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💰  Finances and Contracts

💰  Finances and Contracts

Being disorganised with your finance, tax, and pension documents can be an expensive mistake to make. As a doctor, there are many different methods that you can use to work and earn money; permanent contracts, fixed-term contracts, zero-hours contracts, or even working as a sole trader or limited company.

How you work can affect your pension, taxes, legal protections, and ability to take out loans like mortgages.

Here, we list which documents you should retain in the finance section of your medical portfolio that can help you save money and time, and avoid mistakes that may cost you in the long run.

Finance, Tax, and Pensions

You should keep a record of the following documents here:

  • Payslips
  • P11D, P45 and P60 documents
  • Pension documents
  • Receipts for tax-deductible expenses i.e. scrubs / stethoscope / registration / exams
  • Invoices for shifts you have worked as a locum or freelancer
  • Company documents (if you work through a limited company)

Not only should you retain your payslips, but you should understand how to read them and the information they give you. You can learn how to interpret your NHS payslip as a locum doctor here.

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💡  TOP FINANCE TIPS If you use an accountant (particularly if you are locuming through a limited company or as a sole trader) then having your tax documents available to hand over to your accountant is important. If you need to go back in time to find old payslips, you may be able to access your payslips digitally through ESR. But, each trust that you work for will give you a new ESR account. This means that if you are locuming in several different trusts, or in a trust for a short period of time, then you will have to juggle several logins to get all of your financial records retrospectively.

Employment Contracts

If you’re working in a fellowship, trust grade role or similar, keep a copy of your contract of employment in this section of your portfolio.

If you’re locuming, the locum agency or staff bank’s Terms and Conditions should be saved here. You should also keep a record of any work confirmations which detail your rates for those shifts too.

You may never need to review them, but in the event of any disputes over pay, notice period, entitlement to paid breaks etc, you need to know your rights which will be outlined in these documents.

If you have locumed on an ad-hoc basis, keep a record of the departments that you worked in and the shifts that you worked there.

You should do this for 2 reasons:

1️⃣  You will need to explain to appraisers and specialty applications how much you worked if it is less than full time

2️⃣  Having a record of the work you have done helps you to make sure that you are being paid correctly.