Bookkeeping

Bookkeeping for sole traders, partnerships, limited companies, charities

Bookkeeping is an essential part of every business and it’s a requirement for tax and legal reasons that proper financial records are kept.
Bookkeeping in its simplest form is achieved by maintaining a cashbook, supported by the documents. This book gives a record of the money in on one side, and the money out on the other. It will record the bank transactions - moneys banked and payments made – and can also be adapted to record the cash transactions or petty cash. Or you can have two cashbooks, one for the bank transactions and one for the cash transactions. This system can then be expanded into a full double-entry system of bookkeeping.

Everyone knows the importance of keeping records but there’s no question that it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Some people even consider it, (amazingly in our opinion), tedious! However the result of not keeping up to date with the financial records is missed filing deadlines, then fines, penalties, inaccuracies in the year-end accounts and other misfortunes.

Accountancy Aid has many years experience in providing bookkeeping services for small businesses and we are experts in this field. We do the bookkeeping for a wide range of organisations, from individual sole traders to companies with large turnovers. We tailor the service to suit the client and we provide a variety of bookkeeping options for the client to choose from.

We use the latest Sage accounting packages and one of the options we provide is linking, via the web, our recorded transactions so the client can see or access these records whenever they need to. 

Please contact us to see how we can help with your bookkeeping requirements.

Payrolls

We provide a complete payroll service designed to suit your requirements. We endeavour to keep the process simple, by you telling us the gross pay details each week, fortnightly, four-weekly or monthly, and we doing the rest. We provide you with the payslips, which can be emailed to you for even faster distribution, complete a payroll summary, showing the cost of the gross earnings, other earnings and deductions and the net pay and completing all the HM Revenue & Customs forms and returns. We also do the annual filing of the payroll data online. We make sure you meet the filing deadlines and therefore avoid the fines and penalties for late returns.

Apart from running the payrolls for you we have developed very useful contacts with Human Resources experts who can help you deal with the issuing of contracts of employment, specific employment issues and other HR related matters.

If you are about to set up a payroll, we can register the scheme with HM Revenue & Customs
Please contact us to see how we can help with your payroll requirements.

Taxation and VAT

Business profits are taxed as follows:

If you are a sole trader or a partner you pay income tax and also Class 4 national insurance contributions.

If the business is a limited company you pay corporation tax.

For the sole trader/partner the income tax due is at the basic rate of 20 per cent on the profits, after allowing for the personal allowance and capital allowances. The national insurance charge is 8 per cent on the profits over a threshold amount.

If the profits are higher than the basic rate threshold, the higher rate of 40 per cent is levied. And the national insurance charge on these higher profits is 1 per cent.

The payment of the tax is due on 31st January. If the amount is in excess of £500 the sole trader/partner will be asked to make a payment on account for the next tax year. This will be the same amount as the tax and national insurance for the year with half payable on the 31st January and half on the 31st July.

A tax return has to be completed and this has to be filed, if the paper version, by 31st October. Or 31st January if filed on-line.

For the limited company the corporation tax rate is 21 per cent (2008/2009) on the profits, after allowing for capital allowances. This is due for payment nine months and one day after the financial year-end. 

Capital allowances are claimable on capital expenditure, with various rules applicable to the type of expenditure.

We at Accountancy Aid try to make tax not so taxing so we complete all the calculations, including the capital allowances claim, and let you know the amount due so you can plan your cash flow accordingly. We complete the personal tax returns based on the information you supply, (such as interest received, dividends received, gift aid donations, etc) and file these online thus minimising the risk of being late and incurring late filing penalties and interest.

For limited companies we complete the corporation tax return and advise the amount due. For many of our limited company clients we also complete the personal tax returns of the directors.

VAT

Value added tax is levied on a wide range of goods and services at the rate of 17.5 per cent. Registered businesses (traders) that have to charge their customers VAT at the standard rate add the 17.5 per cent to the total value of their invoices. This is called output tax.
They can then claim the VAT paid to their suppliers and this is termed input tax. The difference between the two is the amount payable to HM Revenue & Customs. If the input tax is higher than the output tax HM Revenue & Customs pay back the difference to the trader.

For VAT registered firms we complete the returns on a timely basis to meet the deadlines and check that the best scheme for the client is being used. These schemes are the standard scheme, the cash accounting scheme, the flat rate scheme and the annual accounting scheme. There are various thresholds involved in these schemes.

Registration for VAT is compulsory once the business reaches in a twelve month period, or is about to reach a turnover of £67,000. However voluntary registration is available for businesses with a turnover below this figure.

If you are not registered or need to register, we can help you complete the application form and guide you through.

Please contact us to see how we can help with your taxation and VAT requirements.

Management accounts and budgeting

All the public companies quoted on the London Stock Exchange spend huge sums on planning and controlling their financial affairs. They use techniques such as annual budgets, flexible budgets. monthly profit and loss accounts, monthly balance sheets, cash flow forecasts, key performance indicators, short and long-term forecasts and so on. Why do they do it? To plan and control their organisations finances. Firstly to plan for the future and then to control the actual results to see they are in line with the plan.

We at Accountancy Aid are experts in the production of management accounts and founder Roger Storey is the author of Introduction to Cost and Management Accounting, a recognised textbook on the subject.

We believe that many small businesses will benefit greatly by applying some of the techniques used by larger organisations. We have seen time and time again that banks have a high level of confidence in a business that produces management accounts and are more willing to help when they can see the owners are planning and controlling their business. It is good business practice.

Accountancy Aid are geared to producing this information, whether quarterly or monthly at a reasonable price. We have demonstrated many times that the production of management accounts can turn round the fortunes of a company.

Our basic management accounts consist of a monthly or quarterly profit and loss account, a balance sheet, and a record of the cash flow for the current accounting period. We also help to establish budgets and analyse the costs between fixed and variable costs so the breakeven point is known.

Please contact us to see how we can be of assistance in management accounting, planning and control.

Annual accounts for private limited companies

Annual accounts for private companies (as opposed to public companies (plc’s) have to be filed within 10 months of the year end date. If the deadline is not met, late filing penalties are levied and from February 2009 these are to be increased dramatically. For example, if up to one month late there is a penalty of £150. If, say the accounts are two months late, the penalty is £375 and if more than six months late, it is £1500. So to avoid these it is essential to get the accounts completed as soon as possible after the year end date.

We at Accountancy Aid maintain client timetables to take care that our clients do not get hit by these penalties. We complete the annual accounts and the abbreviated version for Companies House purposes in a timely manner so the prospect of being penalised is minimised.

Other services

We offer a number of other services including forming limited companies and registering the new company for PAYE and VAT. We also advise on accounting software, such as Sage and we assist new start-up businesses by reviewing their business plans.

We also provide a company secretarial service and registered office facilities. We have a large meeting room, able to seat over 20 people for short courses/business meetings and this is available for booking at very reasonable rates.  

We provide one-to-one training on Sage accounting packages and Sage payrolls for businesses.

Accountancy Aid provides a complete outsourcing service, tailored to suit the client. Click here to complete the outsourcing table to get a quote from us.