Re post 14: I'll reply to questions point by point.
"I was just looking at their terms and conditions which go on about collecting fees on behalf of the tutor etc. For tax purposes presumably this means the tutor's total revenue per lesson is the amount they collect from the student (£30 or whatever) and then against this the tutor can put expenses such as commission and travel which essentially means taxable revenue is the £16-£19 you mention."
Not quite. The client has a contract with Fleet, who then subcontract the work to you. You, as a tutor, are engaged on a contract for services to provide tuition to Fleet's clients at an agreed rate - your income for tax purposes therefore is the £16-19 that Fleet pay to you in respect of this contract. The fees between Fleet and the client is nothing to do with you, or your tax liabilities. Fleet put it in the confusing way that you mention becauuse they make very clear that you are not an employee, but a contractor on a self-employed basis.
Also, the tutor collects NOTHING in terms of revenue from the client; all payments are made to Fleet, all negotiatons re rates etc are between Fleet and the client. All you do is provide the tuition, and ask the client to sign the sheet confirming dates nd duration. Fleet use your timesheet as a basis to invoice the client, but whether the client pays up promptly or not is nothing to do with you. As long as the tuition has been provided, and you have informed Fleet of the dates and duration by the 4th of the month, they will pay you your dues on the 20th. Whether the client then pays Fleet is Fleet's problem!
"Does Fleet provide a remittance advice each month and also invoice you for their commission each month?"
Fleet do provide a remittance advce each month, detailing amounts paid and what for. The amount that they charge to the client is their business, and so commission is an irrelevant issue in this regard. Remember, you handle no money with Fleet, they oay you! It is Personal Tutors that provide a service whereby they introduce a client to you, you negotiate directly with the client to provide tuition services, and you then pay commission to Personal Tutors for each hour of tuition you provide to clients that they introduced you to. PT is better than FT, in this regard, because the cash comes to you first (so you may charge the client £30 per hour), you pay the £4.50 commission to PT at the end of the month, and you are left with £25.50. A nice difference to Fleet charging the client £32 per hour and paying you £19!
"Presumably if the tutor's self-employed revenue is below the VAT limit then there is no VAT charge on the lessons?"
Tutoring of subjects which are normqlly taught in school is VAT exempt, so the case does not arise.
"And if someone buys a block of 10 lessons and then only use 8 of them who gets the money for the 2 unused lessons?!"
You get paid the agreed rate for every hour of tuition you do. Whether the client has prepaid for 10 lessons and used them all or not is not relevant to you, because they have formed an arrangement with Fleet Tutors, not with you. You would simply be paid for the 8 hours of tuition that you have provided.
"Sorry I'm a finance grad but just can't get my head round the way their finances all work! I did email them but they never got back to me."
Fleet Tutors are good at the simple things, like allocating work to you and paying you on time. their work has grown massovely over the past couple of years, and clients have informed me that sometimes they have difficulty contacting Fleet when they want to discuss their accounts. Not my problem! I simply tutor and send the timesheet.
All your questions indicate you are expecting to tp be very complicated, but it is much simpler than you seem to want it to be. if Fleet give a job to you, at a rate of £X per hour plus £Y for travel per visit, and you work Z hours in a month, the you will get paid, the next month, a total of £X+Y x Z (assuming one hour sessions of tuition). What Fleet have arranged with the client does not affect you one bit! I recommend Fleet as a good intro to tutoring, and good providers of work, but don't forget Personal Tutors, when you will earn more money from them!
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