Going Professional · Module Seven

The Business Behind It

The dull half. Get it straight once and it stops taking up room in your head for good.

Before we start

Why this is last and not first

Because you cannot register a business you have not defined, price work you have not counted, or write terms for readings you have not decided how to conduct. Everything before this module was the business. This module is the paperwork underneath it.

It is also the module readers avoid for years, and the avoidance costs far more than the work. The jobs in here take a few evenings. Carrying them around undone takes a few years.

Read this bit properly

I am a tarot reader, not an accountant, a solicitor or an insurance broker. Everything here is how I run my own practice and what I would tell a friend. Rules and figures change, so check the current position on the official websites and take proper advice before you rely on any of it.

Lesson one

Telling HMRC you exist

This is the one that frightens people and it should not. You are telling the tax office that you are trading. It is free, it is done online, and it takes about ten minutes.

Most readers start as a sole trader, which simply means you and the business are the same legal thing. A limited company is a separate legal thing, with more admin, more filing and more cost. There are reasons to move to one later, usually to do with the size of the profit or somebody wanting to work with a company. There is almost never a reason to start as one.

Checked against gov.uk in September 2026. Always check the current figures yourself.
Over one thousand pounds and you must registerIf your gross trading income across the year is more than one thousand pounds, you need to register for Self Assessment. Gross means before you take any expenses off, and it is added up across everything you trade in, not per venture. Under that, the trading allowance means you may have nothing to do.
Register by the fifth of October after the tax yearThe tax year ends on the fifth of April. If you started trading during it, you have until the fifth of October following to register. Do not leave it to the wire.
Making Tax Digital started in April 2026From the sixth of April 2026, sole traders with qualifying income over fifty thousand pounds have to keep digital records and report quarterly. The threshold drops to thirty thousand from April 2027 and twenty thousand from April 2028. Most readers are not in it yet. Many will be by 2028, so choose bookkeeping software you can grow into.
VAT starts at ninety thousand poundsIf your taxable turnover goes over ninety thousand pounds in any rolling twelve months, registration becomes compulsory and you have thirty days to do it. Turnover, not profit. This is a long way off for most readers, but it creeps up on people running events and selling products alongside.

Turnover, profit and what you can spend

Three different numbers and mixing them up is how people get a tax bill they cannot pay. Turnover is everything that came in. Profit is what is left after allowable costs. What you can actually spend is profit minus the tax you have not paid yet.

Open a second bank account, put a fixed share of every payment into it the day it arrives, and do not touch it. Whatever share your accountant suggests. Doing this one thing removes the single most common reason small businesses fall over.

Lesson two

Records, and whether you need an accountant

Keep it boring and keep it current. A spreadsheet updated weekly beats software you never open.

  1. Every payment inDate, what it was for, how much, and how it arrived. Readings, events, teaching, products, all of it.
  2. Every payment outWith the receipt. Photograph it the day it happens, because you will not find it in March.
  3. A separate accountBusiness money in, business money out. Not your household account. This alone halves the work at year end.
  4. Mileage and time awayIf you travel to events, log it as you go.
  5. A monthly half hourReconcile, check the figures, look at the month. Thirty minutes a month replaces a lost weekend in January.

On the accountant question. An accountant is a support decision, not a compulsory purchase. A reader with modest turnover and tidy records can genuinely do this themselves. Once there are products, events, teaching income and several routes of money coming in, the fee usually pays for itself in what they stop you getting wrong.

What to ask before you hire one

What exactly does the fee cover, and what is extra. Will you explain which of my costs are allowable rather than just telling me the total. Do you work with small creative and self employed businesses. What do you need from me and when. And who is responsible if the figures I give you are wrong, which is always you, so ask what good records look like to them.

Lesson three

Insurance and where you work

Most readers either have no insurance or have a policy they have never read. Ring a broker who deals with holistic and wellbeing businesses and describe what you actually do, accurately, including the parts you think are small.

Public liabilityFor anybody coming to you or you going to them. Venues and event organisers will usually ask to see it before they let you trade.
Professional indemnityFor a claim arising from the service itself. Check what the policy says about readings specifically.
ProductsIf you sell decks, books, candles or anything physical, that is separate cover.
Equipment and stockYour laptop, your camera, the boxes of books in the spare room.
Where you workHome, venues, events, online, and clients outside the UK. Say all of it. A policy that assumes you only read at home will not help you at a wedding fair.

If you read from home, check three more things. Whether your mortgage or tenancy allows a business, whether your home insurance covers visitors coming for business and the equipment you use, and whether you are comfortable with strangers knowing your address. Many readers switch to hiring a room for exactly that last reason.

Your own safety

A business phone number rather than your personal one. Somebody who knows where you are and when a home visit finishes. A rule about what you will and will not do alone in the evening. This is not paranoia, it is the same thing any tradesperson does, and you are inviting strangers into private conversations.

Lesson four

Your terms, in plain words

Terms are not there to win an argument. They are there to prevent one, which they do by answering every awkward question before it is asked.

Yours needs to cover all of this, and it can be one page.

What they are buyingLength, format, and what they receive afterwards.
When they payAt booking. Say it.
Cancelling and reschedulingHow much notice, and what happens with less.
Not turning upSay it plainly so nobody is surprised.
If you are illWhat you do. Reschedule or refund, your choice, but decide it now.
If the technology failsFor online readings. Who rings whom, and what happens if you cannot get it back.
Your no go listFrom module four. It belongs here too.
Age and capacityMinimum age, and your rule on people who are not in a fit state.
Follow up questionsWhether they get any, and where the line is.
VouchersHow long they last and whether they transfer.
ComplaintsHow somebody raises one and what you will do about it.
Your privacy noticeWhat you keep, why, how long, and how to ask you to delete it.

The refund line to get right

When somebody books a service online, consumer law generally gives a fourteen day right to change their mind, and whether that right survives once the reading has taken place depends on exactly what you asked them to agree to when they booked. A blanket no refunds under any circumstances line is a bad template and may not hold.

This is the one part of the whole course where I would spend money. Have your terms drafted or checked once by somebody qualified, and then use them for years.

Lesson five

Doing this for twenty years

I have watched more readers leave through exhaustion than through lack of work. It is rarely dramatic. It is a slow drift where the diary fills, the boundaries soften, and one day the cards feel like a job you resent.

These are the things that actually prevent it.

  1. A daily maximum, decided in advanceMine is a number I do not go past even when somebody is lovely and desperate. Pick yours now, because you cannot pick it at five o clock on a Friday.
  2. Buffers between readingsFifteen minutes. This is where your note gets written and your head gets cleared.
  3. Hours, and an end to themMessages answered in working hours only. Not because you are precious, but because a reader available at midnight will be asked for things at midnight.
  4. Time off that is in the diaryBlocked out before the bookings arrive, not squeezed into the gaps that are left.
  5. Somewhere to put the heavy onesAnother reader you trust, with no client details named. Carrying every hard session alone is what quietly ends careers.
  6. Keep learningNot for a certificate. Because a reader who stops being interested becomes a reader repeating themselves, and clients feel that before you do.
  7. Notice when it is your own stuffIf a client's situation is too close to something you are living through, you will not read it cleanly. Say so, and hand it on.
The business exists to hold the reading. Not the other way round.

Practice

Get it straight, one thing at a time

Tick them as you do them. This saves on your own device, so you can come back to it over a few weeks. Nothing is sent anywhere.

Worksheet

The last page

The decisions, in your own words. Print this one and put it somewhere you will see it.

This stays in your own browser. Nothing is sent anywhere and nobody else can see it. Use save to keep it on this device, or print to get it on paper.

The end

What you should have now

A price you can say out loud. A written list of what you do and what you will never do. Words ready for the hard moments. A way for people to find you, book you and pay you without you chasing anybody. And your affairs in order, so none of it is keeping you awake.

None of that makes you a better reader. You were already that, or you would not have got through this course. What it does is make it possible to keep being one for the next twenty years.

Go back through your seven worksheets. That is your business, written in your own words, and it is worth more than anything I have said in these modules.

You are not learning tarot here. You are learning to run a business that happens to be tarot.
Module six Course contents

Going Professional, Module Seven. Part of the Clear Cut Tarot Method by Soriah School of Tarot.

Nothing in this module is legal, tax, insurance or financial advice. Figures were checked against gov.uk in September 2026 and change over time. Take proper advice before you rely on any of it.

This material is the work of Soriah School of Tarot and is for the named student only. Please do not copy, share or resell it. Text and data mining rights expressly reserved.