Running your business from home can save you a lot of time and money, as you will not have to look for and set up additional work premises, or pay additional rents and rates. Here are 5 top tips to help you set up your own business from home:

1. Business Area – Create a separate area in your home to run your business from. Ideally you should have a separate room dedicated to your home business, a place where you can store all of your paperwork and answer queries. If possible set up a separate phone line, so that you can keep your business and personal calls separate.

2. Costs – if you need to spend money on setting up your business from home keep the costs separate from your other home expenses. Set up a dedicated business account so that you can keep your profits and outgoings organised, and if you can, arrange to pay yourself a set wage every month to a private account, so that you don’t have to keep dipping into the business account for your own personal costs.

3. Lifestyle – working from home can give you freedom, but it can also become a burden if you do not make a concerted effort to keep your business and personal lives separate. Set strict office hours, and only do business work in this time (avoid housework or watching television) and finish on time, turning the business phone to an answer machine and shutting the business room door to help you switch off at night. If you find you are working all hours just to make some money, try seeking some professional business advice to see how you could improve things and give yourself a break.

4. Rates – even if you run your business from home you may be liable to pay business rates, so contact your local council (www.direct.gov.uk) and ask for further advice. It is important to sort this out at the start, as if you are liable and the council find out about it they could take the charges back to the date you set up your business, which could leave you will a huge bill to pay.

5. Insurance – if you are running a business from home and have one or more employees working on your property (or customers visiting the premises), then you will need to arrange some different insurance to ensure you are protected against any accidents or incidents. You can find out more about different types of home business insurance at wikipedia too.

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