Suspend the contract with the accountant

[7of9]

I am planning to take a 4/5 month break from Nov. I will retun to work in April/May.Shall I suspend the contract when there is no account activity? The company year ends in October, when my accountant will receive the last payment. As the whole year has been paid, they will run the year end account for me.

Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb, March. I won’t do any work and there won’t be any expenses to claim, and I won’t withdraw any salary because all salaries are withdrawn before Oct. So the P11d and P60 should be done.

My accountant does not do my Personal Return or VAT filing anyway. I can file NIL VAT and PAYE returns for the absent months.

However I will receive the payment of my Oct work in Nov. When I go back to work in April, if I want to find a new accountant that do my personal return as well. Will they try to charge me extra 5 months payment for the absent months (Nov-March)?

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summary
Thank you to those who offered useful information here, especially those PMed me with more details.
Here is a short summary of the possible solutions. I hope it will help those in similar situation.

Solution 1: terminate current contract at year end and switch to a new accountant when come back to work. Year end report etc should be covered as the payments cover the whole 12 months. And the new accountant will cover next year’s account without asking extra payment for the first 5 months.
-No accountant fee for the absent months. Only extra thing left to do is to file NIL PAYE for the absent months.

Solution 2: Current accountant offers ‘no account activity no payment’ option. They offered this option without me mentioning about Solution 1.
-No accountant fee for the absent months and they will file NIL PAYE for the absent months.
Plus, My accountant explained the reasons why she can’t get back to me on time recently. I guess I should call her instead of emailing her from now on.

[Sally@InTouch]

I am planning to take a 4/5 month break from Nov. When I return to work in April/May, I’ll start from working 2/3 days a week, for another 5 months. After that I will consider to go back full time.
My question is : Shall I suspend my contract with my account for the 4 months to save more than 500 pounds? I won’t receive any invoices, there won’t be any expenses and I file my VAT returns using FreeAgent asked by my accountant. The only thing left is the nil return of the salary/nic, I guess.

Ps, My accountant does not do much, I communicate with them every 3 months just to confirm some figures on FreeAgent. But I am a bit believer of paying a professional to have a piece of mind.

Most accountants that charge a monthly fee include all the returns and accounts etc. over the length of the year. If you stop paying their monthly fee it's likely that next year's P35, P11d, Self-Assessment, accounts etc may not be covered. It's usually more expensive to buy all these service separately than to continue to pay the monthly fee. Also, you'll still have a point of contact should anything unexpected crop up.

[blacjac]

Put it this way, how much work at company and tax year end is you having a break now going to save your accountant?

[Sally@InTouch]

Put it this way, how much work at company and tax year end is you having a break now going to save your accountant?

None! A NIL VAT and PAYE return still require filing and it's a common misconception that we have less work to do if you have some months off. The accounts and CT600 corporation tax return still require the same amount of time to complete if you trade for one month or twelve. The only thing that would be quicker is reconciling the bank!

[Jeremiah@RHJAccountants]

None! A NIL VAT and PAYE return still require filing and it's a common misconception that we have less work to do if you have some months off. The accounts and CT600 corporation tax return still require the same amount of time to complete if you trade for one month or twelve. The only thing that would be quicker is reconciling the bank!

I would have to agree with Sally on this we accountants do have to do the year end filing work so if it is on e or twelve we still have to do it.

also if you are in need of any professional advice i would hope and suspect your first point of call would be your accountant.

Plus there is keeping you up to date with any tax laws or changes

Just because you stop for a few months does not mean we forget about you.

[blacjac]

Yes, that was kind of my point.....

[d000hg]

You might as well ask your accountant in case, but it sounds unlikely.

If you're doing your own accounts using FreeAgent why are you using a full-blown £100 pcm accountant just to confirm it? The services you require are very light.

[7of9]

Thank you for the response, Sally and Jeremiah

The company year ends in October, when my accountant will receive the last payment. As the whole year has been paid, they will run the year end account for me.

Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb, March. I won’t do any work and there won’t be any expenses to claim, and I won’t withdraw any salary because all salaries are withdrawn before Oct. So the P11d and P60 should be done. My friend got his after he stopped the contract with them.

My accountant does not do my Personal Return and I can file NIL VAT and PAYE returns for the absent months.

But I will receive the payment of my Oct work in Nov. When I go back to work in April, I want to find a new accountant that do my personal return as well. If I want to start my contract with the new accountant in April when I go back to work, will they refuse to do my year end account just because I got received one payment in November? Will they try to charge me extra 5 months payment?

[7of9]

You might as well ask your accountant in case, but it sounds unlikely.

If you're doing your own accounts using FreeAgent why are you using a full-blown £100 pcm accountant just to confirm it? The services you require are very light.

The freeagent comes as part of the service; I did not pay extra for it. It’s included in the monthly accountant fees. If I stop the contract with them, ideally I will find another accountant who uses freeagent as well. I have to confirm with them because they ask me to just in case the figures on freeagent are not right. They switched to freeagent last year and are not very confident with it.

[northernladuk]

I am planning to take a 4/5 month break from Nov. When I return to work in April/May, I’ll start from working 2/3 days a week, for another 5 months. After that I will consider to go back full time.
My question is : Shall I suspend my contract with my account for the 4 months to save more than 500 pounds? I won’t receive any invoices, there won’t be any expenses and I file my VAT returns using FreeAgent asked by my accountant. The only thing left is the nil return of the salary/nic, I guess.

Ps, My accountant does not do much, I communicate with them every 3 months just to confirm some figures on FreeAgent. But I am a bit believer of paying a professional to have a piece of mind.

This kinda annoys me when people don't understand the scope of their accountants and the cost related. My accountant is available to contact about an point of my accounts be it a quick email or a 30 min chat I had with mine last week. They also spend the time to keep abreast of all the changes to legislation allowing me to make the most of any changes that come along. Difficult to quantify but my accountants certainly haven't let me down in a couple of years of changes. All that for £126 a month? That is less than half a day of my time and I am sure accountants hourly rate is a lot more than mine.