[Sword_Monkey]

There's two aspects of running a business in question here. One is the bureaucracy of reporting your existence and finances to the Companies House and HMRC, the other is managing yourself and any employees.

The former has become so complex and time consuming that I opt for using services to do the job for me, whilst I concentrate on making a living. (or at least I hope to when and if I decide to go Freelance 100% of the time) It's much easier to have professional bureaucrats handle the bureaucracy than learn how to do it myself.

That being said I'll never do something without a bit of research, and the more transparent the service is the better. Communicating in simple terms what's being done with my information is important.

[tomgallard]

This is great advice. You should understand what's going on, what your company needs to file and to who. However, get your accountant to do it for you, things such as Corporation Tax / VAT returns are complicated, and you will get no sympathy from HMRC if you screw up.

Your accountant will also be able to advise you on company structure, and most importantly some of the significant tax savings you can make when incorporating:

http://www.rossmartin.co.uk/index.php/incorporation/607-good...

You can basically sell any assets (including 'goodwill' which is the valuation of the business over and above its assets) from the sole trader to the Ltd Co.

This is a great way of removing money from the company at 10% (CGT Entrepreneur's rate) rather than your income tax rate)

[kaolinite]

Great points and I'm definitely not just going to jump in without doing some research on business, however I also don't want to jeopardise my business by making mistakes on forms, etc.