Jewellery business – our favourite online resources for finances and legal issues

It can be difficult to find advice and resources if you are working for yourself. Jewellery business tutor Anna Campbell has put together some of her favourite online resources for you in a series of blog posts. In the first of this series, she tackled resources for help with sales and selling. In this post she has turned her attention to financial and legal issues.

Setting up a jewellery business can feel like a minefield. You don’t always know what you don’t know! Here are some resources to help you feel more organised and clued up.

Registering your business and submitting your tax return

If you are going to start up a jewellery business you need to register with HMRC. It is worth viewing some of the HMRC webinars or signing up for a free live webinar as you can ask questions and get clarification on your situation.

Filing an online tax return

It is important to work out a system for keeping up to date with your tax return. There are ways of doing this yourself and helpful accountancy computer packages but I have personally found Go Simple Tax to be a really simple and hassle free way of compiling and submitting my tax return. It is an online system where you enter your sales, expenses etc. The data is automatically compiled into the format required by HMRC and you upload it directly to the government gateway when you’re done. I’ve also found the ability to email questions to tax experts and to get answers back in plain English really helpful.

Pricing

Pricing is one of those difficult issues that we are often asked about during our business courses. There is a lot to bear in mind including your cost price, your wholesale price and your retail price. Have a look at this article from the Design Trust that addresses all of these issues.

Understanding intellectual property

We are often asked about how to protect your design ideas. Own It is a resource specifically designed for intellectual property in the UK and they have well written FAQs. You can also request 45 minutes of advice from a copyright lawyer for an admin charge if your query is not covered by their FAQs.

Remember, if you are finding setting up your business or taking it to the next level overwhelming we run jewellery business courses from 2.5 hours to 6 days there is a class for all your needs. Have a look at our business classes here.

Anna Campbell is a silver clay artist and tutor at LJS who runs her own jewellery business Campbell Hall Designs.