Newly Self Employed

[mkilleen10]

Hi all,
I have just left my job and gone self employed. I have created a basic accounts sheet in exel to work out all my incomes and expentitures. I am not sure how to account for mileage?? I have a 51 plate van which i use to go to carry my tools and get me to jobs, most my jobs are over 50 miles away. I read somewhere that the allowed mileage rate is 0.40p, so can i just add this onto my account sheet?? And if so what sort of records do i have to keep? I put the mileage on my job sheets, which the customer and i geta copy, is this enough?? But then again i was out yesterday and drove over 100 miles just visiting customers and trying to get work in, how do i account for that??

Any help would be greatly appreciated?
thanks

[pjclar02]

Hello there

Quite a few questions in there.

Firstly, you do not necessarily have to claim mileage as a self-employed individual. You can either claim for your mileage costs, or you can claim the business proportion of the actual running costs for the van. You would need to work out which works out better financially.

If you claim mileage, the allowable rate is now 45p per business mile for the first 10,000 business miles travelled in the course of a tax year (25p per mile thereafter), and I would recommend keeping a log including:- departure point, destination, amount of miles travelled and purpose of journey for each business trip. This should placate HMRC in the event of an enquiry. Business miles would include the cost of visiting prospective customers, visiting suppliers etc.

The alternative is to add up all of your fuel receipts, repairs, insurance, tax etc for the van, estimate a reasonable business vs. personal use percentage that you can justify to HMRC and claim this proportion of the actual costs. As this is a van, the business proportion may be quite high so it may also be worth considering this route rather than mileage claims. You would also be able to claim capital allowances on the vehicle using this route.

Hope this helps.