Emma Jones There will though be a corner of the triangle you don't enjoy. If you're like me, it's admin – the canny corner that involves distributing invoices, monitoring cashflow and generally keeping the books in order. The good news is, there's help at hand for each corner of the triangle, including support with your admin and accounts.
A number of online services have come to market, particularly aimed at the freelance community. They include Free Agent Central (www.freeagentcentral.com) - which, in a review of online invoice applications by freelance technology editor, San Sharma, was described as "more than an invoicing application - it's the closest thing to a virtual accountant that I've ever seen and, far from those services on my original list, it's British. That means it's easy to report sales, tax, VAT, business and personal taxes."
Other options for online invoicing include Freshbooks (www.freshbooks.com), Simply Invoices (www.simplyinvoices.com) and Cashboard (www.getcashboard.com) with more comprehensive accountancy products such as Intuit's Quickbooks (http://quickbooks.intuit.co.uk) also available.
To receive an even deeper level of support as a freelancer, you can register with an umbrella company. This essentially outsources all of your admin with tasks like invoicing, collecting payment and paying taxes taken care of by the umbrella business. You have your own clients and continue to enjoy the benefits of being self-employed, while your status changes to an employee, with someone else taking care of the support required. Companies such as Kingston UK (www.kingstonuk.com) and Brookson (www.brookson.co.uk) are leaders in this field.
Central to the services offered by all of these support businesses is that they take care of the money, so you can spend more time generating it. Which has got to be good news.
* Emma's opinions are her own and for general information only. Always seek independent advice. Emma is the founder of Enterprise Nation and author of 'Spare Room Start Up – how to start a business from home' - published by Harriman House.