The Freelance Thread (Contractor, IR35)

I put the milegage/calculation as an item on the invoice so they can see for example 45miles x £per mile = £cost

Never been asked for anything else, so it seems to work for me and my clients.

Sweet, I'm probably all good then. I was just wondering if there's an issue with me having accounting the expense, and then they do as well, but I guess its just a line on an invoice and won't have its own transaction for them.

Just general paranoia about failing to account properly, the usual haha

Yeah, I treat is as I would an expense claim if working in house to keep it simple in my head.

My partner is a contractor (outside IR35).
She's pregnant. She won't be eligible for/accessing any maternity benefits, as I understand it.
Am I (as a full-time, PAYE employee), entitled to the parental leave that she won't be accessing? i.e. could I take 9months parental leave, for example?
I've looked online and it seems a bit unclear.
I know the obvious answer is to ask HR, but I'd like to be a bit forarmed beforehand.
TIA

Your eligibility to take SPL seems to depend on Mrs Quincy curtailing something; maternity pay, maternity leave or Maternity Allowance (if she qualifies for it).

You probably would need to nail down exactly what Mrs Quincy will curtail before chatting with your HR about SPL.

Disclaimer - I was curious and pasted your question in to ChatGPT, the above is a paraphrasing of its output.

ChatGPT is a cracking idea. Thanks Howard - all of the above is really useful

Potential stupid question klaxon: I've just had a letter from the ICO saying I have to pay their data protection fee if I handle any personal info as a business.

I reckon I don't, as I'm a freelance marketing/ecomm person so all my access to [what I think is] personal info is on platforms owned by my clients. My client list is other businesses, so that doesn't count as personal info, right?

It's only £40 a year but I feel like its a bit of a shakedown as most small ltds will just pay up.

I paid this as the wording was so broad that it seemed almost impossible to not fall into their definition of data storage.

Up to you, 40 quid to never have to worry about it, which you can also write off as an expense. I always treat these things like tax, what ever savings you can make are dwarfed by the penalties if you get it wrong so better to err on the side of caution.

I’ve always just thrown their letters in the bin

Yeah same. You're not holding personal data.

any hot tips for professional indemnity cover, and or public liability? I want the latter due to occasionally running photo shoots outdoors, and the former for if I somehow break a client's website and am unable to revert to an old version.

Hiscox appear to just never pay out if you actually have a claim, all the other quotes I'm getting are from companies I've never heard of

I went via a local insurance broker for a year with Axa but never bothered renewing

I am tempted to just not bother, the financial risks to the clients are microscopic so I don't really foresee a way that anyone could come after me for something. Maybe I'll just deal with public liability on a case by case basis or something

I have used withJack, who are just a broker for Beazley I think?

Never had to make a claim, so can’t say anything on that, but they were helpful to chat to, and was affordable enough. (Insurance was mandated for a job I did)

Maybe you get a discount for being called Jack?

That's one solution I guess.

I've had contracts where it's been a requirement to show indemnity liability insurance etc and just used hiscox.

I can't really envisage a situation in my case where there would be grounds for a claim and have never had to use it.

@jackbepablo - who do you know who wasn't paid out and what the fuck were they claiming for?

I guess if you're in an industry where this might happen e.g
Construction then I'd look for more specialist advice than a cycling forum.

thanks, this makes a lot of sense.

Trustpilot reviews were putting me off Hiscox, I was going to pay a bit more for cover from them vs someone I'd never heard of, but that's on the basis of making a claim being more palatable. Obv people generally only leave a review to moan, so it's hard to judge objectively. Currently I think it would be hard for me to do any major damage to a client, and they're all sub 10 employee businesses so pretty light on requirements and paperwork. Equally for the sake of a couple of hundred quid, it seems silly to be massively exposed.

@steelspeed thanks I'll check them out, hadn't been coming up on my internet trawls.

Yeah, I didn’t renew as I picked up a maternity cover contract but I’ve only needed to have insurance for one client that was part of a city council.

the financial risks to the clients are microscopic

Well you say that but knowing a fellow editor that posted about an ad campaign he was cutting before the drop date and basically ruined the whole campaign has taught me otherwise.

The ensuing court case pretty much destroyed his life.

Oh yeah I wouldn’t be questioning it if I was working on any campaigns that had a lot riding on it, but at the moment that doesn’t happen. Would be nice though.

That said, taking that example if I fucked up and broke an embargo that meant a supplier came after my client, which meant they had to claim against me… that’s definitely possible

You could also join a union? BECTU (which is the film workers Union in the UK) offers indemnity as part of the fees.

I've found indemnity to be so little in the grand scheme of things to not be worth avoiding.

For photography I use Williamson Carson, member of Photographer's United get a discount I think. It's all wrapped up in my kit insurance as well but I don't think it's very expensive.

Think it was Hiscox but now someone else.

Thanks for this. It's given pause for thought as I guess where I could be at risk would be social media leaks or anything that could be construed as insider trading.

Something to keep being super conscious of. Pretty sure insurance would wipe their hands.

I'd never considered joining a union as a freelance / sole director of ltd company. Seems Unite is the only one that fits my bill. I don't know that I'd directly benefit from membership, at least from what i can tell, so it would more be a case of pledging support for what they do for other people (which is fine)

what is the best tool for time tracking for hourly estimates?

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