Agree with others that ditching your accountant is a very real risk if you don’t know what you’re doing. However, I also think quite a lot of people here are under-reacting to the MSC risk given how well CK and Boox appear to have been chosen. Any success there and you can be pretty sure that a lot more mainstream contractor accountants will be targeted, successfully or otherwise (and, as you can see from the CK/Boox thread, being targeted is bad enough). There is a decent alternative, of course, which is to ditch your mainstream pay-monthly contractor accountant and have a local outfit do your year end returns only. That is much closer to zero risk, without much risk of failing in your statutory responsibilities.
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Migrate Freeagent from accountant to self DIY
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Originally posted by jamesbrown View PostAgree with others that ditching your accountant is a very real risk if you don’t know what you’re doing. However, I also think quite a lot of people here are under-reacting to the MSC risk given how well CK and Boox appear to have been chosen. Any success there and you can be pretty sure that a lot more mainstream contractor accountants will be targeted, successfully or otherwise (and, as you can see from the CK/Boox thread, being targeted is bad enough). There is a decent alternative, of course, which is to ditch your mainstream pay-monthly contractor accountant and have a local outfit do your year end returns only. That is much closer to zero risk, without much risk of failing in your statutory responsibilities.
They’ll be happy to talk about potential new business."I can put any old tat in my sig, put quotes around it and attribute to someone of whom I've heard, to make it sound true."
- Voltaire/Benjamin Franklin/Anne Frank...Comment
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Originally posted by cojak View Post
And there really isn’t a problem with this approach. Contact the local accountant and ask them how they would work with you for once a year (or maybe twice a year, once midway through to check that there isn’t a problem), and how much they cost.
They’ll be happy to talk about potential new business.merely at clientco for the entertainmentComment
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I wouldn't worry too much about FA integration - it's easy to export from FA and quite a few FA accountants will elect to file the annual returns with other tools like Taxfiler because they support a bunch more edge cases (which is important for a practice that is bound to encounter a fair number of edge cases on aggregate) and you can import trial balances into these tools very easily from FA.Comment
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Originally posted by jamesbrown View PostFiling VAT returns from FA is straightforward. Filing your CT600 and SATR from FA is also straightforward unless you have more complex requirements (e.g., handling losses).Originally posted by MaryPoppinsI'd still not breastfeed a naziOriginally posted by vetranUrine is quite nourishingComment
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Originally posted by d000hg View PostInteresting, I had always thought SATR and personal taxation facilities generally were quite limited - the reporting of my personal finances is not very good there but that might be that the accountant simply doesn't use it for that?
https://support.freeagent.com/hc/en-...ough-FreeAgentComment
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Originally posted by jamesbrown View PostThe facility should be good enough for 95%+ of contractors, but it may be used quite rarely by FA accountants (extrapolating from limited experience here) because all accountants will have a fair number of clients with edge cases, on aggregate, and there are quite a few limitations as FA notes itself.
1) any time any client does something FreeAgent can't deal with, we resign from the client (not viable as would lose a lot of clients),
2) each client we consider whether their SA can be done on FA or not, those that can we do on FA, those that can't we do on separate software (still means paying for separate software, and having half clients on system A, half on system B, which is a pain)
3) we do all our client's SA returns on separate tax software that can cater to all cases, rather than FreeAgent.
Option 3 annoys FreeAgent, as means we're not providing much useful beta testing etc for them...but it's the most viable option for accounting firms. If/when FreeAgent can get to more like 99%+ of cases, rather than 80-90%, then option (1) becomes more viable. Firms save on cost of separate tax software, and hope that'll dwarf downside of losing a handful of clients FreeAgent can't cater to.Comment
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Just thought I'd poke in to say I think I'm goign to go this route. My Ltd Co is basically 'dormant' (in the English sense, not the accountancy sense). I did drop my accountancy down to their lower fees, but they moaned because I chucked (literally) a few days worth of invoicing through.
I like the Ltd Co to be available because I have a few Plan B side projects rumbling, I still use MyCo's e-mail address etc, and I keep in with my previous consultancy clients. I only get a handful of work each year, but it's enough to justify keeping my insurance, tooling, subscription and all that sort of stuff going through the Ltd Co. But it's the accountancy fees which make it hard to justify at, what, £1200pcm or whatever.
So yeah, I think I'm gonna DIY it. VAT is easy, SATR is always correct tot he penny in FreeAgent (I always fill it in, even though my accountants don't use it) and my Mrs is ex-finance so she can help me with the year end bitComment
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Originally posted by vwdan View PostBut it's the accountancy fees which make it hard to justify at, what, £1200pcm or whatever.Comment
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Originally posted by vwdan View PostJust thought I'd poke in to say I think I'm goign to go this route. My Ltd Co is basically 'dormant' (in the English sense, not the accountancy sense). I did drop my accountancy down to their lower fees, but they moaned because I chucked (literally) a few days worth of invoicing through.
I like the Ltd Co to be available because I have a few Plan B side projects rumbling, I still use MyCo's e-mail address etc, and I keep in with my previous consultancy clients. I only get a handful of work each year, but it's enough to justify keeping my insurance, tooling, subscription and all that sort of stuff going through the Ltd Co. But it's the accountancy fees which make it hard to justify at, what, £1200pcm or whatever.
So yeah, I think I'm gonna DIY it. VAT is easy, SATR is always correct tot he penny in FreeAgent (I always fill it in, even though my accountants don't use it) and my Mrs is ex-finance so she can help me with the year end bitComment
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