Consumer forums are generally privately run

This means that the contractor will end uptaking less money away from the job than they might have intended. Due to thenature of the business, an umbrella company may well treat the contractor as anemployee of the beach umbrellas company and pay them in this way, subject the invoiced money totax and NI contributions which might not otherwise have been paid. For a freelance contractor, choosing an umbrella company canbe daunting, especially with so many to choose from. It is important to knowwhat fees they charge upfront, specific services they provide, if they offerInternet access, and what kind of reputation they have. The time you spendresearching the company you choose can end up saving you a lot of money in theend. When choosing an umbrellacompany to use for your freelance business, there are a number of things tokeep in mind.

Many companies use flashy advertising gimmicks which can bemisleading and they may even make false promises, so it's important to get asmuch information about the company as you can. So, how do you compare umbrella companies? Well, the goodnews is that they all pretty much all do the same thing, with the onlydifference from one company to the next is the price they charge and theirstandard of customer service. You should have a look around their website for things suchas an online timesheet portal, whether or not they make same day payments toyou and how long they have been operating for. There are websites which furnishbusiness evaluations and you may be able to find one with reviews of yourcompany. Check to see if the website doing the review functions on anindependent basis, otherwise they may have been paid a fee by the umbrella company which can make theirobjectivity questionable.

 Consumer forums are generally privately run and monitoredand so are more likely to have more reliable information. One advantage of aconsumer forum is that you are much more likely to get a quick answer to yourquestions as members often post responses faster than it would take the companyto get back to you. As a final point, having gotten down to a choice betweencouples of companies, it is a good idea to call them and ask them a fewspecific questions.