Ltd Company Directors that produce their own accounts?
Discussion
As per the title, are there any Ltd Company Directors here that produce their own company accounts and complete their own HMRC returns and submissions etc?
I'm about to part ways with my fourth Accountant in about ten years......rather than spending an age finding another one again and being back in the same situation in another couple of years, I'm thinking that it may be best to just do it myself?
Business is simple.......makes profit......two directors......so two payroll for PAYE and then dividend income........not VAT registered as the business is exempt so not VAT returns to do.........minimal transactions on each months account (10-20 max)........how hard can it be?
Any tips or pointers? Is there some specific software that people use that can produce the Accounts from the bank statement entries? Any that can auto submit the company and personal returns?
TIA!
I'm about to part ways with my fourth Accountant in about ten years......rather than spending an age finding another one again and being back in the same situation in another couple of years, I'm thinking that it may be best to just do it myself?
Business is simple.......makes profit......two directors......so two payroll for PAYE and then dividend income........not VAT registered as the business is exempt so not VAT returns to do.........minimal transactions on each months account (10-20 max)........how hard can it be?
Any tips or pointers? Is there some specific software that people use that can produce the Accounts from the bank statement entries? Any that can auto submit the company and personal returns?
TIA!
Capcom said:
I'm about to part ways with my fourth Accountant in about ten years......
Out of interest, why are you burning through so many accountants? Surely as you have a straight forward setup, your interaction with them (and hence the opportunity for mistakes/misunderstandings) must be minimal?As to whether you could do it yourself, it's a good question to ask, if you are interested in learning the activity. As with most things, I would think it would be possible. It's just whether it would be a productive use of your time.
After all, if you wanted to build a house, you could probably learn to lay the bricks yourself or plaster the walls, but it might not be the most efficient solution.
lost in espace said:
Don't LTD co accounts have to be signed off by an accountant?
Parrot woosh for op.
Apparently not;Parrot woosh for op.
"No legal requirement to appoint an accountant
Despite what you might expect, there is no legal requirement for small companies to use an accountant, and companies are entirely exempt from being audited if they meet the following criteria:
1. The company must be ‘small’ – for example, it must meet two of the following conditions: turnover of less than £6.5m, less than 50 employees on average, and a balance sheet turnover of less than £3.26m.
2. If any of the company’s members demand an audit (assuming they hold 10% of the share capital or 10% of all members for a company limited by guarantee)."
From;
https://www.companybug.com/do-i-have-to-use-an-acc...
Capcom said:
Thanks, I appreciate it will be a learning curve but willing to take a look, was just wondering if many others did it themselves or if everyone defaulted to instructing an Accountant?
HAve a look/post over on the ContractorUK forums. You may be able to get advice on suitable on-line suppliers.https://www.contractoruk.com/forums/accounting-leg...
As mentioned above anyone could set themselves up as an Accountant and submit company accounts. Most businesses without an internal finance department wouldn’t pass the audit threshold and only then would you need to instruct a firm of accountants with an Audit licence. It’s still not that simple for them as even a registered Chartered accountant without and Audit licence wouldn’t be unable to offer the required services.
In fact a Chartered accountant can offer no more than an unqualified accountant without the relevant Audit licence, except they have a professional body behind them so theoretically the individual would be able to offer a better service on the grounds of regular CPD and wider Networking.
So, yes in theory you could do it all yourself.
However the skill comes from efficiently managing your taxation exposure and the processes an experienced accountant would use to prepare your books. The latter is pretty easy to master with software but the former not so much and this is what a decent accountant will spend years honing their skills on.
I’m a qualified accountant but since I never worked in practice I got bored of being a Manager of accountants, who were actually just skilled administrators in the non-practice sector and moved into Software and Systems. There is a lot of mystique in the accountancy world from the outside.
In fact a Chartered accountant can offer no more than an unqualified accountant without the relevant Audit licence, except they have a professional body behind them so theoretically the individual would be able to offer a better service on the grounds of regular CPD and wider Networking.
So, yes in theory you could do it all yourself.
However the skill comes from efficiently managing your taxation exposure and the processes an experienced accountant would use to prepare your books. The latter is pretty easy to master with software but the former not so much and this is what a decent accountant will spend years honing their skills on.
I’m a qualified accountant but since I never worked in practice I got bored of being a Manager of accountants, who were actually just skilled administrators in the non-practice sector and moved into Software and Systems. There is a lot of mystique in the accountancy world from the outside.
pfnsht said:
In fact a Chartered accountant can offer no more than an unqualified accountant without the relevant Audit licence, except they have a professional body behind them so theoretically the individual would be able to offer a better service on the grounds of regular CPD and wider Networking.
Actually, they can offer less.EddieSteadyGo said:
Out of interest, why are you burning through so many accountants? Surely as you have a straight forward setup, your interaction with them (and hence the opportunity for mistakes/misunderstandings) must be minimal?
As to whether you could do it yourself, it's a good question to ask, if you are interested in learning the activity. As with most things, I would think it would be possible. It's just whether it would be a productive use of your time.
After all, if you wanted to build a house, you could probably learn to lay the bricks yourself or plaster the walls, but it might not be the most efficient solution.
Thanks for the reply!As to whether you could do it yourself, it's a good question to ask, if you are interested in learning the activity. As with most things, I would think it would be possible. It's just whether it would be a productive use of your time.
After all, if you wanted to build a house, you could probably learn to lay the bricks yourself or plaster the walls, but it might not be the most efficient solution.
Maybe I've been unlucky, maybe I have expected too much from them?
- The first one was from when I was first starting out, didn't know anything and did what I was told after being introduced to him. First few years was ok, then his fees started to rise dramatically......there had been no change to the business requirements......when queried he said "Your profit is going up therefore you can afford to pay more" erm, what? There was absolutely no extra work for him just the numbers had gone up. That didn't sit well with me.......happy to pay for the work done but not essentially a percenatge of profit!
- The second one was a nice guy but the otherside of the country so never met face to face and never seemed to like answering the phone, figures were increasing so the tax numbers were becoming bigger, had to start paying on account now. So lots of implications on tax and ergo how I should operate the business in advance to keep up with the ever increasing tax bills. He would reply by email with pretty short answers, I'd reply with more questions, he didn't seem to like being questioned but I was never questioning him I was just keen to understand the reason and logic behind why he had done certain things, in the end it was like email tennis with him replying and me not understanding and him getting the hump thinking I was having a go at him.....inevitably we both agreed to go our separate ways.
- Moving on from the above, I wanted a human person that I could speak to face to face to avoid the above issues so I went on google and sourced one purely based on location and found one who lived half a mile away. He came round and I told him exactly the issues and why I wanted to instruct him as I just wanted to be able to have a proper conversation with a person to be able to question and understand my affairs. All was well for a couple of years until he decided that he was no longer going to see clients face to face, even though he lived half a mile away. I didn't want the same situation occuring as with the previous one so I decided to move on.
- The next guy was referred to me by a friend, I needed to instruct him quickly to get my accounts submitted. All was ok at first but I started to lose faith in this experience/knowledge Eg he told me that student loan deduction calculations didn't not take into account dividend income. He was saying that it was only against the PAYE salary and therefore I wouldn't be hit for any student loan deductions. I told him that I didn't think that was the case and that they will also take my dividend income into account.....he disagreed......turns out I was right. As the years have rolled on, the profit of the business has grown year on year. I approached him and asked him for advice on how we could run things more tax efficiently. His advice extended to adding my wife as a director and splitting the dividend income between us, which is fine but fairly straightforward. I asked him what else we could do and he was stumped. Maybe I expected too much but my assumption was that based on his knowledge and experience he would come back with something like maxing out pension contributions, look through the business and see what business costs are not currently being classed as business costs but could be etc etc. After speaking to other business owners it turned out that there was a lot of things that I was paying for out of my personal account that were actually thinks that could be tax deductible, that others were putting through their business such as computing equipment, office furniture, work phones, payment for website construction etc but I'd always done this so knew no better. It just left me feeling that all he was interested in doing was plugging my details into his software and pressing send on my returns. It didn't feel like a great deal of experience or advice was being received which is what I was happy to pay for, if it's just submitting the returns off the back of my bank statements only then I may just be able to do that myself?
Hence me now thinking it might just be better to do this myself now? Maybe I've just not met the right Accountant yet?
CaptainSlow said:
Actually, they can offer less.
Yes that's true! I have to jump through hoops if I wanted a practcing licence to offer any kind of service. Unregistered I could do anything I want. I do laugh at those still in the profession squabbling over ACA vs ACCA debates. Actually just drop the letters and you can do more.One of the issues can be presenting accounts to third parties as evidence of income. I get asked all the time by my clients regarding their accounts when they are approaching lenders etc. Nearly all the lenders much prefer the accounts to have been prepared by a suitably qualified accountant. They even go so far as to ask for proof of my membership of ACCA.
So, you may save accountancy fees in the short term, but you could lose out on tax saving, better management of your resources and inability to get loans based on the information in the accounts you prepared yourself.
Another problem is ensuring that the accounts and tax returns you are preparing are fully compliant with the latest rules and regulations. In 2018, my (very expensive) accounting and tax software needed to be updated six times to accommodate legislation and accounting standard changes.
So, you may save accountancy fees in the short term, but you could lose out on tax saving, better management of your resources and inability to get loans based on the information in the accounts you prepared yourself.
Another problem is ensuring that the accounts and tax returns you are preparing are fully compliant with the latest rules and regulations. In 2018, my (very expensive) accounting and tax software needed to be updated six times to accommodate legislation and accounting standard changes.
Eric Mc said:
One of the issues can be presenting accounts to third parties as evidence of income. I get asked all the time by my clients regarding their accounts when they are approaching lenders etc. Nearly all the lenders much prefer the accounts to have been prepared by a suitably qualified accountant. They even go so far as to ask for proof of my membership of ACCA.
So, you may save accountancy fees in the short term, but you could lose out on tax saving, better management of your resources and inability to get loans based on the information in the accounts you prepared yourself.
Another problem is ensuring that the accounts and tax returns you are preparing are fully compliant with the latest rules and regulations. In 2018, my (very expensive) accounting and tax software needed to be updated six times to accommodate legislation and accounting standard changes.
Thanks for the reply Eric, some valid points.So, you may save accountancy fees in the short term, but you could lose out on tax saving, better management of your resources and inability to get loans based on the information in the accounts you prepared yourself.
Another problem is ensuring that the accounts and tax returns you are preparing are fully compliant with the latest rules and regulations. In 2018, my (very expensive) accounting and tax software needed to be updated six times to accommodate legislation and accounting standard changes.
I don't necessarily want to save on Accountancy fees, I just don't want to be paying professional level fees for what has seemingly been very basic data transfer from my bank statement into their spreadsheet/software currently.
What I really want is advice.......experience.......someone to earn their fee by actually saving me more in tax than they are costing me...the current one just seems to want to work remotely and simply transfer my bank statements into a spreadsheet.......
Anyway, I digress, this was certainly not meant to be about bashing Accountants.........I want to use one, want to find a good one, happy to pay one......as I said though, I've just not come across a decent one yet, therefore it's made me feel that I can't be any worse off if I do it myself?
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