Accountant Fees for Ltd Co

[Tiakie]

Hi there. I wondered if anyone could help. I am a Ltd Design & Project Management Co with a turnover of £380,000 and have just received the proposed yearly fees from my Accountant for:

Annual Payroll (1 Director)
Quarterly VAT Return (I actually do it on Xero but they check it)
Year End Accounts/Corporation Tax etc

I do all the book keeping on Xero so they pull all the info required from there.

They are charging me £3500 + VAT for the year. Does this seem reasonable? They said it would usually cost more but seeing as I do a lot of the work on Xero I have received a reduction in fees. They charged me £2500 + VAT for 2012/13 tax year so it has gone up £1000 - nothing has changed in terms of services. Turnover for that period was £650,000.

They are also proposing 8 months of direct debits for £525 inc VAT. I would be grateful for any advice. It just seems like a lot of money to be paying but again I could be unrealistic in terms of industry standard fees. Xero is not part of the service - I pay for that myself.

Thanking you in advance for any comments/advice.

 

[ToYourInbox]

On the surface it seems excessive (to me at least) and that's before the price rise. I'd be booking an appointment for an explanation of the price rise in the morning!

 

[UK Contractor Accountant]

I assume this quote is from a High Street Practice?

You should be able to reduce those fees quite considerably by using a smaller Chartered Accountancy Practice which does not have loads of Partners, staff and High Street rents to service. However, if it's access to specialist services you require in addition to the run of the mill compliance service you may be advised to stay where you are!

Consider putting your requirements out to tender.

 

[faradaykeynes]

bit high i would say, some what in range of 1500 should be OK

 

[David Griffiths]

Looks high, particularly if you use Xero properly - and if you don't you shoud be helped. I'd say less than half.

 

[Philip Hoyle]

If you use Xero properly, i.e. all transactions entered, bank reconciled, sales & purchase ledgers checked, etc., then on the face of it, that quote looks very high indeed.

But, have you spent a lot of time in meetings, on the phone, or email exchanges with them during the year? Is there anything special about your industry requiring particular specialisms or reporting (i.e. a statutory audit?).

First thing is to contact them and ask why the increase. If you're not happy with their explanations, then suggest you put it out to tender, but if you do that, make sure that you are specific with your requirements - some firms deliberately quote low but then have lots of add-ons which are chargeable extras that other firms would include, so you have to look at the detail.

 

[MyAccountantOnline]

Hi there. I wondered if anyone could help. I am a Ltd Design & Project Management Co with a turnover of £380,000 and have just received the proposed yearly fees from my Accountant for:

Annual Payroll (1 Director)
Quarterly VAT Return (I actually do it on Xero but they check it)
Year End Accounts/Corporation Tax etc

I do all the book keeping on Xero so they pull all the info required from there.

They are charging me £3500 + VAT for the year. Does this seem reasonable? They said it would usually cost more but seeing as I do a lot of the work on Xero I have received a reduction in fees. They charged me £2500 + VAT for 2012/13 tax year so it has gone up £1000 - nothing has changed in terms of services. Turnover for that period was £650,000.

They are also proposing 8 months of direct debits for £525 inc VAT. I would be grateful for any advice. It just seems like a lot of money to be paying but again I could be unrealistic in terms of industry standard fees. Xero is not part of the service - I pay for that myself.

Thanking you in advance for any comments/advice.

How accurate is your bookkeeping in Zero?

Are the accountants having to do a lot of extra bookkeeping?

If not based on the information supplied I think the fee is high.

 

[Alan @ Cloud Accounting]

I wouldn't say massively excessive but I'd like to know exactly what you're getting beyond the compliance. As an indicator, our fee for a similar business is £249 pcm.

 

[Jan15]

I pay £150 + VAT per month for the same thing with a small accountancy firm although I know a friend of mine who is a Project manager pays £300 per month. I would suggest phoning around a few local accountancy firms

 

[kevin.doran]

As above, it seems rather excessive but it really does depend on the quality of work you're providing them with in the first place. Sometimes having to correct constant errors in the likes of Xero can be as time consuming as doing the bookkeeping yourself - and at least then you can be confident of what you're dealing with.

Are you happy with the overall level of service? Perhaps they're giving you some stellar tax planning advice along the way?

 

[Paul Norman]

I agree, that for the work described, this is high. I would expect a fee in the range £1k to £2k for this.

 

[Backrubber]

I would think £1500 to £2000 is reasonable. It looks to me as though they are perhaps looking at your turnover and coming up with a figure based on that. If your turnover was £50,000 per year, I imaging their fee would be less....just speculating.

 

[The Byre]

If you take the VAT out it will be cheaper.

But I would look for a cheaper accountant. £1k tops without VAT for just end of year and your pay and that kind of TO.

Somewhere out there, an impecunious accountant will be happy to do your stuff for £1k and needs your custom!

 

[kevin.doran]

I wonder how many PM's the OP got off the back of this one...

 

[Alan @ Cloud Accounting]

I wonder how many PM's the OP got off the back of this one...

I nearly did. But resisted

 

[David Griffiths]

I wonder how many PM's the OP got off the back of this one...

None I hope, as it's against the forum rules to send unsolicited PMs