I’ve just been offered a 6 month contract role, so now I need to join an umbrella company.
Can anyone make any suggestions for who to go with. Reasonable admin fees etc.

The commute is 50 miles per day so can I claim back the travel ?
Any tips would be appreciated

Parasol worked for me.

Yes you can claim the travel as long as you are not there longer than 2 years.

Mrs Clubber used Parasol about 4 years ago and they seemed decent enough.

As above on the travel.

I used Parasol a few years ago. It all depends if you go PAYE or ltd with your mileage.
Speak to whichever company you chose as an umbrella.
If you want longer term work speak to an accountant as becoming a limited company and forget the umbrella.

can second parasol or FPSGroup never had problems with either. Some agencies don’t play well with some umbrella companies, hence the change for me.

you can claim back 45p/mile <10000 miles/year, 25p/mile >10000 miles. and parking/tolls

They have a well put together website which is helpful. Tarpon are offering a free ipad air on sign up 🙂
I just don’t want to get mugged on fees.

I’ll probably elect to bill monthly so a flat fee would be better than a % of invoice.

Edit – I’d rather umbrella over setting up a ltd co as this is a 6 month project and then potentially perm placement.

There is only one Umbrella Coorp:

talk to these http://www.drolecomputingservices.co.uk/

I’ve used them for a couple of periods of ‘contracting’ and when I last looked they were about the cheapest yet have always done everything I needed of them.

Don’t use Brookson. The bastards cocked up my accounts resulting in me being fined and having to pay more tax than I had budgeted for…. £8k more.

Gabem worth a look.

I used to use Parasol, though compared to a Liquidity (colleagues bro-law) their bloody expensive for their basic charges,.
Latest contract specified I use an “approved” one, I phoned 3/4’s of them (I ain’t highly paid) and found that Exchequer solutions seemed about the cheapest for the monthly charge…. will be using them when the fricken contract starts..

Thanks all. Much appreciated.

I’ve some reading and calling around to do.

Brooksons are pretty good. They get slated for being a bit expensive, but they’re big enough and they’re processes are robust enough the tax men are more likely to leave you alone

Parasol are a bunch of ripoff merchants. I shall never use them again as they charged me way more than I needed to pay.

Danbro have been excellent for me, and if you have a six month contract you might well want to talk to them about Ltd Co status. Trouble is you won’t really want to go perm after that as it will be a massive pay cut!

Some agencies are have a list of umbrella companies that you are ‘allowed’ to use, but if you are Ltd Co that problem goes away. It really used to piss me off that an agency could effectively tell me who my employer should be.

Another vote for avoiding Brooksons here.
I was with them when I set up my ltd company after composites got outlawed, they made more cock ups than I care to mention, late filing, messing up accounts, nearly costing me thousands more than I needed to pay. I switched to a local accountancy firm that suggested I may be able to take legal action for their incompetence after all the errors in my accounts were found.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcrK-THMW68[/video]

Some agencies are have a list of umbrella companies that you are ‘allowed’ to use, but if you are Ltd Co that problem goes away. It really used to piss me off that an agency could effectively tell me who my employer should be.

Yes, it’s all about back handers and agreements between the agencies and the ltd companies.

Some agencies even have their own umbrella companies and push you through there, making money out of the recruitment and the payroll.

Back in the day as a recruitment consultant, umbrella companies used to offer incentives to me to put people through them. If you got ‘X’ amount of contractors you’d get this or that. The more you got, the bigger your gift. They ranged from Supercar driving days to holidays in Florida..i kid you not.

Parasol are a bunch of ripoff merchants. I shall never use them again as they charged me way more than I needed to pay.

Similar experience here – found them to be pretty inept.

I have a Ltd company now – set up by Business Orchard (who are proving to be very good, lots of helpful advice, really approachable)