keep their business ticking over while their move took place.In most cases back in the early days of serviced offices, the space was only ever used for the short-term so were pretty much overlooked by well-established businesses that had no plans to move premises. It is only in recent years with the rise in the numbers of entrepreneurs and lean business start-ups that the idea of the fully serviced office has really taken off. The idea soon spread to the UK, mostly during the late 90s and in fact, the UK alone has recently seen a 157% increase in serviced office take up.There are many benefits to choosing a fully serviced office set up when compared to setting up your own physical office from scratch. Let's take a look at some of the key advantages:

Greater flexibility

Probably the most beneficial element of working from a fully serviced office space is the flexibility that this can give to your business. Most serviced offices come with short-term contracts that you can choose to renew over again, should you need to. This is in stark contrast to setting up your own physical office space where you may have no other choice but to sign up for a lengthy fixed term contract that could see you tied up with for several years.Leasing your own physical office space is not only costly for your business and can seriously impact of your budget, but it can often leave you tied into a long-term lease that comes with financial penalties should you decide to break the contract early.There are many rapidly growing businesses that need to start off small and can only afford a small office to start with, but may find that within a couple of years they have quickly outgrown their existing space. The need to move to larger premises may be made more difficult if you have signed a five-year lease on your office space that comes with a hefty fee for severing it before it expires. Not many growing businesses can afford to hang around and wait for their lease to expire while working out of very cramped and unsuitable office conditions.The perfect solution here is to hire fully serviced registered office space that you can pick up quickly and operate on a pay-as-you-go basis. This means that you can get the right sized office space that you need when you start up but also have the in-built flexibility to expand your office and take on more office space as and when you need to.

Adapting your office space to suit your needs

Flexibility and adaptability are two very strong features of hiring a fully serviced office space. Say for example that you hire a space that is suitable for your needs, but then you land a large project that means you need to add some extra office space for a few months. This is where using a serviced office space can work to your advantage. You can simply take on the extra office space for the duration of your large project, and then scale back to your original sized space once the project is completed and delivered.For your business, this means that you can have office space that is right for your business at every stage of your journey. Being able to upscale or downsize your flexible office space and renew or extend your lease gives you the freedom operate more efficiently without wasting any precious resources or be left with uncomfortable office space that isn't suitable for your changing needs.

Relocating from a different country

Many businesses are global these days, so this often means a company will simply up-sticks and relocate their operation to any part of the world. A lot of international businesses decide to expand into a new country so under both scenarios a company will look at using serviced office space to help their transition into the new country. Many companies will use fully serviced offices to set up their UK branch and establish their brand here while their permanent business premises is being prepared.Many international businesses are now using serviced office space as a solution for testing out a new location before finally deciding whether or not to branch out and move or open their operations up in that country. This is a very flexible approach to their expansion plans and means they can successfully test the waters before committing to anything in the long term.

Cost-effective solution

When you sit down and actually factor in every expense and overhead that you will need to pay for when setting up your own office space from scratch, you can see that choosing serviced office space rental is a very worthwhile investment.Because absolutely everything is included in your fully-equipped and fully-furnished office space, it completely removes the headache of having to sort everything out by yourself. Everything you need is included in one monthly pay-as-you-go bill, including your IT infrastructure, building maintenance and cleaning, power and water utilities and sanitation facilities.

Alternatives to fully serviced offices

Having said all this, there is also another very flexible alternative to hiring a fully serviced office. This solution is actually ideal for those solo-entrepreneurs, sole traders and small partnerships that are setting up an online business or small creative business and may be happy to work from their home office, or choose to have a workshop or warehouse set up without the need for a physical office.This solution is also ideal for new start-ups who want to run a lean business infrastructure where they operate using the bare minimum of resources to keep costs down and enable them to divert the time consuming everyday tasks of running an office elsewhere to avoid distractions.We are talking here about using a complete virtual office set up that can be even more cost-effective and flexible than taking up a fully serviced office space.There has been an incredible rise in the numbers of people going self-employed in recent years with many thousands of people looking for home business ideas that they can successfully launch from the comfort of their own home, while at the same time outsourcing many essential office tasks to virtual service suppliers.One of the major benefits of using a virtual office service provider such as Capital Office in London is that you can literally start using your office services right away.With minimal set-up times involved, you can get your own virtual office operating quickly and functioning at maximum capacity. This will allow you to focus your attention towards more urgent and important tasks, such as your R&D projects or meeting with clients or prospective new business partners without the fear of interruptions coming from phone calls.There will be no need to worry or fret about the levels of your incoming business mail piling up in the corner of the room. We understand that most small business owners have little time or patience to dedicate to dealing with your business post. This is where our mail sorting services will prove invaluable to you. You will no longer need to think about your mail and there will be zero risks of you losing any important pieces of mail coming from your clients or your statutory mail coming from HMRC and Companies House that you cannot afford to lose or ignore.Why not give one of our friendly Capital Office team members a call on 0207 566 3939or email: office@capital-office.co.uk to discuss your virtual office needs. We are here to help!

Modern-day offices are nothing like what they used to be. The digital revolution has brought about great changes to the workplace that allows for a greater level of flexibility than was afforded to business owners in years gone past.In the old days, it was simply a matter of providing four straight walls, a roof and desks for their office workers to sit at for the whole of their working days, weeks, months and years.These days many businesses both large and small are demanding greater flexibility for their workers and this doesn't always mean having a permanent office style set-up in the workplace. More employers are realising that they need to incorporate more agility and amenity in their workspaces that include open-plan office space, rest areas where staff can go to get a mental break from their desks and connect and collaborate with their work colleagues.

Fully serviced offices

A lot of new tech start-ups that don't actually produce physical goods or need workshops are creating a rise in demand for very adaptable, fully-equipped, ready to go offices and workspaces that provide new business owners with everything they need to launch their business, but with the convenience of only needing to pay one monthly fee for its use.This means that many digital entrepreneurs and app developers can walk into a fully-functional office with their R&D development team and programmers and be ready to go from day one with none of the logistical nightmares of having to rent premises and set up their own workspaces.Compared to how business owners used to operate this new approach is nothing short of a workplace revolution. Fully serviced office spaces are becoming the new norm for many new start-ups and has long been an anticipated requirement for new enterprises according to many leading business experts.

Virtual office options

The huge rise in popularity for a flexible virtual office approach to running a business has also proved to be a game-changer in the business world. According to information from the Office of National Statistics, the number of self-employed in the UK increased from 3.3 million people (12.0% of the labour force) in 2001 to 4.8 million (15.1% of the labour force) in 2017.The vast majority of the self-employed are either sole traders working a home-based business, solo-entrepreneurs, small partnerships and small business start-ups with just a handful of key workers on staff. This means that the demand for virtual office services such as those offered by Capital Office, London has been steadily rising in recent years.There are obvious benefits to outsourcing many of the day-to-day administration tasks performed in your office and reception area. Freeing yourself from these time-consuming tasks will allow you to focus your time on more pressing jobs and free you up for meetings with clients or B2B negotiations. The cost savings alone will help give your bottom line a healthy boost because you will not need to employ administrative staff solely for the purpose of handling your business calls and keeping on top of your company mail.You can also make massive savings on office rent as you won't need to hire staff and provide them with office space to work from, not to mention the savings made from all the extra overheads of running an office such as your power, heating, water supply and IT equipment infrastructure.

Scalability of flexible office services

The boom in alternative office solutions offers you the agility and smooth scalability that allows for businesses to plan for rapid growth. With both fully-serviced offices and virtual office services, you have the ability to have a fully scalable solution that will grow with your business.This can be very beneficial to entrepreneurs who may be looking to expand their business and even take on staff for the first time, but still be able to run a lean set up where they don't have a large chunk of their revenue spent on administration and office rent that delivers no returns for their business.Even if you run a business without any physical office space, you can still find fantastic solutions such as our registered office service that provides a business a valuable EC1 London address, while allowing you to hold business meetings with prospective new clients by using a fully serviced meeting room to meet with and impress your clients. There is very little point to paying out rent for an office with additional meeting room space if this room is going to sit empty for the vast majority of the year.In the beginning, it can be very convenient and cost-effective to simply start off with one virtual service that can greatly help you free up your time, such as using a virtual call handling service to always be there to answer your incoming calls and handle them according to your specific instructions.Alternatively, you could choose to start off with a mail sorting service that will keep you free of the burden of having to spend your time opening and dealing with your business post each day.What is most appealing to modern business owners is the very convenient ‘pay-as-you-go’ basis that virtual office services are based upon. This means they can have a perfect solution to provide them with all the administrative support they need at a cost-effective price, yet can scale the amount of help they need according to the ebb and flow of their income and business finances. This sort of set up is of particular use to those nimble, entrepreneurial companies that need to be able to quickly adapt to change.

Capital Office over-delivering on virtual services

Because Capital Office offers virtual office services that go beyond the obvious, this has proven to be our key to success for the very many years that we have been offering business owners these top-class services. We set the bar very high for our competitors to reach and any other virtual office service provider will need to be a truly outstanding company in order to compete with us.Our team of dedicated staff are committed to a mission to keep our finger on the pulse of what our happy clients want from our services. This means that we are constantly looking to evolve and adapt to draw the best advantages from new technology and communication techniques.We are proud to offer a vibrant and innovative range of virtual services to our clients and are very passionate about continuing to refine and add to the services that we can offer to help and assist business owners across the country.

Achieving a healthy work-life balance

We at Capital Office understand that new and growing businesses are ambitious to make their company a success. This can often mean working long and gruelling hours to keep on top of everything that needs to be done, including being fully responsive to your incoming business calls and not becoming overwhelmed with your continuous incoming business post.Sometimes entrepreneurs will sacrifice a lot of their evenings and weekends to dedicate to their business, but quite often their efforts are spent just keeping on top of everything rather than to successfully push their business forward.Family life can suffer as a result, as can your own mental health and well-being. Outsourcing your essential day-to-day administration tasks to a virtual office service to handle on your behalf can not only give you the peace of mind you need to know that every single business phone call is being professionally handled, but also will free up your time from being bogged down opening your business post and sorting through acres of junk mail. The time you can free up from these tasks can be better spent at home enjoying your family life.We understand that you really want your business to become a roaring success, but you don't have to achieve this at the cost of your personal health and well-being or risk putting extra pressures on your personal relationships. Achieving a good work-life balance is crucial if you want to get the best of both worlds from your business and your home life.

Moving with the times

According to employment data predictions, by 2020, millennials will make up 50% of the global workforce. Don't forget that this is a generation that is used to using digital technology and understand how it can help them to work with more flexibility. The new upcoming workforce will be used to collaborating with work colleagues through a digital environment, so the idea of using virtual office services will be considered as being quite normal in a modern workplace, especially with start-up businesses running a lean operation.As both the fully-serviced office and virtual office solutions set to keep on booming over the coming years, most new business owners are becoming far more selective in their planning for their office set up. Many established businesses looking to expand their operations are now waking up to the additional benefits that these solutions can provide.The businesses of the future will have to present a flexible, multifaceted face to their company set up to allow them to escape the old rigidity and confinement that a traditional permanent office environment provides. To enable their business to grow and prosper while keeping their operational overheads to an absolute minimum, it will be absolutely essential that they look at working with a good virtual office service or a fully-equipped physical office provider – or both!For more information about our virtual office services, do not hesitate to contact our friendly London-based team. We are here to help your business succeed! Call us: 0207 566 3939email: office@capital-office.co.uk

For many decades going back in time, office space was an element that business owners paid little attention to. Very little thought went into the office because as far as a business owner was concerned, as long as there was enough space to house their staff and the building was cheap enough to buy or rent, that was enough for them to consider. Office design and layout was never really a decisive element of whether a building would be suitable or not.However, times are changing and now more than ever before employers are having to take into consideration the mental health and well-being of their staff. Office design and position are now being looked at in more detail to ensure that the environment delivers a positive impact on their staff and how they work.There are a number of factors that are now being looked at from open space, natural daylight levels, ergonomic furniture design, colour choice for décor, plants and greenery, lighting, heating and air circulation.A number of flexible working arrangements are also becoming more popular, such as splitting the working week between the working in the company office for two or three days per week and from home for the remainder of the week.For smaller business start-ups and micro-businesses, many more owners are now working a lean operation where they don't operate any offices at all. Instead, all administration work is outsourced to outside professionals such as Capital Offices that provide fully comprehensive Virtual Office Services. Taking this option can be a very cost-effective move and can mean that a new company will have more money to re-invest back into their business for future growth rather than see it spent on office rent, building insurance, utilities and staff wages.

Working arrangements and employees mental health

According to a report from Kelby Ergo Design (KED), nearly 90 per cent of our time is spent indoors. Those adults that are employed outside of the home will spend a whopping 33 per cent of their time within their workplace.It doesn't come as a surprise to learn then that the UK is currently suffering from a severe mental health crisis. According to the Office for National Statistics, one in four young women are reporting mental health problems, so concerns from employers for the well-being of their employees are now becoming a major consideration.Many modern business setups are moving away from old-fashioned cubicle office designs that had quite an isolating impact of their employees. Instead, more thought is being put into improving working conditions to allow more social and physical interaction that encourages stronger working relationships. This, in turn, helps to improve working collaborations, raises the mood and well-being of staff and goes a long way to improving productivity levels for the company.Improved office layout and flexible working conditions have also seen a positive rise in performance levels, reduced rates of errors, and fewer workplace injuries and sickness absences. This is why it very important to consider the psychology behind your office design should you consider running a physical office on your business premises.

Alternative design-thinking

Making positive changes to your office space can help to boost your productivity and the mental well-being of your staff. You will also be helping to create a more pleasant and enjoyable working atmosphere that will help you to retain the best talent that your company currently has. Unhappy workers will quickly seek alternative employment should their working environment be an unhappy one.Many business owners just starting out across the UK are now choosing new office space that offer well-designed layouts rather than cheap as chips commercial spaces where offices are often shoe-horned into corners without much thought. Even though the rent may be a little higher on well-planned office spaces, the saving your company can make over the longer term can be greater because of the positive effect your office environment will have on your employees' mental health and well-being.Flexibility is also another major factor for new business owners to consider here. To cater to the demand for more flexible working options, company owners are now looking at digital offices that work in the cloud and allow for collaboration from team members wherever their location. This means more flexibility for staff to work from home or on the road visiting clients face-to-face at their places of work.

Virtual office revolution

Another major change to the landscape of the working office is that of benefiting from virtual office services from professional providers such as Capital Office in London. This concept has been a positive shift in thinking by new business owners.With many new companies, the traditional corporate office set up is fast becoming a thing of the past. More businesses are adopting either a home-away-from-home approach to their office environment, incorporating more staff rest and recreational areas, organising yoga sessions, mindfulness classes and discounted gym memberships.Many more company owners are even eliminating many day-to-day administration duties such as telephone call answering and mail sorting by outsourcing these tasks to outside professionals. By doing this the company can save a lot of money by not having to employ their own office administration staff or payout for office space to accommodate them.A lot of research and design companies appreciate a working environment that offers peace and quiet to allow them to concentrate on their work. By removing the distractions of constant telephone calls, office chatter and the hustle and bustle of mail sorting duties, staff can focus more of their attention towards developing their projects without interruption or distraction.By putting your essential day to day office duties into the hands of a professional virtual office provider, business owners can be rest assured that all of their important telephone calls are being handled correctly in a timely and responsive manner. They can also greatly benefit from the time-saving mail sorting services on offer. Adopting these virtual services means that your mail sorting company can handle and deal with your business post in an appropriate way so you don't have to!Should a company owner decide to offer more flexible working arrangements for their staff, this can mean them having members of staff working from various locations, but all interconnected through modern technology to allow collaboration and teamwork to continue unheeded.By outsourcing regular office admin duties to professionals such as Capital Office, it will also mean that no piece of important mail will go astray or crucial telephone call missed. No matter where your key staff are working at any particular time, they will always be kept up to date with important phone calls and mail notifications through your virtual office service provider.We can take your incoming calls and deal with them as per your instructions. This means that if you don't want to be disturbed, we can take phone messages and forward them to you in a timely manner. Or if you are waiting for an important call from one particular client, we can ensure that they are put through to you with high priority.Important letters and documents can be scanned and emailed through to you so you are kept completely up to date with your post without having to experience any delays. We can bundle up your incoming mail and forward it on to you at regular intervals as designated by yourself, or if you are passing by our London offices, you can call in to pick up your mail in person if you so wish. This is how flexible our virtual office services are.

Freedom from the constraints of the office

Company owners are now realising that their staff don't need to spend so many working hours stuck behind a desk. More companies than ever before are offering their employees the freedom to decide how and where they work. This change in office structure has seen a rise in happier and more productive staff.Introducing flexible working conditions and outsourcing day to day administration tasks that used to tie-down staff has helped to improve their general well-being and mental health.Business owners, especially solo-entrepreneurs or sole traders, are also seeing greater savings by operating a lean company where they don't need to spend out a large chunk of their revenue on renting unnecessary office space and all the associated insurance, utility bills and maintenance costs that come with it.As the business environment evolves over time, it is becoming more apparent than ever that the days of work cubicles and cramped, clinical office settings are being left well behind.Find out more about our flexible virtual office services and how using our cost-effective professional services can save you a lot of money!

The statement of capital is the information used to show an overview of your company's share capital. It also describes what share classes that you have and the amount of money invested into your company. It also explains what shareholder rights are attached to the shares that you have issued.The statement of capital was introduced through the Companies House Act 2006 and came into effect from the 1st of October 2009. Previous to this act a company had a maximum set limit of authorised share capital. The new act meant that a company could now have as many shareholders as they wanted without restriction.The requirements for your statement of capital were revised and updated in 2016. The new forms specifying the information required were issued on 30th June 2016. The statement doesn't in itself list who owns all of the shares in detail, but you may be required to submit a full list of shareholders details to Companies House for their records along with your statement of capital. This is a requirement for companies limited by shares, but if you have a company that is an LLP or is limited by guarantee, it isn't a requirement.The 2016 changes also mean that companies need to submit the total amount unpaid on the company’s shares. When shares are issued, they may be awarded without the shareholder needing to pay for them at the time of issue. It can be the case that the shares were only partly-paid shares, leaving a per cent of the shares unpaid. It is up to your company if you choose to call in all unpaid shares and partly-paid shares at a later date when your company may need a cash injection.Companies House will need to know the total of all of your unpaid shares, so it is simply a case of adding up the value of all unpaid shares and the unpaid amount of partly-paid shares to get a figure.

The information you need to provide on each share you issue:

• Currency that the share was sold under
• Number of shares issued in the company
• Value of each share
• Type of shares (Redeemable, Preference, Ordinary and Cumulative)
• The owners of a limited company (company directors): the first shareholders (subscribers) that were needed at the time of your company formation

The statement of capital also requires the original subscribers (first shareholders) to submit the following information:

• The address of each subscriber
• The full name of each subscriber
• The number of shares owned by each subscriber

The actual share capital is the value of the shares that have been allocated. So for example, if one company share is worth £1.00 and if you own 10 shares you will have a share capital of £10.00. If you set your share value at £10.00 per share and you own ten shares, then your share capital will be £100.00, and so on.

Issuing shares

You are allowed to issues as many shares in your company as you wish. There are no imposed caps on the number of shares that you can issue. While this may sound wonderful, you must remember that your shareholders will be liable to pay for any unpaid shares owned, so in most cases new companies will start off small with just a limited amount of shares, to begin with, and may choose to issue more further down the line once the company has been established and is growing successfully.

When you are looking to set up a limited company you will need to know what classification your business will fall under. There are a number of government recognised five-digit codes that are applied to the type of business that you have. These are called Standard Industrial Codes, or SIC for short.Your company SIC code is used to categorise and describe what your business does and how it functions. When setting up a new company, you will need to choose the relevant codes that best reflect your business activities. For example, if your company is involved in hairdressing or beauty therapy, then your SIC code would be 96020. If your company produces artisan chocolate confectionery, then your SIC code would be 10821.Should you want to register your limited company and leave it in a dormant state for the time being, then you can assign it a 99999 SIC code that is used for dormant companies. You would then need to change your company SIC code to something more appropriate for the nature of your business when you decide to start trading with the company.There are many people who decide to register a company under a specific name to secure and protect that name from being used by anyone else. If they are not ready to start trading as yet or are still undecided about what business to start under that name, then they can register it as a dormant company with the 99999 SIC code until they decide how to use it.You can check out the complete list of government SIC code listings and decide which SIC code most directly relates to your business operation. Make sure that you choose the most appropriate code to suit your business as your code will be used by Companies House and other official bodies such as HMRC to precisely categorise your company on the public record of companies. This means that the general public can look up your businesses and others in your sector using your SIC code category number.

Do I only need one SIC code?

If your business is pretty straightforward in what it does and can be easily defined, then you will only need to choose one single SIC code to categorise your business. For example, if you run an accounting company, a firm of solicitors, or you own a bakery or a plumbing company, then you would only need to choose one code that best describes your industry or profession.There are other forms of business that are more complex in nature and require more than one SIC code to best describe and categorise their business practices. For example, a company that both imports and exports goods, or sells contrasting products and services. In these cases, you will be allowed to select any number of SIC codes up to the maximum of four to best describe what your business does and cover all functions.As the nature of many businesses can change over the years, you will need to confirm that your SIC codes are still relevant to your business each year. This is important because a company can change it's focus and will need to target a different set of customers or clients than it did previously. Should your company still be listed under an old SIC code that no longer applies to your business, then it will make it more difficult for people to find you through searching SIC codes.

Who will need to know my SIC code?

Since June 2016, every new company formation undertaken needs to provide a relevant SIC code to Companies House on a formation. The code is used by Companies House to categorise your company under its pre-planned activities. If you fail to provide a SIC code upon registration, your application will be rejected by Companies House and you will not be able to form a company.Your company will also need to provide its SIC code or codes each year while filing your annual confirmation statement should you have any changes to report during the year. This can be quite common in the early days of a new company as it starts to grow and expand and changes are made to its structure, new shareholders or directors added, changes to the PSC register etc.

How do you change a company SIC code?

You can change your company SIC code should it no longer be relevant to your business, or you start trading a dormant company that was originally registered under the 99999 SIC code. You can amend your SIC code through your confirmation statement filing.You can do this when your confirmation statement is due for submission, usually 1-year and 14-days following incorporation, or you can choose to file an early confirmation statement at any time if your submission date is a long way off.

What if I pick the wrong SIC code?

If you feel that you selected the wrong SIC code to describe your business practices, then you are not obliged to operate under that SIC code if you believe it is incorrect. You can change your SIC code to one that is more appropriate for your line of work at any time with Companies House by submitting a confirmation statement with your amended details.

Many thousands of budding entrepreneurs start up new businesses each year. Many of them go on to become very successful and continue to grow from strength to strength, but one thing is true of all of them – they all had to start somewhere and the successful ones needed to have a strong foundation from which to grow.Knowing which business structure to set up for your business is crucial if you are going to establish your business and grow from a strong foundation. Here we will take a look at the different business structures that are open to you and the pros and cons of each one. Whether you were thinking of setting up as a sole trader, a partnership or a registered limited company, it is important that you make the right choice from day one of your new business.

The four main business structures

For most new start-ups there are usually four main business structures to choose from.

• Sole trader
• Partnership
• Limited Liability Company
• Limited Liability Partnership (LLP)

The four business structures listed above are the most popular choices for the majority of new business owners. However, there are other business structures available such as not-for-profit community interest companies and charity organisations, but for most of our readers, the above four choices are where we are going to focus our interest.

Sole trader business structure

One of the most common business structures to set up in the early days of a new business is going it alone as a self-employed sole trader. There are currently hundreds of thousands of sole traders registered with HMRC. If you have a fantastic business idea that you can start up all by yourself, it is easy to register online as a sole trader with HMRC to get your business off the ground.Setting up as a sole trader is quite possibly the easiest route to starting a business because you don't need a huge amount of money to invest in your business. Quite often a sole trader will be a self-employed person with some sort of skill that they can sell or hire out to others. Sole traders vary greatly, so can be anything from a creative crafter, artist or designer making and selling their own wares, or a highly knowledgeable professional working as a freelance business consultant or accountant etc. There are also thousands of sole traders working as independent hairdressers, beauty therapists, personal trainers, lifestyles gurus, photographers, writers, web designers and more.While the name 'sole-trader' implies that you are some sort of one-person setup, you can actually employ staff if your business needs an extra pair of hands. However, there are certain rules to follow around employing staff as a sole trader that you need to adhere to.If you are starting to tinker with a business idea in your spare time, then depending on how much money your side business creates will determine whether you should register your business with HMRC. You need to set up as a sole trader if any of the following apply:

• you earned more than £1,000 from self-employment between 6 April 2017 and 5 April 2018
• you need to prove you're self-employed, for example, to claim Tax-Free Childcare
• you want to make voluntary Class 2 National Insurance payments to help you qualify for benefits

Once you have set yourself up as self-employed you will be registered for Self Assessment and will need to file a tax return every year to HMRC.As a sole trader, all business decisions are your own. This can be a benefit because you will not need to run your business decisions by any board members or shareholders that may not be receptive to your ideas and business decisions. You also get to keep all of the profit your business makes after tax has been deducted.

The disadvantages of being a sole trader

The one major downside of becoming a sole trader is that the law makes no clear distinction between you and your business. This means that you will be personally liable for everything that happens in your business name. Should your business fail, you will be fully responsible for paying off any outstanding debts that have been run up in your business name. This means that you will be putting your personal assets at risk, such as your home, car and personal money in your bank account.Another disadvantage to consider is that should you decide to give up your business, the business will not continue to operate in your absence. This is also the case should you decide to retire or if you die.You should also consider your tax position. As a sole trader your profits will be taxed as income, so once your earnings start increasing you will end up crossing a tax threshold that will see you paying 40% tax once you reach £41,865 and then 45% tax above £150,000.A vast majority of sole traders will eventually go on to grow their one-person business into something larger. As their business grows, the need to take on employees or a business partner (or a number of partners) will become a crucial next step in developing their business. At this point, most sole traders will look at stepping up their business and upgrade to form a limited company or a limited liability partnership.

Forming a regular partnership

A regular partnership is run in much the same way as being a sole-trader, but working with a person or people that you know well. Many partnerships are created among family member that want to work together to build a family business. This can work well in the beginning, but if you want to develop your business and go after big contracts, most larger companies that you approach will usually only look to work with incorporated partnerships (LLPs), so this is something to bear in mind.Regular partnerships are often a natural progression from a sole trader set up. This can often occur when a husband and wife or two or more siblings decide to join forces to support their family member. The great thing about setting up a partnership is knowing you have someone that you trust who has got your back. Should you be ill or have an accident that means you cannot work for a while, you will have someone to pick up the slack and keep things going in your absence.The only legal requirement of setting up a regular partnership is the same as with a sole-trader – as in each partner registers as self-employed with HMRC and will submit an individual tax return each year.As standard business partners, you will each be responsible for the debts owned by your business should it fail, just as sole-traders are. This is why it is very important that you completely trust anyone that you are planning to go into business with.

Limited Liability Partnership (LLP)

A safer route to setting up a business partnership would be to go down the Limited Liability Partnership route. You can take your partnership and incorporate it by going through the company formations process. This means that your partnership will be registered with Companies House as an official LLP, and you will benefit from all the legal protection that comes with it.Registering as an LLP will give your business great credibility in the business world, and will enable you to approach and work with larger companies that will only work with officially registered businesses.Being an LLP can also make it much easier for you to source business financing, should you need it. This can help if you have plans to expand your business and move to larger premises, take on employees or upgrade your essential company assets, such as tools and machinery.

Disadvantages of forming an LLP

By registering your partnership with Companies House, you will be letting yourself in for a lot more paperwork. You will have statutory mail coming from both HMRC and Companies House that you cannot afford to ignore or incorrectly complete. There are also harsh financial penalties attached to late submissions or errors in your submissions.In these cases, it would be wise to employ the services of an accountant that is used to handling business accounts and dealing with HMRC and Companies House.

Limited Liability Company formation

By far the most common business structure after a sole-trader is the limited liability company structure. Most limited companies are limited by shared and owned by their own directors and shareholders. You can register your company as a solo operator and be the company director as well as a company shareholder.The biggest benefit to setting up a limited company is the fact that should your business fail, the most your shareholders will have to pay out is the face value of the shares they own in your business. This means that you can protect yourself from financial risk because there is a distinct line between your own personal money and the finances of the company.Because a limited company has a separate legal identity in its own right, it will be your business that shoulders the financial liability and debt should the business fail. This means that your own personal assets such as your home, car and personal finances are all protected.

Tax considerations of an LLC

If you are looking for more favourable tax conditions for your business, then forming a limited company will also bring you tax benefits that cannot be enjoyed as a sole-trader or as a standard partnership.Registered limited companies will pay corporation tax on their business profits and you as the company director will be taxed as an employee of the company, this means that you will only pay tax on what your company pays you for your salary. Currently, corporation tax rates stand at 19% with a government commitment to lowering the rate to 17% by 2020.

The downside of forming an LLC

There are more statutory responsibilities that come with forming a limited company, these include submitting full statutory accounts and a company tax return to HMRC each year. You will also be required to make monthly or quarterly payments of employees’ income tax (PAYE) and NICs. Companies House will also require you to file your statutory accounts and confirmation statement each year.As you can see, there are more benefits to registering your company with Companies House than remaining as a sole trader. If you want to protect your personal assets, then it makes sense to reduce the risk of losing them by taking your business down the limited liability route.