The first 30 days after starting a business: a practical checklist

In the first 30 days after starting a UK business, the priorities in order are: register with HMRC, open a business bank account, get appropriate insurance, set up basic accounting software, claim your Google Business Profile, register for VAT if you will exceed the threshold, and get a simple website live even if it is just one page. Everything else can wait. If you do these seven things well in your first month, you have a solid foundation. If you skip them, you will be patching holes for the next year.

Below is the order and the reasoning. Feel free to skip ahead to whatever is outstanding for you.

Week One: legal and financial foundations

Register with HMRC

If you are a sole trader, register for Self Assessment at gov.uk. You have until 5 October following the end of the tax year in which you started, but doing it in week one means you are not scrambling for a login later. If you are not sure whether staying as a sole trader or incorporating is right for you, our sole trader vs limited company comparison walks through the tax, liability, and admin differences.

If you are a limited company, HMRC is notified automatically by Companies House when you incorporate. You will receive a letter with your company's UTR within two weeks. You then need to register for corporation tax within three months of starting to trade. You can do this online with your UTR. Our step-by-step guide to registering a limited company in the UK covers the incorporation side in detail if you have not filed yet.

If you plan to pay yourself a salary through PAYE, register as an employer, ideally a few weeks before your first payroll run.

Open a Business bank account

Covered in detail in our guide to setting up a business bank account in the UK, but for the first 30 days, just get one open. Digital banks like Starling Business or Tide will have you set up in under an hour. Every business transaction from day one should go through the business account. No exceptions. Mixing personal and business finances is the single biggest bookkeeping headache you can inflict on yourself.

Get insurance

The right insurance depends on your work. At a minimum, think about three types.

Public liability covers you if you cause injury or property damage to someone else. Essential for anyone who meets clients in person or works on client premises.

Professional indemnity covers you if a client sues you because your advice or work caused them financial loss. Essential for consultants, designers, accountants, and anyone giving professional advice.

Employers' liability is a legal requirement if you have employees, including most directors of limited companies who are on the payroll.

You can get most small business insurance online through providers like Hiscox, Simply Business, or Superscript. Basic professional indemnity for a solo consultant might cost £150 to £400 a year. Do not skip this.

Week Two: operations and admin

Set up accounting software

Xero, QuickBooks, and FreeAgent are the three main options for UK small businesses. All three integrate with the main banks, handle VAT, and are Making Tax Digital compatible.

Xero is the most popular, costs around £15 to £55 a month depending on tier, and is what most UK accountants prefer.

QuickBooks is similar in features and pricing, with a slightly more polished interface for non-accountants.

FreeAgent is free if you bank with NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Ulster Bank, or Mettle. If you qualify for the free tier, it is an excellent option.

Pick one, connect it to your business bank account, and start categorising transactions from day one. Do not let six months of transactions pile up before looking at them.

Register for VAT (if needed)

You must register for VAT if your taxable turnover exceeds £90,000 in any rolling 12-month period, or you expect it to exceed £90,000 in the next 30 days. You can also voluntarily register if you are below the threshold, which is sometimes worth doing if most of your customers are VAT-registered businesses and you want to reclaim VAT on expenses.

VAT registration adds admin (quarterly returns) and either increases your prices (for B2C customers who cannot reclaim) or is neutral (for B2B customers who can). Think it through before registering voluntarily. Once you are registered, you are stuck with it for at least a year.

Write a basic finance tracker

Even with accounting software, I recommend keeping a one-page spreadsheet of monthly income, expenses, and cash position. It takes five minutes to update and gives you a clearer picture than any dashboard.

Week Three: online presence

Claim your Google Business Profile

This is free and genuinely one of the highest-return 20 minutes you will spend in month one. A Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) puts your business on Google Maps and local search results. For any business with even a slight local element, it drives real enquiries.

Go to business.google.com, verify your business (usually by postcard in 5 to 7 days, sometimes instantly by phone or video), add your opening hours, photos, services, and description. Ask your first few customers to leave reviews. Our complete guide to Google Business Profile for UK small businesses walks through every field and what to fill in.

Set up email addresses properly

If you are still sending business email from yourname@gmail.com, stop. Use a business email address at your own domain. Google Workspace is £5.20 a month per user, Microsoft 365 Business Basic is similar. Email at yourname@yourbusiness.co.uk signals a real business, and gives you better deliverability and spam filtering.

Get a website live

Even a one-page website is better than nothing. It needs to answer three questions in the first few seconds of someone arriving. What do you do? Who is it for? How do I contact you?

You can put a basic one-page site together in a weekend with Squarespace, Wix, or a simple WordPress install. Alternatively, a freelance designer can do a decent job for £500 to £1,500, and a small agency for £2,000 to £5,000. The decision depends on your budget and how important the website is for winning work, and our breakdown of small business website costs in the UK covers what you actually get at each tier.

At minimum, include a clear headline, a couple of paragraphs about what you do, testimonials or credentials if you have any, and a contact form or email link. Do not try to build the perfect website in month one. Get something live, iterate later.

Week Four: systems and habits

Set up a simple CRM or client list

For most solo businesses, a spreadsheet with client name, start date, contact details, project value, and status is enough. If you will have more than 20 active clients, look at something like Pipedrive, HubSpot's free tier, or Folk. Our guide to choosing a CRM for your small business walks through the honest options. Keeping track of who you have talked to, when, and what they said becomes essential surprisingly quickly.

Invoice properly from day One

Use your accounting software to issue invoices. Include all the legal requirements: your business name and address, invoice number, date, description of goods or services, amount, VAT breakdown if applicable, and payment terms. Late or badly formatted invoices delay payment, which is the last thing a new business needs.

Set standard payment terms of 14 or 30 days. Add late payment interest clauses. Use bank details (not PayPal by default) and make it easy for customers to pay by bank transfer.

Back up everything

This sounds paranoid, but a hard drive failure in month three when you have six clients and no systems is genuinely painful. Put everything in the cloud from day one. Google Drive, OneDrive, or Dropbox. Duplicate critical files. If your accounts, contracts, and invoices are all in one folder on one laptop, you are one spilled cup of tea away from a very bad week.

The 30-day practical checklist

Here is the condensed list, in rough order of priority:

1. Register with HMRC for Self Assessment, corporation tax, or both.
2. Open a business bank account.
3. Get appropriate insurance (public liability, professional indemnity).
4. Set up accounting software and connect bank feeds.
5. Register for VAT if you will cross the threshold soon.
6. Set up business email at your own domain.
7. Claim your Google Business Profile.
8. Get a one-page website live.
9. Set up a simple client tracking system.
10. Back up everything to the cloud.

What can wait

There is a long list of things new business owners worry about in month one that can genuinely wait. Logo design. Custom branded templates. Complex accounting structures. Multiple subscriptions to marketing tools. Hiring. Complex legal agreements. A second office or a PO Box. Business cards. Branded hoodies.

These are not unimportant, but in the first 30 days your time is better spent getting the basics right and finding your first few customers.

The businesses that last are not the ones with the best logo in month one. They are the ones with clean finances, clear insurance, and a simple way to get back to customers quickly.

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If you would like a tailored version of this checklist based on your specific business, try the free five-minute audit, or book a quick 15-minute call at https://cal.eu/voll.co.uk/15min and we can prioritise the list for your situation.