What exactly am I paying my accountant for?

[Moscow Mule]

I have 2 colleagues who also struggle with the SJD spreadsheet

Really? It's not rocket surgery. Or even brain science.

[Sausage Surprise]

Really? It's not rocket surgery. Or even brain science.

No.. I just made it up to have a go at SJD

[hgllgh]

Really? It's not rocket surgery. Or even brain science.

I use SJD'd spreadsheet and I'm not even with SJD.
Its pretty good for recording your sales and expenses.
It would be great if they could come up with an extra worksheets to show a balance sheet and P&L account in the format that could be submitted to Companies House.

Any speadsheets out there that can do that ?

[ladymuck]

I'm with SJD and generally do most of the work myself. By that I mean accounts to trial balance, bank reconciliations, VAT returns, PAYE, expenses, dividends, etc, etc. Once a year I send my TB and copies of bank statements over to SJD and they produce the final accounts, submit them to HMRC and Co House, and work out my Corp Tax. I pay somewhere in the region of £800-odd a year (the exact figure escapes me). They also put up with random emails from me throughout the year when I have peculiar flights of fancy re working overseas or changing year end, etc. I am happy with their service and they are definitely better than my local accountant who didn't really have a clue.

[Ollie]

I'm with SJD too. The speadsheet is easy to follow once you have done it a couple of times.

It now takes me about 10 mins a month to complete and send salary, paye etc.

So thats about 2 hours per year.

Also, what are you calculating? You only need to enter stuff from invoices, reciepts and statements and your done.

[Ravello]

I also use SJD and by and large I'm quite happy. I like the element of involvement that completing the spreadsheet gives me and I'd agree with the OP that the accountants I've dealt with have also been very personable and answer any questions very quickly.

I wouldn't want the responsibility for completing my SA or CT600 and am happy to pay for that service, so spreading that cost over the year makes sense.

The only thing that I feel that I'm missing is advice on how I could potentially be managing things better. Not once do I recall being asked "have you considered doing 'x' to better manage the tax you're paying?" I'm not even talking about the "more creative approaches", but the basics such as registering for FRS for VAT. I've worked round this by doing my own research (mostly on here) and asking questions of my appointed accountant accordingly. I do feel though that had I not made the effort I'd be missing out on quite a bit.

In other words, I know what I am getting for my money, I guess I was just expecting slightly more.

[dmini]

I use the SJD spreadsheet - and like others I will admit I'm not with SJD! This is now the third year I've done so. My accountant - who is a "litle nitpicky" looked at the spreadsheet - and thought it was wonderful! I had some issues first learning how to use it - but once I was past that stage it was fine! I've passed it all now to my company administator (other half) who does all the admin for me.
So Simon a big thank you from me for that spreadsheet!

I'm not sure why its taking a few hours for your paperwork - I have a monthly "expenses " form - which is a spreadsheet I dreamt up based on when I was a permie - complete that - which just happens to go into same columns as the SJD spreadsheet. I number my receipts - as I used to have to as a permie, and photocopy them on the advice of my accountant (lots of receipts fade very quickly. That bit takes me 30 minutes max at the end of the month- even when I was working away from home with all the additional costs coming in to it.
Producing invoice - 5 minutes from mailmerge linked to a spreadsheet each week, filing it another 5 minutes or so.

The end point is that as company director I know exactly where the finances of myco stands - no rough guesstimate like some of the guys I work with. Now that I would find scary!

[Bright Spark]

I must say i've been using nixon williams since april 2007 and it has been
a breath of fresh air, all i do is just send the invoices,vat form and anything
else and they just fill in everything for me, which is a million miles away from
the hassle I had with ias/giant and from trying to DIY the accounts.

If your spending more than 20 mins of your time a month on accounting then
your accountant is not worth it, 20mins is what it takes me to raise
an invoice and post a copy to NW, get back the paye and send to HMRC, declare divs, vat return, not to mention the money I saved by following their
advice to go for Fixed Rate Vat Scheme.....etc

[BolshieBastard]

Im paying my accountant for piece of mind regarding my accounts. He also gives me very good financial advice. Sure it costs money but have you checked the service costs for your new Audi \ BMW \ Merc etc?

If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys and probably a large tax bill or an inefficient tax regime for your company.

[chris79]

I must say i've been using nixon williams since april 2007 and it has been
a breath of fresh air, all i do is just send the invoices,vat form and anything
else and they just fill in everything for me, which is a million miles away from
the hassle I had with ias/giant and from trying to DIY the accounts.

If your spending more than 20 mins of your time a month on accounting then
your accountant is not worth it, 20mins is what it takes me to raise
an invoice and post a copy to NW, get back the paye and send to HMRC, declare divs, vat return, not to mention the money I saved by following their
advice to go for Fixed Rate Vat Scheme.....etc

Overly-convincing praise backed with unnecessary justification always makes me suspicious of why it has been written. Did you get a month free for posting it??