Advice, finance, information and guides from finance brokers. If you are self-employed, finding a finance can be more difficult. Find advice, information and guides on finance for the self employed, discharged bankrupts, IVA finance, finance with CCJ's, information on poor credit and bad credit finance, advice on finance arrears, guides on self employed finance, finance with county court judgements and solutions for poor credit finance through specialist finance brokers.

For people who are self-employed, or who are working on a contract basis, or who have a variable or irregular income, it will usually be more difficult to get a finance than it is for someone who is a PAYE employee and who can easily prove their income.

A self-employed person is someone who runs their own business and works for themselves without an employer.

Although technically employed on a PAYE basis by their own company, directors of small owner/manager-run limited companies, will generally be classed by finance lenders as self employed when it comes to applying for finance such as a secured loan.

It is easy for employed people to prove their income to a finance lender. Employed people can use their payslips and P60 as proof of salary. But for self-employed borrowers, there is no such straightforward equivalent.

Anyone who is self-employed will usually find it harder to prove their income than someone who is a PAYE employee of someone else. This can be a problem for many finance lenders, as they like to have clear proof of your earnings before they will agree to give you finance.

The UK has over three million self-employed individuals. So this lack of flexibility by many finance lenders is a problem that affects a large number of people. This is despite the fact that many company directors and self-employed people often earn more than many salaried employees.

Instead of payslips, self-employed finance applicants may be asked to provide audited business accounts showing what their income has been over the last three years. However, in many cases, these accounts will not give an accurate reflection of how much money a self-employed person is making. This is because if the accountant who prepared the accounts is doing his job properly, he will have helped the self-employed person or business owner to offset as many allowable expenses as possible against tax. This has the effect of reducing the self-employed person's net profit - and it is this net profit from the accounts which the finance lender will use when calculating the amount of finance (if any) that they are prepared to offer.

The situation is even worse for people who have not been self-employed for very long, as they may not have been in business for long enough to have had three years' worth of accounts prepared.

Fortunately, there are a growing number of finance lenders who specialise in finance for self-employed people. These finance lenders understand the different and varied working patterns of self-employed finance applicants, contract workers, and people whose jobs are seasonal or whose income comes from multiple sources.

Self employed finance lenders will assess each finance applicant's case individually rather than just applying a series of one-size-fits-all income tests.

If you think some form of self-employed finance may be right for you, please fill in our enquiry form and we will arrange for a finance advisor who specialises in helping find finance for the self-employed to contact you.