ILR 5 Year Route, Income Advice Please

[WrongwayUbon]

Hi all. We have an ILR fast approaching. My wife is on the 5yr route.Successully gained spouse visa and then FLR at 2.5 year intervals. My concern is as follows:
ILR is just under 18 months away(jan 2019). In april this year i took a leap of faith and entered self employment for the first time in my life. Realistically, as this is my first year trading, i am going to fall very short on the £18600 min income. Im thinking of going back to employment asap as im worried about the ILR? Does anyone know if as part of the ILR process they want to see that £18600 has been hit during every year? or is it only crucial that i hit £18600 for the TWELVE MONTHS prior to the application date? I ask because A) I dont really want to give up on my business unless i have too and B)if i do go back to employment, im going to have to go like the clappers in order to hit £18600 come next april? 
Help is much appreciated.Im nervous.
thanks team.
p.s. i have no cash savings (im aware savings cant be combined with self employment)
p.p.s. my wife doesnt work either

[theoldgit]

To be honest I'm not sure, have you read the guidelines, page 57 onwards seems to apply to you.

 

Appendix_FM_1_7_Financial_Requirement_August_2015.pdf

[Trevor1809]

You said that you started self employment in April. That isn't very long to get going and to establish what you will have earned at the year end. I can't see why you are doing so badly. I am not up to date with minimum earnings but if you wife got minimumin a job that would equate to about £13000. Is your business going to less that £5600. Even you on a part time job and you wife on minimum you must get to £18600 surely.

You are not going to have completed a full second year by the ILR so not sure how that will work. When I did my FLR I realised that with a March year end I would not be able to have a full year's accounts for the ILR in April. I got my accounrant to move the company year from April to May to January to December just so I would have a chance of getting a full year's worth of accounts in April for the ILR submission.

 

[7by7]

If you are meeting the requirement through earned income, then it is just the 6 months prior to the application; as at the initial visa and FLR stages.

 

If self employed, then you can use either income from the last full financial year or an average of the income received in the last two full financial years to meet the financial requirement.  

 

Self employed income can be combined with income from salaried and non-salaried employment, non-employment income and pension income, yours or your wife's, in order to meet the financial requirement. However, unlike with other categories, these sources of income must fall within the relevant financial year(s) in order to be included.

 

Self employed income cannot be combined with cash savings.

 

For more, see theoldgit's link above.