Payment Terms for Accountant

[dagenheis]

Will look into that (without hurting him that i don't fully trust him )


My year-end is in June and one of my returns is not due until feb 2013 but I wouldn't like to wait for that long.

[Jeremiah@RHJAccountants]

Will look into that (without hurting him that i don't fully trust him )


My year-end is in June and one of my returns is not due until feb 2013 but I wouldn't like to wait for that long.

I am sure if they are a good accountant they will have no problem in doing your accounts well before Feb 2013 as i assume you year end is June 2012 and you are a new company in the first year of trade?

I am sure it won't hirt them that much if you as the question

[Wanderer]

Is it reasonable to pay quarterly for first two quarters and then pay the rest at the end when accounts and returns have been prepared and signed-off.

You can do whatever you want! At the end of the day the payment terms are part of the business deal between your company and the accountant.

How much are you paying? If it's less than £100/month then just shut up and pay, it's a (tax deductible) cost of doing business. Quite honestly, if you don't have an accountant who is on the ball and you misfile returns late or wrong then you are going to get stressed out, fined or pay far too much tax.

Once you've been trading for a few years and you know what you are doing, you can do the book keeping yourself (eg, using FreeAgent, Sage, ZedAccounts or SJD's spreadsheet) and just get an accountant to do the end of year stuff. For now, you want to keep your accountant closely engaged. A few basic mistakes can cost hundreds in fines or thousands in overpaid taxes that that you could have avoided.

[SueEllen]

Will look into that (without hurting him that i don't fully trust him )

If you don't fully trust him to do your accounts properly then don't use him.

Seriously don't waste energy engaging with people like accountants and solicitors you don't fully trust to do their job properly.

And if you don't trust anyone to do their job properly then I think you need some counselling for your control problems.

[dagenheis]

And if you don't trust anyone to do their job properly then I think you need some counselling for your control problems.

I just did a reality check


I do trust some people so no counselling for me. BTW, counselling does not seem to be a valid business expense

On a serious note, I agree, don't want to mess around. Since it has been few monthly, i will be engaging closely over the next few months to establish a more informed opinion -- as far as there are no fundamental errors, we should be OK.

Cheers -- i had a laugh!

[Kent accountant]

An accountant's view

Firstly, your accountant should have issued you with an engagement letter and specific terms upon which he will do the work. If he didn't you should question his training, ethics and ability to do the work.

Secondly, it's not wise to leave everything until after the year end, there is certain tax planning which must be done before the end of the year (dividend levels, directors loans etc). So you really should meet your accountant a couple of months before the year end to do some tax planning.

After the year end - get your accounts done as soon as you want to, but don't leave it too late.


In terms of work I would estimate its broken down like this (obviously varies a bit):

Set up (engagement, authorised agent, PAYE scheme, etc) - 25%

Correspondence through the year and tax planning meeting with follow up - 25%

Completion of accounts, tax comp, personal tax return etc - 50%