Anyone use an Umbrella Company for contracting?

Hey Chaps,

Who here uses an Umbrella company for their contracting / self-employed business?

It looks like a minefield trying to find a company that isn’t looking a bit dodgy!

Interested if anyone has a decent one,

Cheers

Ricks

Contractors who I onboard go through Paystream.

I haven’t done for years, but if I were to start contracting again the first place I’d ask is on the contractoruk.com forums.

I use Advance Accounting, based near Chester – to look after my books. I’m Ltd Co. but they do have an umbrella company department. Based on how good they seem for general accounting I wouldn’t have any problem using them if I needed to go through an umbrella.

Brookson’s are pretty good as are Paystream.

I use Hudson, they guarantee to look after any legal costs arising from any hmrc action etc Can’t recommend them enough, constantly updating their procedures to stay ahead of hmrc and informing us of why different procedures are important which helps ensure compliance.

If you are paye why pay an umbrella company ? Just work direct paye. Earn same, dont pay the 20 per week fee.

If limited, get a good accountant.

Started with Giant but they have a strange payment system.
Moved to Champion they were fine and would recommend.
Need to look out for whether they are paying weekly or monthly.
Don’t see why they need to hang onto your money for a month if others can pay the Tuesday of the week following.

I use Hudson, they guarantee to look after any legal costs arising from any hmrc action etc Can’t recommend them enough, constantly updating their procedures to stay ahead of hmrc and informing us of why different procedures are important which helps ensure compliance.

Out of curiosity, what hmrc action could there be, since IR35 isn’t relevant? And how on earth could you be non-compliant since you’re an employee of the umbrella?

Always used a limited company, so not really sure, but I thought as long as you get paid regularly they’re all much of a muchness unless they’re misbehaving with respect to taxes.

All seem much of a muchness to me. Currently use Orangegenie. I have previously used Contractor Umbrella and Umbrella.co.uk

I had to change for my most recent contract as the recruiter wanted an fcsa approved company – although all the above look to be on the list now

Apologies if not clear, my ltd company uses Hudson umbrella for payments to workers

When I worked as a contractor on the railways I used JSA https://jsagroup.co.uk/

I found them to be good, easy to get in contact with to discuss things and I didn’t have any issues – but I only contracted for a few months

I used Brookson and wouldn’t recommend them. Terrible communication and a few minutes of googling gave me more knowledge on accounting than any of the customer service people.
If you think you’ll be contracting longterm go ltd.

Use the one your agency recommends – assuming you are contracting through an agency.
For my last inside IR35 gig I became an astronaut.
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https://www.contractorsview.co.uk/review.php?Nasa-Umbrella-Ltd-22

I would imagine you would be on an income where you would be better off as a Ltd Company rather than through an umbrella old bean 😉 . I use JSA as my accountant anyway, they seem to be OK ish but haven’t used anyone else. For me I was better off as a Ltd company rather than using them as an umbrella service anyway, when you get in touch you give them your day rate etc and they advise whether ltd company or umbrella is better for you financially.

I also spoke to a very nice lady at Dolan accountancy but the ball was already rolling with JSA, would give them a try another time though.

Firstly, avoid any firms that promise to take only 5% (or any other ridiculously low figure) of your earnings as tax. They’re fraudsters who somehow get away with peddling their BS and leave you to pick up HMRC’s tab.

Re JSA, I spoke with them last Oct when I was in a similar situation. Didn’t get on with the sales guy.

Spoke with Frankie at OrangeGenie. She was brilliant. Spent about an hour on the phone with me, answering every single question. No sales pitch. No BS. Turned out it was better for me to form a Ltd Company, so I chose OG to do that and handle the accountancy for me. Easy peasy and piece of mind. Online app (FreeAgent) is decent enough. They’ve built their own app as well (with rewards etc) but I’ve not played with it yet.

FTR, all my work so far has been outside of IR35.

I don’t think anyone has mentioned the proposed changes to IR35 legislation, due to come into force in the private sector in April 2020.

Consultation still ongoing, but if implemented will mean that clients determine IR35 status, not freelance contractors (and client will also be liable if the determination is later found to be incorrect). The implications for existing contractors who have determined themselves to be outside of IR35 who are then subsequently assessed to be ‘inside’ by the client are not clear.

Apparently when rolled-out in the public sector (2017) many organisations (BBC etc) took a conservative approach and put almost all contractors on PAYE or staff deals. The private sector implementation could get delayed again, or possibly even shelved, but probably worth a thought before going down the ltd. co route just now.