Registering a Business Name

[Niall Estick]

I intend to go into business next year and want to register a business name now. I don't know if I'll be a sole trader or a limited entity. Had a look on the government's website but couldn't find the answer. Seems that I have to register the company as a whole when really I just want to safeguard the name for now.

Any advice?

 

[Greedo]

You can basically call yourself what you want as a sole trader within reason

If Ltd you can't so just go onto 'companies house' website
http://wck2companieshouse.gov.uk and search on what you want to call your company. If no one else has it you can set up with that name.

I'd register the website first though to safeguard that as that will be more important than the actual business name as you can play about with your name for company registration purposes. for example:-

ALPHA ACCOUNTANCY LTD
ALPHA ACCOUNTANCY (CROYDON) LIMITED
ALPHA ACCOUNTANCY EVESHAM LIMITED
ALPHA ACCOUNTANCY SERVICES LIMITED
ALPHA ACCOUNTANTS LIMITED
ALPHA ACCOUNTING LIMITED
ALPHA ACCOUNTING SERVICES LIMITED

 

[amasidlover]

The situation with business naming is not that straightforward; there are two things to consider, firstly what you want to trade as (the trading name) i.e. what your customers will call you and secondly what your business is actually registered as.

For example Misco (www.misco.co.uk) are actually a company called Systemax Europe Limited and this is not unusual particularly in the retail sector.

You don't need to worry too much about what your company is registered as at Companies House - it will be on your Certificate of Incorporation and may well be the name on your bank a/c (although you can get a bank a/c in a trading name, I think).

The trading name can be established by trading under the trading name and/or registering it as a trademark.

The key thing to do at this stage is register the domain name(s) for your website and stick a holding page there (most people will do a Google search before naming their company and will see you've already got
their first). You can also register a trade mark (the name and the logo(s) can all be registered separately) - however this is an expensive step and probably something that is not worth doing until you're trading (maybe not even then).

Also, if you're expecting customers who will do business with you over the internet or will want to find out about you using the internet, then make sure you start by doing a thorough search for what else turns up on the big search engines - there are certain associations you won't want your customers to be making and you don't want people to search for your trading name and find your competitors!

Hope that helps a bit,

Alex

 

[fossyant]

Bear in mind, if you register as a Limited Company, you'll have to file accounts etc' and have an auditor that will COST......

Depends upon your turnover, and how it can support the extra regulatory needs of a limited business. Don't forget, you'll need a solicitor and the 'gubbins' that's needed to go Limited......it all costs.........

 

[peanut]

don't even think about going Ltd . It took me 3 months to get all the Directors/secretary etc registered to the satisfaction of the bank and all the checks are exhaustive. Opening a Ltd company bank account is really hard.
Then you have to submit 2x sets of business accounts each year. One to IRS and another set with Directors report etc to Companies House. Plus your personal return.
As a PAYE employee of your company you have to do a PAYE payment to yourself and any other employee of the company
Plus you need to submit a company return to CH every year. They charge a fee for everything.
You can't take out a business loan .Its difficult to negotiate credit accounts with suppliers
Then you have class2 and class 4 stamps Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhh

have I put you off yet ?

 

[CopperBrompton]

I don't know why you had such problems, Peanut. My limited company took one day to set up, and the bank account was up-and-running 10 days later (though they originally told me to expect it to take three weeks).

A Limited company has a fair number of benefits - it's worth getting advice from a good accountant, Niall.

I agree with others on the domain - start with searches on the domains, then name your company once you have a good domain name.

Ben

 

[LordoftheTeapot]

I also found that setting up a Ltd company was easy. Accounts, I must admit where a little more then doing ths short tax return I have done for years.

 

[Night Train]

I set up my Ltd company though an agent who did all the leg work for me. Their website walked me through the process and their staff were really helpful in answering questions. It was quite quick. The bank account was straight forward as was the accountant.
The only thing was that I don't use the company for very much work, mainly getting payment from occasional temp agency work. The accountancy fees then feel pretty steep but my accountant said that it is almost a flat fee cost whether I turn over £1k pa or £1m pa.
The other advantage is that I have a lot of company expenses for travel, tools, equipment, etc while I am setting up for work and all this reduces my tax bill.

 

[peanut]

I don't know why you had such problems, Peanut. My limited company took one day to set up, and the bank account was up-and-running 10 days later (though they originally told me to expect it to take three weeks).

A Limited company has a fair number of benefits - it's worth getting advice from a good accountant, Niall.

I agree with others on the domain - start with searches on the domains, then name your company once you have a good domain name.

Ben

Glad you had an easy time of it Ben, although slight exageration re companies house. It may only take you one day it takes them a lot longer especially at xmas time . In 2007 they were running at 4-5 weeks behind on processing new applications .They lost my application twice total incompetence


You would not be interested in hearing what an extraordinary difficult and frustrating time I had of it so I won't bore you with the details.
Suffice it to say I was unable to invoice or bank any payments for 15 weeks and had to borrow 8k in 2x personal loans to ensure cash flow and survive.
Not sure how long ago you set up your company but this past 12 months have seen a stringent credit check and identity checking process put in place to limit fraud and money laundering. My other Ltd company took just a few weeks to set up in 1997

 

[CopperBrompton]

I couldn't tell you how long Companies House took to do their bit, but as my bank were happy to process the application the day after the company was formed, I'm guessing it must have showed up on their records by then.

The company was formed just over 18 months ago.

Ben

 

[amasidlover]

I've started one company and then co-founded another and found in both cases that the requirements of ID checks and credit checks with the bank were the bits that took the longest, Companies House registration did not take long at all. It did mean that we had no cashflow through the actual bank account at all for the first 2 to 3 months of being registered - this meant paying the bills out of personal accounts, thankfully I was in a position to do that.

As for administration, you need to keep on top of your accounts as often possible (Monthly in our case) this then makes it pretty straightforward to generate VAT statistics each quarter and Year End accounts/Corporation Tax returns. I had operated as a sole-trader for several years previously and went limited when I needed to employ staff, I actually found that although there was a little more admin required I found that it made me more organised and actually simplified life...

 

[peanut]

I couldn't tell you how long Companies House took to do their bit, but as my bank were happy to process the application the day after the company was formed, I'm guessing it must have showed up on their records by then.

The company was formed just over 18 months ago.

Ben

I'm not disputing that Ben. I'm sure your bank were able to commence processing your paper applicatio the next day. So did mine.!


all I'm saying is that it would obviously take longer than that for them to check your references and do a credit checks on you and other directors so you would not have been able to bank a cheque .It took my bank 15 weeks all told because of their ineptitude and 9 weeks delay at companies house.

I'm glad your experience was an easy one.

Mine wasn't .

I'm sure you can appreciate how difficult and frustrating it was for us not to be able to run our business and be forced to take out 8k loans to survive.