Best accountancy firms for LTD in 2023 - Contractor in tech - Outside IR35

[Inception]

Seems to be expanding too quickly, doesn't it? Are you sticking with them then? I think I'll have a go at Mettle + FreeAgent for a year and if it all goes Pete Tong, fling the books at an accountant end of year for the CT submission.

Hi, just wondering if you went down this route in the end? I'm moving back into contracting (outside) after a few years as a perm and have been trawling these forums for Acountant recommendations, ~ £150 a month for doing some basic bookeeping seems excessive, thinking of having a go myself (from setting up the Ltd, Payroll, Flat Rate VAT, CT, SA etc) for the 1st year and seeing how much of a mess I make of things as well!

[malvolio]

Hi, just wondering if you went down this route in the end? I'm moving back into contracting (outside) after a few years as a perm and have been trawling these forums for Acountant recommendations, ~ £150 a month for doing some basic bookeeping seems excessive, thinking of having a go myself (from setting up the Ltd, Payroll, Flat Rate VAT, CT, SA etc) for the 1st year and seeing how much of a mess I make of things as well!

Ermmm...

If you don't know what you're doing, that is the worst plan possible. You can wind up with a very big tax bill if you're not careful.

Use an accountant for the first two years so you understand how it all works and what is involved through to year end. Then you can go alone. But £150 a month (or £1800 a year) is not a bad cost to safeguard a £100k income...

[Yuri F]

As long as you don't do something silly (e.g. paying something what has nothing to do with your business from company account) - it's straight forward with micro-entity and flat VAT (quarterly submission, just 4? lines to fill) + PAYE (monthly, mostly empty submissions) then CT once a year (balance sheet + some base PNL, same info as for CH). Also annual confirmation statement for CH. Probably worth mentioning as alternative - notification to pension regulator (what you don't have to enroll employees if you're the only person in LTD) and some data regulator (what you don't have to pay if you're not data controller {relevant for IT sector}), keeping all receipts (or downloading/saving copy of digital ones, even for ebay order {e.g. pdf}).
I do:
PAYE - Basic PAYE tools
VAT - MTDsorted
CT - directly on HMRC site + Excel based on csv file extract from online banking.
Just don't forget submitting in time to avoid penalties/fines.

[malvolio]

As long as you don't do something silly .

Let me stop you there...

That list is fine if you are up to date with a host of laws and regulations. Someone new to this almost certainly isn't.

Standing advice has always been to use a qualified accountant to get things rolling and to learn the ropes, then go it alone if you are confident enough to do it. Most of us still consider paying an expert to keep you safe as a good investment.

And BTW, Flat Rate VAT is probably a bad idea if you have expenses, given the rates on offer these days.

And BTW, if you insist on going it alone, at least use FreeAgent, Xero or similar. Not Excel.

[Yuri F]

...And BTW, Flat Rate VAT is probably a bad idea if you have expenses, given the rates on offer these days.
And BTW, if you insist on going it alone, at least use FreeAgent, Xero or similar. Not Excel...

Agree, it all depends (nothing is perfect after all), for clarity will expand a bit my case:
1) I'm losing on Flat VAT perhaps a £100 a year max, but simplicity of it compensates the need to trace all VAT components of invoices on spending (which is impossible in most cases since I'm buying most of IT hardware from ebay private sellers anyway - just to cross that 2.5% threshold to qualify for Flat rate).
2) Depends on number of transactions, I have 50-70 lines per year most of which are HMRC (VAT/PAYE/CT), monthly/weekly inbound invoices, salary couple of times in a year, dividends, monthly bank account £5 charge.
Therefore it's much easier for me to have online bank account statement fitting on single page and serving as GL - without the need to involve any data movements hustle between the systems, I would say it's closer towards true micro-entity scenario.

P.S.
On previous post: Time required:
Quarterly submissions (VAT+payments): 30 mins (quarterly).
Monthly submissions (PAYE+payments): 15 mins (monthly).
Annual accounts/CT: 1.5-2 hrs (per annum, CH+HMRC)
CH confirmation statement: 10 mins (per annum).
approx. 7 hrs in total

Since I'm hardly not overloaded these days at my commercial activity - I would say it is quite good opportunity cost tradeoff, rate from my primary activity is lower in multiples if compared to what I'm getting doing this stuff (and saving £2K for 7hrs work - also considering collab. time needed as listed in line below).

In third-party involvement scenario inevitably I would be spending more time on communication with accountant or putting data to third-party systems anyway.

P.P.S. If I delegate these things to "accountant" - it would be an easiest money earned at super-prime rate for doing practically nothing with hardly serious qualifications needed. As Ltd Director my responsibility is about profit and efficiency, therefore it is my fiduciary duty not to tolerate this. I know specialization is what drives the progress but there are always boundary cases in which optimality conditions might be balanced a bit differently, e.g. if I would be having £millions turnover - I wouldn't care much about micromanaging (which would be wrong thing unless things go completely south).

[northernladuk]

Let me stop you there...

That list is fine if you are up to date with a host of laws and regulations. Someone new to this almost certainly isn't.

Standing advice has always been to use a qualified accountant to get things rolling and to learn the ropes, then go it alone if you are confident enough to do it. Most of us still consider paying an expert to keep you safe as a good investment.

And BTW, Flat Rate VAT is probably a bad idea if you have expenses, given the rates on offer these days.

And BTW, if you insist on going it alone, at least use FreeAgent, Xero or similar. Not Excel.

Agree with all this. Like anything. It's simple if it's simple. If it strays out of simple then you are in no mans land. For your 150 you get it done properly and an accountant on hand for advice whenever you want. Tax rules change, thresholds change, advice changes and then there are the questions about expenses, what you can buy/can't buy, investment, closing down etc.

Just looking at the numbers. You are talking 1800 a year (tax deductible) for someone to do all that for you and then be on the phone whenver you need them over a full year. What would you do for 1800 quid a year? That's like 3.5 days. If you have to read up on all this and then do it might take you what, a day and a half when you could just let someone else do it? Say your day and a half is 750 quid then you are only spending 1100 more. You aren't exactly saving anything if you are looking at it purely from a cost perspective are you? For those amounts it just doesn't make sense to me not to.

[Inception]

Ok, who do people recommend these days, I want FA obv

[northernladuk]

Ok, who do people recommend these days, I want FA obv

My list from personal experience either being a customer or knowing the owners.

Small
PaperRocket - Special mentions at the CUK awards. POsts on here from time to time
Clarity Taxation - Craig and Claire are well known to us. Posts on here from time to time

Medium
Maslins - Started by Chris Maslin who we know although he's no longer there. Still posts on here from time to time.

Large
Gorilla - Who I'm with

Other possibilities are BI Accounting or Aardvark.

Some people like a big well established set up, others like small personally run set ups. Have a look at their online presence and give them a call to see who you gel with.

[malvolio]

Ok, who do people recommend these days, I want FA obv

Too long out of the market to comment, but just be aware anyone can call themselves an accountant, so check their qualifications. As a minimum. someone in the practice needs to be chartered

[vwdan]

Gorilla have been fine for me the last, uh, nearly 10 years I guess.

Just fine, but fine nontheless