How much do you pay your accountant...?

[MikeB]

£500 is seriously taking the p!ss, I pay about £1000 pa inc VAT, and mine did this recently for me for free. Make a quick call to companies house to check what the procedure is, then use this to challenge the fee you're being charged...

[valluvan]

£250 a year.

Divis, payroll and end of year accounts plus all companies house stuff for a 3 shareholder company(2 man band). I do the expenses, invoicing, VAT and reconciliation using Xero.

Got my personal tax return FOC as well

Can I ask who your accoutants are and how much did Xero cost you and how easy is it to use?

[theroyale]

Can I ask who your accoutants are and how much did Xero cost you and how easy is it to use?

This is a thread I've been meaning to start here - if one's not afraid of a bit of paperwork and deadline-keeping why should I hire anyone at all as an accountant? (Or as Manic here does just hire them for end of year stuff?)

[lje]

This is a thread I've been meaning to start here - if one's not afraid of a bit of paperwork and deadline-keeping why should I hire anyone at all as an accountant? (Or as Manic here does just hire them for end of year stuff?)

I do my own accounts - I use FreeAgent to keep my numbers in order and then do all of the registering / submitting myself. I would rather do this than have an accountant as it means that I understand all of the numbers. However, you have to enjoy doing that kind of thing otherwise you'll come a cropper. You need to keep up with changes and be organised about filing dates etc.

I also have the backup of a sister who is an accountant so if I have any questions I can ask her.

[Manic]

Can I ask who your accoutants are and how much did Xero cost you and how easy is it to use?

Xero is really easy to use. I looked at FreeAgent but at the time there were some bugs with VAT calcs and no support for multi currency (I have a US client) so went with Xero.

There are two of us and we both have logins to go and invoice, but I have admin permissions to import bank statements and reconcile. Our accountant has a login which allows ledger entries and such like. It calculates my VAT and so I pay that quarterly and has some great features around invoicing.

I use my accountant for advice, end of year books and payroll. We had an employee for a period so she worked out all the details and provided payslips.

My accountant is a small firm based in Warrington, she has a number of contractors, some of them my friends with her. PM if you want contact details.

Edited to say - Xero costs £20pm but it is cheaper if you don't need Multi Currency.

[Wanderer]

This is a thread I've been meaning to start here - if one's not afraid of a bit of paperwork and deadline-keeping why should I hire anyone at all as an accountant? (Or as Manic here does just hire them for end of year stuff?)

I've been wondering that. It does mean being organised and hitting the deadlines though because there is no one (except Hector) to nag you.

Is doing payroll really that difficult? (Especially if you pay yourself below the PAYE threashold)

[theroyale]

I do my own accounts - I use FreeAgent to keep my numbers in order and then do all of the registering / submitting myself. I would rather do this than have an accountant as it means that I understand all of the numbers. However, you have to enjoy doing that kind of thing otherwise you'll come a cropper. You need to keep up with changes and be organised about filing dates etc.

I also have the backup of a sister who is an accountant so if I have any questions I can ask her.

lje, care to elaborate a little more? What are the typical set of things to do during a month? Do you hire someone for end of year stuff or do you do that yourself too? (Personally I like numbers and I like being in control of my own numbers, so I get the feeling I'd enjoy (or atleast well tolerate) doing this)

[SallyPlanIT]

Hi everyone

I love my accountant, he's great, he really is. I trust him with my life...or at least my money, which is the same thing I suppose.

Anyway, I pay him £1600 (£1880 with vat) per year, which I always thought was probably fair, but I just spoke to him today and he informed me that he would be charging me an extra £500 for sorting out adding my wife to the company as a shareholder. Obviously, I balked a bit at this...

So, how much do you pay your accountant?
Would you expect all extra work to be covered in that fee?

Any info would be greatly appreciated
Lou

Rather than pay the £500 to an accountant, why not go to the companies house website and download the form SH01 to issue more shares. The form just states that you are in effect raising more shares, you don't at the time say who they are for; then on your annual return you declare who the shares have been allocated to.

[garnet]

Hi all,

I am to hire my first accountant. Just met with him F2F. The guy drove for 1h 10 min to meet me near my town. And spend 1h 20 min answering questions (and I had many).

What he offers is:

PAYE set up and run for me and my wife (both of us are my ltd's employees)
Ltd accounts + Corp Tax Return
Personal tax return for both
Companies house AReturn

for £~700 + VAT

Is this OK in terms of price and the range of services he offers?

[SimonMac]

I pay £0, I don't know what that is with VAT though