Reply to: Ltd Co setup and accounting

Re: no brainer?

I know the company and I know they are good and would have no problem using them - that's not the point I'm making.

The risk assesment is that I use forms and triggers that are closley tied to the accountant's own systems, so there is a minimum of data transfer (basically I send them a dump of my GL to date for most purposes) and all key actions are prompted from both my own calendars and from theirs, so there's no chance of missing a filing date (which is one of the best ways to trigger an investigation BTW).

No doubt your guy would provide the same, but I would have to change something to align to it - so why take something that is known to work and replace it with something that is not known to work? Medium risk, low probability if I change, low risk, low probability if I don't. It's really no more complicated or sinister than that

And if you want to do the willy comparison thing, I have personal convertible assets of well over £0.5m right now and no debts other than the mortgage, all from my own endeavours, so yes, I am quite relaxed about £400 a year. I'll never be a millionaire, but then I don't really want to be

Re: no brainer?

You're not listening to me. I have no doubt it's a good service, and will happily suggest it to other people, but it will take a lot more than a pound a day to persuade me to introduce another risk that I don't need into a stable and profitable business.

Not sure what you mean by risk here Malvolio ? - there is no risk - we have introduced quite a number of clients to our accountant from this forum and as far as I know they are all happy. If anyone gets bad service I'm sure there would be a post on this forum to highlight the issue. I have been using them for over 4 years and recommending them for about 2 years.

If you are not worried about saving over £1 a day without cost to yourself then I'm afraid you don't deserve to make any kind of profit in business.

Re: no brainer?

Now lets compare forum names - my name is straightforward and honest whereas Malvolio is a complex, unpopular and insular character - can't think why you would think it clever to choose it

SA is very easy - mine is more complex than most and supplying the figures to someone else to do the return is about 80% of the job. Spend less time on this forum and do it yourself Malvolio; always a mistake to share all your financial information with an accountant who may well also have fingers in other pies like financial services, pensions, etc, etc...........or perhaps you like spam spam spam spam

Now lets look at your logic in this thread.............
.............I'm still looking but no I can't find any :rollin

Re: no brainer?

No, not really. For example, let's compare forum names....

There is no need to make things any more complicated than they have to be. Simple salary, simple dividend payment, no expenses other than mileage, no declarable alternate income. Hey, I could probably manage the SA all by myself - but why bother.

Now go back to your toys.

Re: no brainer?

my numbers are very simple

.....rather like you apparently :lol

Re: no brainer?

You're not listening to me. I have no doubt it's a good service, and will happily suggest it to other people, but it will take a lot more than a pound a day to persuade me to introduce another risk that I don't need into a stable and profitable business.

The original question was about "Use an accountant or not" to which I think we agree the answer is "Yes if you are a newbie". So don't sell to me, go sell the the OP

Incidentally, I have no problems with my accountant doing the SA since my numbers are very simple! But that's just me...

Re: no brainer?

Nixon Williams in Chorley

These are the accountants we recommend but the monthly rate is £50 + VAT per month.

Malvolio our accountant does everything you need. The only thing not done is self-assessment but I would not want my accountant to do that anyway.

It really comes down to how much you want to pay and for me that is no contest. Having said that I was with JSA for 4 years so we had a combination of gross incompetence, combined with expense. Some of us have learned our lesson and are happy to pass on information that will save contractors time and money as well as earning us a small commission. We also try to help with questions on the forum when we can - unfortunately the accountancy firm we represent is small and works on tight margins, so no time for cruising forums for business !!

Re: no brainer?

Try Nixon Williams in Chorley, I've used them in 2 spells over a number of years. £55 a month, free Ltd Co, always efficient and very much by the book which may not suit some but the way I understand it there is very little scope for 'legal' creative accounting. A bit of a downside is if you want to be deemed 'outside IR'35' you need to state that in writing and if you then need help in an investigation you'll have to pay extra. I'm in the PCG scheme to cover this eventuality, hopefully not needed. I tried a bigger better known firm ( pricier also ) and they made a lot of mistakes, ended up binning them and going back to NW.

no brainer?

So let's see, you'd save me a day's income a year, if I change from a company I know to be good and effective to one that may be as good but remains unproven, and that may or may not cover all my various company and personal tax requirements in as much detail and may or may not offer the support and guidance I get from the current one.

Hmmm... I'll have to think about that

BTW - mine also advertises on here and has been known to contribute to the discussions.

Re: Re:Accountant

Personally, my accountant costs me rather less then three days net income a year

....Umhhhh - that's interesting but that's 60% more than the accountant we recommend - down to 1.875 days net income Malvolio + they will set a free limited company...

........bit of a no brainer really, unless you like wasting money ?

Re:Accountant

Who's your accountant?

Re: Accountants

If not, then by now you will have realised that absolutely no specialised knowledge is required to do contractor books.

Fine, if that's your opinion, you're entitled to it. Personally, my accountant costs me rather less then three days net income a year, and I have better things to do with my time than bookkeeping and watching for detail legislative changes.

Of course if, like the OP, you don't know about or understand all the quoted examples, who's going to tell you? And who's going to tell you if it changes??

Re: Re:Accountants

Thanks for all the advice.

Re:Accountants

That's what I said - any half competent book keeper can run a general ledger and work out the CT and VAT numbers. But a little bit of guidance on the impact iof S660, interpretation of IR35 status, forward planning on the CT changes in the latest budget, latest interpretation of VAT rules on entertaining and motiring charges, blah-di-blah... ??

s660 - no-one knows what to do because the case isn't published yet and even when it is no-one will know what to do other than forget about declaring dividends to other non-income producing shareholders
IR35 - an opinion from an accountant is meaningless unless they're willing to back it up with insurance against the additional costs of getting caught by the Revenue. Lawspeed, Qdos etc do this much better than accountants
CT Changes - what changes? Someone's pulling you leg there mate
interpretation of VAT rules on entertaining and motiring charges
there are no changes under UK law to either of these. What's happened is that the EU has ruled that employees can't under certain circumstances get reimbursed for expenses and claim back the VAT. None of this has been translated into UK VAT law yet and it may never be.

Can I charge you £360 extra for that please?

If not, then by now you will have realised that absolutely no specialised knowledge is required to do contractor books.

It also doesn't matter if the accountant is qualified or not.

Company Formation

I would advise anybody considering starting a business to get professional advice from a lawyer or qualified accountant.

However with regard to the narrow question of where to buy an "off the shelf" company, company formation agents used to be very popular in the old days when forming a company was a slow process but these days a company can be formed very quickly. See the Companies House website:

www.companieshouse.gov.uk