The Lemon Fool

I have a small relatively simple Limited company with a few large invoices a year, simple payroll and straightforward accounts. We use Xero and pay an Accountant about £3k a year to do payroll, annual accounts, vat returns and some data entry. After many years of running a business, I know the book-keeping, tax procedures, etc. so by the time all the information is passed to the Accountant via Xero, I'm not seeing much 'value-added' on their side. So much so, that I'm considering just bringing the accounting in-house. Would that be crazy?

neversay wrote:I have a small relatively simple Limited company with a few large invoices a year, simple payroll and straightforward accounts. We use Xero and pay an Accountant about £3k a year to do payroll, annual accounts, vat returns and some data entry. After many years of running a business, I know the book-keeping, tax procedures, etc. so by the time all the information is passed to the Accountant via Xero, I'm not seeing much 'value-added' on their side. So much so, that I'm considering just bringing the accounting in-house. Would that be crazy?

I suspect Xero doesn't produce the accounts in the required format that hmrc require. But if you feel you can do it yourself there's nothing stopping you.

I pay around £500 to have my accountant take the data from Clearbooks and produce the final accounts, I feel it's probably slightly overpriced for the hours work it probably takes him.

There are plenty of much cheaper accountants around who would do a good job I think. Have a look on the forums i've linked below. Aimed at computer contractors running their own Limited Companies but the same accountants may well do other small Ltd business.

http://forums.contractoruk.com/accounting-legal/

http://forums.contractoruk.com/accounti ... uests.html

Thanks for your replies. It sounds like I could give my wife an extra £2k a year for 'accounting support' and spend £1k on the final generation of the accounts. That would be a good outcome!

Remember that when doing payroll you have to do JIT reporting to HMRC and so would need an appropriate payroll package that can do that.

Again for the accounts, online filing is mandatory for Ltd companies in HMRC's own version of IXBRL format. I'm not sure if they can now be done online.

Slarti

Slarti wrote:Remember that when doing payroll you have to do JIT reporting to HMRC and so would need an appropriate payroll package that can do that.

Again for the accounts, online filing is mandatory for Ltd companies in HMRC's own version of IXBRL format. I'm not sure if they can now be done online.

Slarti

I use HMRC's own package to do mine and it works fine.

I do all my VAT, RTI/payroll, bank reconciliation etc and just ask the accountant to do the year end. She charges £300.

Mel

My accountant does my payroll, VAT, year end and personal tax return, and charges £65 a month.

StepOne