Homeworker-cafe.co.uk  All rights reserved.

So you want to become a homeworker. There are many things to consider such as where to locate your office, what equipment do you need and what about the law? Read this guide to help you on your way.

Location

Its important to think carefully about the location of your homeoffice. Do you really want to work in your bedroom or on the dining room table? These maybe okay for short duration projects but not really acceptable for a long term solution. Can you convert a bedroom, move into a loft office or even build an office at the bottom of the garden.  Your office location needs serious attention, you need to abide by the same regulations as if you were in the office, examples being the Health & Safety at Work Act and the DSE legislation.

Equipment

If you have a large purpose built office then a desktop PC maybe fine. For most people space is a real issue so consider investing in a good quality laptop PC. See our IT guide.

You will probably need a printer, scanner and fax machine. You can buy good quality multi purpose devices that does all of this in one box. This could save you a lot of space and potentialy money.

The next thing that you will need is a fast connection to the internet. If you can get it go for broadband, the faster the better and preferably without a download limit. Look for business broadband packages as you are likely to have no download limit and the contention ratio is probably going to be much better. The contention ration is the number of uses that have access to the same download "pipe" as you, the fewer people the better.

Telelphone services

You are definitely going to need a telephone. It maybe convenient to use your homeline to start with this could cause conflict within the family and you may find it difficult to identify your business calls on your bill.

There are a few things that might help you. If you are using your one telephone line think about Callsign from BT, other companies provide similar services. This gives you two telephone numbers that ring the same line. They have a different ring tone so that you can tell if its an incoming business call or not.

If you only have the one line then VoIP can give you another outgoing connection Read our guide on this site for further information.

I would also think about a conference call service. Use your web search engine and compare the offerings, this let you keep in touch with colleagues and customers very easily.

Get an answer phone or network based answer service. You don't want to be taking calls at 3 o'clock in the morning.

Unexpected costs

Its going to cost you more in utility bills to work from home. If your working for an employer then talk to them see if they will pay you an allowance to help cover the cost. It is worth talking to HM Revenue and Revenue to ensure that you understand the tax implications.

Things to consider

You must ensure that the work you are going to carry out is lawful. Talk to your local authority if you have any doubts. Check your deeds just in case there is a restrictive covanent that stops you working from home. If you have any doubt make an appointment with your solicitor.

Talk to your insurance companies. You will probably have some expensive equipment in your home, you need to ensure that it is well covered.

I would also recommend talking to your neighbours to prevent any future problems.