It’s a move that is seemingly becoming more popular, with more and more people turning to the world of self-employment. However, while it is something that brings benefits which are well publicised, there are some points that slip under the net for those who are making the move.

As you may have gathered by now, today’s post is going to investigate some of these issues. As such, if you are bracing yourself for a move into self-employment, let’s jump into some of the things you need to prepare yourself for.

You are now responsible for everything

You might have immense knowledge of the industry you are involved in – and that’s great. Unfortunately, if you are taking the self-employed plunge, it’s not necessarily enough.

This is because you are now responsible for everything. This doesn’t just include the technical elements of your work, but also the administration tasks. It might be the legal aspects, HR or even accounting. In relation to the latter, this is one of the reasons why the likes of 3wisebears prove so popular to these new businesses – they can make the long-winded tasks like accounting much easier to combat.

You don’t have a regular salary

Hopefully, this will be something you are fully aware of. After all, one of the big considerations that plays on a lot of minds before you jump out of the employed world is the fact that you don’t have a salary to fall back on.

Now might be the time to start to comprehend this issue a little more, though. Sure, you might even make the same amount of money as you were doing in your former job, but this isn’t necessarily going to be paid at regular intervals. You have payment terms to compete with, as well as peaks and troughs in relation to workload. Make sure your personal life can cope with these fluctuations.

You don’t have any holidays

OK, this might be something of an exaggeration, but the point we’re trying to make is that you now don’t get paid for your annual leave.

Remember the days when you used to get four weeks of annual leave by law – no questions asked? Well, that’s now out of the window.

Sure, you can take as much time off work as your heart desires, but let’s not forget that unless you have a big team behind you, you will be losing money during this period. This is again something that you need to factor in to ensure that your personal life can cope with such a change.

The tax doesn’t calculate itself

Again, cast your mind back to the good old days. The days when your employer used to subtract your tax before your salary hit your bank account.

It might have been frustrating in some respects, but at least you didn’t have a huge tax bill at the end of the year. Now, the onus is on you to declare your tax – and this means that you need to leave enough money aside at the end of the year to do this.